Behind The Nihon Review » Music

Kurosaki Maon Panel and Concert

NHRV Staff — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 06:00:20 +0000

Kurosaki Maon propelled into stardom (or am I a bit premature in saying this?) relatively recently with the anime Highschool of the Dead and To Aru Majutsu no Index. A lovely young lady who seems to be getting used to her sudden shift from the smaller club venue of Dearstage to events as big as Animelo Summer Live, her showing at Anime Expo 2011 saw a surprising amount of fans appear in support of her performances.
Introduction by Kylaran

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Nirgilis Panel and Concert

NHRV Staff — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 20:15:59 +0000

Seeing Nirgilis live was wonderful, not only because of the popularity of some of their songs, but also due to the fact that they have quite the good evaluation on the Japanese music scene. Their eclectic, mish-mash style is extremely unique for a band that does anime songs. In fact, anime has for such a long time revolved around cute, pop songs sung by mediocre voice actresses that having the chances to listen to Nirgilis talk was truly refreshing.
Introduction by Kylaran

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Mirai no Neiro Panel Part 2

Kylaran — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 11:28:15 +0000

The producers themselves at the panel.

Part 1 of covering this panel took so long that I decided to make this into a two part post. Please forgive for the massive Youtube video dumping! I’ve added the producers’ Twitter and Website links, so don’t hesitate to show them your support, even if you don’t know any Japanese.

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Mirai no Neiro Panel Part 1

Kylaran — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 10:58:10 +0000

Vocaloids at the panel.

Although I enjoyed last year’s panel, this year’s Mirai no Neiro was an entirely different beast. Three hours long, the entire presentation was divided into roughly two halves: the first introduced never before seen promotion videos and messages from their creators, and the second involved presentations by creators who had come from Japan and Kenmochi Hideki of Yamaha. I’ve already discussed Kenmochi’s part of the panel, so I’ll focus on the rest of it in this post.

The Nihon Review is proud to bring you what is most likely the most extensive list of the PVs presented at Anime Expo 2011’s Mirai no Neiro panel, reconstructed from video, notes, and other sources. If anyone missed out on the names of the songs, here’s your chance to listen to them again. Also, I know for a fact I’m missing at least one video, so if anyone knows them contact me and I’ll put them in. Thanks!

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Virtual Diva: Hatsune Miku’s Popularity and the Sound of the Future

Kylaran — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 23:48:34 +0000

"miKu" by Moccy

What exactly does it mean to be a virtual diva? Before we can truly understand Hatsune Miku’s popularity, it’s perhaps best to identify what exactly she is. Surprisingly though, this is quite tricky: Clearly, in the most simple terms, she’s the character designed as the face of Fujita Saki’s recorded and digitalized voice for a music production software developed by Sega and Yamaha. But at the same time, there’s the idea that she doesn’t really exist; when we talk about Miku singing, we’re using metaphors to make something that strictly isn’t alive alive. Hatsune Miku, I think, is more complex than we sometimes make her out to be.

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Copyright © 2011 Behind The Nihon Review. All licensed material are owned by their respective parties.
By Kylaran | Permalink | 17 comments | Add to StumbleUpon | Tweet! | reddit
Post tags: Anime Expo 2011, Azuma Hiroki, Hatsune Miku, Kobayashi Onyx, Mirai no Neiro, Vocaloid

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Was Winter 2010 a Good Season?

Sorrow-kun — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 13:07:30 +0000

Continuing on from the last post. This post contains moderate spoilers for the tagged anime. (Source of above image unknown, found on Moe Imouto; mildly NSFW.)

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VocaJazz

Sorrow-kun — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 13:02:50 +0000

It was on /a/ that I first stumbled on a couple of rather charming soft jazz Vocaloid songs arranged (and illustrated) by a Nico Nico denizen named Cocoacigarette-P, which I twittered about a couple of days ago. DKellis from Moe Check! also pointed out just how well they’re arranged, from a technical point of view, as well as their cute sense of humour. I was impressed, and after scratching the surface a bit more, I found that Cocoacigarette-P‘s works are just a few of many that march under the banner of “VocaJazz”, a genre of Vocaloid remixes of well recognized anime (and VN) songs that have had a jazz infusion. (Source of OP image).

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We Are So Blessed

Sorrow-kun — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 13:19:40 +0000

Not another blog post about Bakemonogatari.

It’s easy to complain. Fun too. But, equally important is being grateful. Obviously, this is easier said then done unless you have something to be grateful about, but I genuinely think that this season we, as anime fans, are spoiled for choice. It’s the calibre of anime which are on offer this season which reminds me why I became a fan to begin with. And those little reminders over the journey are necessary, especially if you’ve been in the game for a number of years. As an anime writer, it’s easy to become lost in the analysis and the details, to put the anime you watch and enjoy at arm’s length, which can make viewing them an unromantic experience. I mean, I still maintain that the onus is on the anime to provide you a reason to engage and to feel emotions while watching it… I’ll probably never move away from that viewpoint. But the idea that anime has the power to move you, to affect you in some way, to influence your thoughts and feelings… that’s a pretty amazing thing. And there have been a particularly large number of anime that have aired this season with that ability. (Minor spoilers for the tagged anime).

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Copyright © 2009 Behind The Nihon Review. All licensed material are owned by their respective parties.
By Sorrow-kun | Permalink | 16 comments | Add to StumbleUpon | Tweet! | reddit
Post tags: Aoi Hana, Aria The Animation, Bakemonogatari, Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni, Ouran High School Host Club, Spicy Wolf, The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi, Tokyo Magnitude 8.0, Umineko no Naku Koro ni

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Don’t Say ‘K-On!’

Sorrow-kun — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 12:54:48 +0000

I was originally going to attach this to the end of the Cross Game article, since I was already talking about K-On!, but I figured it deserved its own post.

I’ve found myself recently fascinated not so much by K-On! itself, but the fan-produced stuff that it has spun off from it. In particular, I’ve gone nuts for this video:

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Five Memorable Themes From the Winter 2009 Season

Sorrow-kun — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 23:48:36 +0000

Must... buy... Pizza Hut.

…and a few thoughts on the current season.

Mild spoiler warning for the tagged anime.

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Copyright © 2009 Behind The Nihon Review. All licensed material are owned by their respective parties.
By Sorrow-kun | Permalink | 18 comments | Add to StumbleUpon | Tweet! | reddit
Post tags: Birdy the Mighty DECODE, Kemono no Souja Erin, Maria-sama ga Miteru, Natsume Yuujinchou, RIDE BACK

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