Congratulations Uzuki!

Nico

This video was for her CD debut, but now she has an SR! Congratulations Uzuki!

Now to wait for Mio's turn.

Kugyu Te-te-te

Nico

Happy Birthday Kugyu!

Rainbow Loading Cruise

Nico

Oh Hibiki.

雀頭市 【咲-Saki-×座頭市(Zatoichi)】

Nico

An awesome MAD featuring Saki, that one moe mahjong anime! I have to get around to finishing it.

Idolm@ster Hibiki in MUGEN

Nico

Someone decided to crazy some crazy version of Hibiki for the MUGEN fighting game. I don't get some of those weird moves, but the constant laughter always gets me.

-New Game- Live 2012

SUPER GAMESONG LIVE 2012. Today, early in the morning in the west, there was quite a big concert going on. This one had singers from various beloved video games, mostly from visual novels.

I'll update this with thoughts later, but on niconico, there were sound problems galore. Fun.

http://supage.jp/

Kamen Idol 555

Nico

Awesome MMD Idolm@ster x Kamen Rider stuff. Nice use of voice clips and of course greatly choreographed. It's always fun to have MMD Boromir show up.

CINDERELLA MASTER 2nd set Idols

And so the next set of Cinderella Master CDs and Idols have been completely announced. The final one to get the 010 spot is... Uzuki Shimamura, Cute type normal newbie idol.

It's her time to shine.

She's been getting a lot of fan art recently, most of which making fun of the fact the she'll never get an SR for being too "normal". Well now against all odds, she's another one of the true Cinderella Girls, coming out as a plain normal girl to a super idol on the main stage! Here's hoping her voice actor (and there others) are suitable. I can't wait for the new songs to arrive, although it is quite a ways away.

The girls in this set are (in order announced): Ranko Kanzaki, Miku Maekawa, Kirari Moroboshi, Mika Jougasaki, and Uzuki Shimamura.

Tower climbing, Old Mage finding

Go back to school indeed.

I played some more Fortune Summoners today. Went and climbed a tower to find the old headmaster of Minasa-Ratis to break the seal on Arche's elemental stone. It was quite fun blasting through the whole place with the ridiculous amounts of skills these three girls have. Sana's Shield, Battle Aura, and Clone magic make Arche one heck of a beast. Of course Stella is great already, but getting the new Reverse Fire Rain skill makes anti-air a snap. And Arche gains some more aerial skills to cover the whole field. I can't wait to use the power of the elemental stone.

Aoi Yuuki likes Kyoko too much

Nico

Well here's a video showcasing Aoi Yuuki's fondness of Kyoko from Madoka Magica. Aoi Yuuki is the voice actor for Madoka, and it seems like quite a few of the voice actors really like Kyoko. Aoi Yuuki... likesloves her a bit too much.

Aoi Tori Piano Solo 2011

Nico

Watched this wonderful piano arrangement of "Aoi Tori" from Idolm@ster performed and arranged by "ピアニート公爵" or PiaNEET. Having this performed in a concert hall with those differing camera angles makes this quite enjoyable.

相対性理論 (Soutaisei Riron) - Miss Parallel World

Randomly stumbled across this interesting song by the band 相対性理論 (Soutaisei Riron), aka Theory of Relativity. They have an interesting still that is strangely addicting and satisfying. I hope to hear more of their songs since they seem alright.

Idolm@ster MAD - Electo World

Nico

SPOILER ALERT: Contains scenes from the final few episodes, so don't watch it unless you've scene them (specifically episodes 20 to 25).

A song from PERFUME combined with a nicely stitched together movie with great clips from the anime. Indeed, this was a very cleanly produced MAD.

KisS by Eririn, Mingosu and Chiaking

Nico

This was something that was done during the 135th episode of the "Idolm@ster Radio" show, guest starting Eriko Nakamura (aka Eririn, and the VA for Haruka). Sounds quite nice, especially that whole "Erorin" part in the middle. Makes me wonder if they'll ever sing this song live...

Idolm@ster : secret base ～君がくれたもの～

Nico

Another oldies video and it's a cover this time. It comes from the Idolm@ster Radio album TOPxTOP.

Relations Live by Chiaking and Mingosu

Nico

Wow this video about 5 years old now. Randomly found it while going through the "Real S Rank" tag on Nico Nico. Although the sound quality is bad, it really shows how great these two's voices are, and also how great they sing together as a duet.

Aquarion EVOL 1-5 : OSORE! 12000 Years After

[AQUARION EVOL]

After a long while, I finally started watching Aquarion EVOL, the sequel(?) to that oh so strange series Sousei no Aquarion. Apart from the excellent OP and great animation, the original Aquarion was not very fulfilling in terms of story. Though the random hijinks and crazy characters do make it fun.

This anime however, starts off somewhat differently and with greater success I believe. The main character is some lonesome guy and the supposed main girl is quite shy and is somewhat depressed about herself. Already opposites of the original pair of Aquarion. However some things never change, such as Fudo GEN ZEN, the little silver haired girl, and the Power of Love that drives Aquarion.

So far I like the differences. The plots seems to be constantly moving even with the random side-trip during the 5th episode. The bad guys are also quite different, in that most are humanoid unlike the original monstrous enemies. And that crazy silver and blue haired guy with the odd fixation for Apollon is there, but hasn't had much speaking roles up to this point. There's bound to be more awkward interactions to come.

And that's all for now, hopefully I can catch up on my backlog a bit now.

Hyouka 3 : A Curious Request

The Ultimate Request! With additional motion blur for emphasis.

This episode was quite intense. Chitanda requests something of great importance from the ultimate energy conserver. Then there's the continued search for the Hyouka Anthologies which leads to more mysteries! Mayaka Ibara joins in on the fun adventures of the Literature Club, while Fukube is not present for the majority of this episode. And the mystery deepens near the end.

As a note, this is one week later than the normal airing date. Hopefully I'll get around to finishing my backlog of stuff.

Final Fantasy Touhou in MMD

Very awesome stuff.

Kiramekirari in Gondor!

Nico

Boromir dancing (and singing?) Kiramekirari in Gondor. A classic MikuMikuDance video that just plain shows how much crazy awesome stuff can be made with it. The Boromir model will always be hilarious with that grin of his. And the guitar solo part was a nice touch.

Idolm@ster 2 Hibiki Route Subs

A small group of people are subbing the Hibiki route of Idolmaster 2. Seems they might do other stuff so long as they don't lose interest. This is as close as I'll ever get to play Idolmaster 2 until I get a PS3 (read:almost never).

Asami Shimoda - Kokoro Live

Nico

Wow, she has such a strong voice. Asami Shimoda is going higher and higher in terms my list of favorite seiyuu singers. This is partially influenced by watching all those Idolm@ster concerts and hearing her "true voice" instead of the sometimes annoying Ami/Mami voice. Also, I can hear the origins of her voice that she lent to the Vocaloids Rin/Len Kagamine. Much better live.

This is video is from the concert "Animelo Summer Live 2009 -RE:BRIDGE-". I'd like to watch the dvds of these Animelo lives someday. For now, I'll stick with the few Idolm@ster concerts that I have backed up.

49%

Cirno May Day! Late? What are you talking about. It's right on time!

キラー☆ | Source

Cardcaptor Anzu?

Nico

Cardcaptor Idolm@ster Anzu actually. This is a really well made parody of the Cardcaptor Sakura OP, and a nice amount of net memes that completely suit Anzu's NEET attitude as an idol. Is it sad or happy that I can only recognize a few of these memes? Such as Neko's avatar (that I remember from his Double Lariat), and the GET DAN guy among a few others. Also, Anzu's rabbit thing isn't dirty enough!

The Unverified Apocalypse

Also known as "Mulepocalypse".

Bandai Namco has finally done it. They have restricted all unverified accounts in the Cinderella Girls mobile game. They cannot trade or gift anyone. They basically play alone for the most part. Being verified means to have a valid Japanese cell phone number. However as a foreigner I don't have the advantage of having one, nor do I have the means to buy one. Also, buying one just for this game would seem a bit ridiculous for myself, since I'm not a very active player to begin with.

This means it's almost the end of my playing. I'll stick around a little to see if Ritsuko ever gets her SRare, or if Makoto ever gets an invitational SRare. At least I had the chance to get Yayoi's SRare. Sadly, I wasn't dedicated enough to even get Makoto's SRare...

I'll also stick around to see what happens with the currently sketchy legality for the "Completion Set Gacha" that has been discussed in Japan. DeNA and Gree, the two top mobile game companies, have had drastic drops in their stock values because of this. Who knows what the future will hold for these games.

It was certainly fun while it lasted. I hope to see more material in the future, such as the upcoming Cinderella Master CDs.

In other news, a new Idolm@ster game has been announced. Some pachinko slot game by sammy. Somehow I think these machines will be even more like gambling than the current CG gachas.

And in other other news, summer classes have started up for me.

Initial D : Initial Episodes

I was randomly watching/listening to an Initial D song video when my bro decided that we should watch it. And so we did. Interesting how I didn't want to watch it so long ago when I thought the animation was too weird to watch. Turns out it quite tolerable, and the same goes with the CG. Quite exciting and neat seeing Takumi drifting in that AE86. Too bad I probably won't be finishing this anytime soon, with school starting up again.

One thing to point out is that I watched this on the official Youtube channel of Funimation. It's nice to be able to watch this on an official source without having to bear with the bad dubs.

The Power of The Super Moon Princess

She flips tables. Like a moon princess should.

The whole "Super Moon" business reminds me of this little "game" that involves Kaguya Houraisen, princess from the moon, flipping a table over and over for great glory. Fun times. Also, I miss Walfas/KirbyM's flashes. Those were the days.

May The Fourth Be With You

Hooray Star Wars Day!


And also, hooray for a random reference to Star Wars in this little game I started playing today! What a coincidence indeed.

[pic related, but not here until I screenshot]

Upotte 1 : Guns as Girls

[Gun girl with a gun (herself as a gun) shooting stuff]

Well that was an interesting watch. I'm sure gun enthusiasts could get a laugh out of this. I certainly only caught a few of the references myself, and it seems like the next episode will be lots of fun. Not sure if I'll continue though. Got to recommend it to my gun enthusiast friend.

A legendary sword; A badass fire mage

Yeah!

Played a lot of Fortune Summoners today. One of the first things I did was try and get this darn "Legendary Sword" from these capsule machines that cost 200 copper each. Ridiculous. I spent nearly 8000 trying to get it. Alas I did and it turned out to be... not quite what I expected, but still good.

Stella being badass as per usual.

And then I finally was able to play all three characters in the same party. Lots of sword slashing, fire flinging, water healing madness going on. Lots of fun compared to just a duo of characters. Stella is of course showing her awesome side again. Her skills wreck havoc on everything.

Other stuff that happened included beating some ghosts, fighting a wyvern on top of a tower, beating some mushrooms, and relaxing in a nice hot spring fueled by sulfur. Lots of progress indeed.

Hyouka 2 : A Curious Book

[more sparkly eyes -or- those menus -or- those kanji pictograms]

A slow start leads to an interesting conclusion for this episode's "case". The introduction of the new character Mayaka Ibara (voiced by Ai Kayano) leads to some more fun. The ending leaves with a cliffhanger that I was not expecting. Seems like this isn't just going to be purely episodic stuff.