Otaku no Podcast » k-on!

Episode #0013 (Part 2) – Anime Expo 2010

Donald Burr — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 09:16:59 +0000

NOTE: This is a 2-part episode. Be sure and download both parts! (In particular, most iTunes installations are set to only download the latest episode if it detects more than one new episode is available.)

Here at long last is our Anime Expo 2010 review episode of doom. I bring you but a small sampling of the news that came out of the convention, as well as our famous Panel Discussions of Doom(TM) where we talked about AX, what we liked, what we didn’t like, and our thoughts on the event. We’ve also got an interview with Ejen Chuang of Cosplay in America who recently put out an awesome cosplay photography book. And, as always, we bring you the freshest, coolest anime picks.

Today’s Opening Music: “Lion,” Megumi Nakajima & May’n. One of the opening themes of the excellent anime Macross Frontier.

AX 2010 Coverage – ANN and Japanator.
AX 2010 Photo Galleries: ANN (cosplay, exhibit hall/around the con); Japanator (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6)
Cosplay in America

Our picks:

Me – Highschool of the Dead, Evangelion 1.11 – You are Not Alone (DVD, Blu-ray), Cosplay in America, K-ON! (will be released by Bandai)
Danny – Durarara!, Heroman
Michelle – Hetalia Axis Powers, Eden of the East (DVD, Blu-ray)

Evangelion

Funimation 2010, DVD, $16.89

Evangelion

Funimation 2010, Blu-ray, $18.40

Cosplay in America

Ejen Chuang. OptikNerve 2010, Hardcover, 272 pages, $40.00

Hetalia

Funimation Prod 2010, DVD, $25.99

Eden of the East

Funimation Prod 2010, DVD, $40.99

Eden of the East

Funimation Prod 2010, Blu-ray, $44.99

Episode #0013 – Anime Expo 2010

Donald Burr — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 08:34:20 +0000

Today’s Opening Music: “Lion,” Megumi Nakajima & May’n. One of the opening themes of the excellent anime Macross Frontier.

AX 2010 Coverage – ANN and Japanator.
AX 2010 Photo Galleries: ANN (cosplay, exhibit hall/around the con); Japanator (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6)
Cosplay in America

Our picks:

Evangelion

Funimation 2010, DVD, $16.89

Evangelion

Funimation 2010, Blu-ray, $18.40

Cosplay in America

Ejen Chuang. OptikNerve 2010, Hardcover, 272 pages, $40.00

Hetalia

Funimation Prod 2010, DVD, $25.99

Eden of the East

Funimation Prod 2010, DVD, $40.99

Eden of the East

Funimation Prod 2010, Blu-ray, $44.99

Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve found ourselves the real-life Ritsuko Tainaka

Donald Burr — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 03:09:16 +0000

Yeah, I know, you might be thinking “wtf? two Cool Finds of the Day” But this is just too cool to pass up…

I love K-ON!. I admit this proudly and with no hesitation. And if you want to diss me for it, or think less of me as a person because of it, then you can just suck it. Yes, dammit, it’s moeblob at it’s finest. No, there isn’t any Grand Overarching Plot(TM) to the thing. (Hello? McFly? It’s a slice of life…) And no, I’m not saying it’s the greatest thing in the known universe. But, gosh darnit, it’s FUN. And it actually contains some decent music pieces. And, if anecdotal evidence (and a search of the YouTubes) is to be believed, it’s spurring people on to discover the joys of music (or pick up an instrument that they had let languish for a while). Which makes K-ON! “OK-ON!” in my book. (Yes, I know, lame pun.)

One YouTuber in particular is having a grand old time with K-ON!’s music. Meet Senri Kawaguchi, professional drummer, who started playing at the tender age of five. And, by the way folks, she’s only 13 years old now!!! (What were YOU doing when you were 13?) I wrote about her previously, back when I happened across her stunning rendition of “Don’t say ‘lazy’.” Well, she’s been busy since then, cranking out renditions of many other K-ON! themes and insert songs.

Like I said before, I really doubt Ritsu herself could do any better. As one YouTube commenter put it, it would be a travesty if they ever decided to make a live action K-ON! and didn’t cast Ms. Kawaguchi in the role of Ritsu.

Below you can enjoy a clip of her drumming along to “Watashi no Koi wa Hotchkiss,” one of my favorite songs from the series. You can watch her other videos (K-ON! inspired or otherwise) at her YouTube channel, or find out more about her (if you read Japanese… if not, perhaps The Fish might help) at her official website. She’s also got a Facebook fan page, which, thankfully, is (at least mostly) in English.

Cool Find of the Day: VOCA-ON!

Donald Burr — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 18:33:12 +0000

Welcome to Cool Finds, a new category/segment/whatever where I will be bringing cool anime or manga related things I happen to find in my journeys around the interwebs. Could be a website dedicated to a certain series/character, a video, a game, whatever. Either way, I’m sure you’ll like it. So enjoy!

Vocaloid is a pretty amazing piece of vocal synthesizer software developed by Yamaha of Japan. By supplying it with lyrics and a melody, you can have it synthesize the singing of said lyrics, using your choice of a variety of voices, both male and female, based on samples taken from actual voice actors/actresses and singers. The result sound surprisingly good. Compare this to the good old US of A’s entry into this space, the hilariously bad Microsoft Songsmith. (Don’t believe me about the hilariously bad part? Then take a look at this. Or this. Or even this.) (Yes, I know, Songsmith doesn’t do exactly what Vocaloid does. With Songsmith, you sing the lyrics, and it’ll create a melody around them. But the concept is similar enough that I think it applies here. Besides, my blog, my rules.) Anyway, the Vocaloid software is so popular that the Japanese have even created anime-ish representations of the various voices, as they are wont to do. One of the most popular is Hatsune Miku, who is so popular that she has “released” not only quite a few albums featuring her singing, but is featured in several games as well.

Anyway, a popular pastime among some otaku is apparently to take popular music, be it anime theme songs, Jpop songs, etc., and substitute in Vocaloid-created vocals instead of the original vocals. Well, one otaku took this one step further. He or she took K-ON!’s opening theme, “Cagayake! Girls” and Vocaloided (is that a verb? If not I declare that it should be) the lyrics using Hatsune Miku’s voice. But they didn’t stop there, oh no! They went on to create a new version of the K-ON! opening animation, featuring the Vocaloid characters instead of the usual cast. The animation is spot-on accurate to the original. They even did a good job (IMHO) in matching the various Vocaloids to whatever K-ON! character they were replacing. I cannot imagine how much effort this took.

Check it out on YouTube or via the embedded player below. Enjoy!

The K-On! School is Real!

Donald Burr — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 00:29:46 +0000

First, there was the story of the increased popularity of the Washimiya, Saitama area of Japan (and in particular the Washinomiya Shrine located there) because of the fact that much of the anime “Lucky Star” is based in that area. Now comes word of the latest real-life-spot-turned-otaku-mecca, Toyosato High School in Shiga Prefecture.

What? Not familiar to you? Then you must not be a K-ON! fan. For this humble school building, and its surrounding areas, were used in large part in that work.

According to the translation provided by the kind commenters over at this YouTube video, the school building, which might be some sort of historical building/landmark, was apparently scheduled for demolition 8 years ago to make way for a new school facility; however, instead they decided not to demolish it and instead built a new school facility opposite the old one. In appreciation for saving the building, the author of the K-ON! manga used the building along with parts of the surrounding area as scenes for his work.

This part at least is true. The resemblance is uncanny, particularly the auditorium where the K-ON! girls held their concerts, the look of the hallways, the music room itself, and even the brass animal figures on the stair bannisters. (Not sure if there is a real life analogue to that statue that the students in K-ON! are always putting funny hats/outfits on tho… I didn’t see one in the video)

Anyway, the building is still being used for some functions (at least I believe the library is being used still – hmm, I wonder if they have the K-ON! manga on their shelves? That would be pretty meta!) And the school is cashing in on the building’s otaku street cred, as they are apparently holding concerts in the style of K-ON! in the auditorium, and the music room is decorated with K-ON! pictures as well as sweets and tea on the tables! (I really hope those are plastic models! Or that they change them daily, but that would be kind of cost-prohibitive…) And the otaku are indeed flocking to the location, as is evidenced by the huge collection of itasha (otaku cars decorated with anime decals, figures, etc. – literally means “painmobile” as in “too painful [for non-otaku] to look at”) parked in the parking lot – not to mention the cosplayers taking photos in front of the building and various landmarks. Sure hope that all of this attention isn’t disturbing the students too much!

Video below. (EDIT 2010-03-24: the original video has been taken down from YouTube for terms-of-use violations. Grrr… However I found not one, not two, but THREE!! fan-made videos of trips to the K-ON school that shows some additional footage of interest (e.g. the guitar shop that the K-ON girls bought their instruments at, the fast food restaurant where the girls often meet and where Mugi-chan got a job (apparently based on a McDonald’s), other views of the surrounding town, etc. And apparently the statue with the funny hats/clothes is actually based on a real-life statue of the man who built the school. Be sure and check out some of the “related videos” too!) (EDIT 2010-03-25: found another video!)

OMG! Real Life Ritsuko Tainaka!

Donald Burr — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 06:06:59 +0000

Sorry for the lack of updates, folks. Work has been crazy busy this past month… which, of course, gets in the way of non-work activities such as anime and podcasting. But since the money that it generates goes towards paying for said anime and podcasting gear, well, it’s a necessary evil that must be endured, I suppose.

Anyway, I should have some time this week to record. But in the meantime, I found something amazingly cool to help tide you over until I release the next episode.

K-ON!, which I wrote about earlier, is taking the Internet world by storm. If you haven’t watched it yet, you really oughtta. It’s fun, plain and simple, and there are some decent musical pieces in the show. What’s even cooler is that, if anecdotal reports and forum postings are to be believed, it’s helping to spur a movement among the youth in Japan (and perhaps the rest of the world as well) to take up music. Which, in a word, is awesome. This is partially helped by the fact that certain of the various K-ON! soundtracks include songbooks with the CD, as well as versions of certain songs minus guitar/bass/drum/etc. tracks (so, in other words, making it easier to play along with the songs using your instrument of choice). Anyway, a quick search of the YouTubes will net you quite a few amateur performers looking to show off their mad leet musical skillz. Obviously their talent level (or lack thereof) will vary wildly. And caution is advised for other reasons as well — let’s just say that, in some (many?) of these videos, all is not what it appears (or, in the slang that the cool kids use these days, “It’s a trap!“).

One video that definitely does NOT fall into any of the above caution categories is this video from Senri Kawaguchi, a 12 year old(!!!) Japanese drummer. (Jeez, think back to when you were 12… what were you doing? Kinda makes you feel lame doesn’t it?) Anyway here in this video she does a fantastic rendition of the drum part to the K-ON! ED “Don’t say ‘lazy’.” I doubt Ritsu herself could have done any better. (And if you don’t know who that is — dude, you’ve gotta watch K-ON!)

Anyway, here’s the video, in all its awesomeness.

K-ON! Blu-ray fansubs are starting to show up in the wild (Updated)

Donald Burr — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 05:40:18 +0000

K-ON! seems to be the current series du jour among the cool kids these days. And indeed it’s actually quite enjoyable – fun and lighthearted with your traditional cast of quirky characters and even some good music to boot. (And yes, an actual review will be coming in a soon-to-be-recorded episode of Otaku no Podcast) It may not have the depth of other music-related anime or manga out there, but it’s still a very well done series. Unfortunately it hasn’t yet been licensed for a Stateside release, but I have a feeling that it’s only a matter of time. (In fact I’m surprised it hasn’t happened already, at least on Crunchyroll or a similar streaming site.) (Update 2010-07-07: : Bandai has finally seen the light of reason and announced at Anime Expo 2010 that they have licensed K-ON!. No hint of a release date yet tho. )

Anyway, if you want to catch it right now, you can do so via the fansubs. Several fansub groups have released episodes in lower-resolution (480p and 720p) versions, and indeed the entire series (including specials) are available for viewing this way. But two fansub groups in particular – Chihiro and CoalGuys – have upped the ante, and have started releasing fansubs based on the recently-released K-ON! Blu-ray disks. These releases, available in both 720p and 1080p, including full uncompressed sound, look and sound truly awesome. If you have the computing muscle to watch ‘em – any computer made in the last two years or so ought to work – then they are definitely worth a look.

The Japanese Blu-Ray releases are coming every few months, with 2 episodes per disk, so these will take a while to trickle in. So if you’re the impatient sort, go watch the SD version. But if you can possibly curb your enthusiasm, definitely hold out for the Blu-ray releases. They are worth the wait.

Anyway, if you want to catch it right now, you’ll have to wait for Bandai’s forthcoming DVD or Blu-ray release. (Again, no hint of a release date. And no clue as to whether they’ll be doing DVD, Blu-ray, or both. Here’s hoping that they do indeed go with a Blu-ray release, and that it matches the quality of the Japanese Blu-rays.) Bandai only licensed Season 1, so Season 2 (confusingly enough titled “K-ON!!” — note the extra exclamation point) is still out there for the viewing. (Since it’s slice of life, you aren’t really missing much story-wise.)

Quick, set your DVRs: Spike TV to show exclusive Halo Legends preview tomorrow night!