Apart from Polysics, this is my other favourite band. I listen to Polysics to get my heart pumping, and I listen to Choro Club to calm my nerves, like before the job interview :P

My cousins and I very briefly talked about Aria yesterday, and funnily Daim thought Aria was at the same comedic/moe level as Azumanga Daioh. I mentioned that if Aria was to be equated to a live action genre, it’d be like one of those whimsical and mysterious French films, only less melodramatic. Amidst the beautiful futuristic version of Venice lies many secrets, like a flying train only for invited guests at midnight, a huge alluring cat figure hiding in the shadows, etc. It’s like the magic that exists in the world in Professor Layton.

Choro Club helped bring out the storytelling and the sense of mystery and allure in Aria further with their unique style of instrumental music, inspired by the music roots of Rio de Janeiro. There’s Sawada-san with the contrabass, Akioka-san with the bandolim and Sasago-san with the acoustic guitar. You might not have heard of them, but they’re pretty popular among the underground circles in Brazil and Europe. To date, they have produced around 20 CD albums.

Thanks to their artistic presence, they’ve been performing in classical concert halls, art museums, botanical gardens and jazz fests around the world. Always wanted to attend their performances, but the entrance fees were expensive TT_TT

They recently performed in Shangri-La Osaka last October. Someone managed to capture the moment and put it up on YouTube. Bask in the romance that has wooed fans throughout the world.

Hope the salary of my next job will get me into one of their live performances. One day!

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Was busy compiling my portfolio, went to the gym and had dinner in Matsuya… alone. Yet another ronery Christmas for me.

The other thing I did in the past week was surfing Pixiv, YouTube and NicoNicoDouga, so I compiled all the awesome Christmas stuff I found from Japan and put them in this post. I am Santa and you’ve been a good kid.

The picture above was taken in Shinjuku station day before yesterday. If you’re a romance anime buff like me, I fully recommend Kimi ni Todoke from past autumn. It’s such a sweet warm anime that you can snuggle up to it on cold winter nights. Moreover, it’s animated by Production I.G and has Noto Mamiko’s voice. Ahhh, Sawako in that hoodie…

Let’s start first with some Pixiv fanart that I deem the best of the 2009 collection.

A nice warm scene drawn by BoniiFuto ボニー太.

When you can’t get a reindeer of your own. Nice colouring by Fuuta フータ.

Starry sky on a holy night. Created by Guma ぐま.

Haruhi is up to no good again. Won’t be receiving any presents this year either. By 9tori ９鳥.

The colour combo look great, somehow this gives me an idea to create my own rendition of such kind. Created by 87 (yea that’s his pixiv name).

Should I be overjoyed and greet him, or follow my instinct and chase him? Drawn by hrt.

Awwww, look at what Chibi-Miku got for Christmas. Created by luu.

Wish a Godzillion wonderful moments happen to you too, Miya (the artist).

Poor Miku, I guess that’s the problem with having green hair. Drawn by Saku さく.

A nice sinister rendition of Santa by TREIZE.

See, I told you to buy a house with a chimney. Drawn by Takefuto 岳太.

Random and childlike, very nice! Click here to see it in original size. Drawn by Uryu うりゅ.

Now we move on to the videos!

Ah, Ranma 1/2. My first true anime love. This is the ending of the second OVA christmas special. Used to download Quicktime movies of all the openings, endings and DoCo music videos back in 1997. Do you have any idea how long each download took at that time? Nothing can stop a Ranma fan!

Remember Love Hina, the show that defined harem anime in general? Its christmas special had one of the sweetest anisong I heard, Winter Wish. No PVs available, so you gotta settle for this equally beautiful guitar transition. You can listen to the original song here.

When I think of Christmas and games combined, the first thing that comes to mind is Christmas NiGHTs for the Sega Saturn. Back to when Sonic Team was good *sigh*. Just fly around and collect stuff; such simple gameplay yet the whole thing has a strong concept, at least for me. Skip to 3:50 if you wanna see the gameplay.

Speaking of Sega, they released this Christmas promotional video for their latest game, Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing. All was fine until the part the lady sang “Aaaannnddd a heeedgeehooog caaalled Sooooooniiiiiic”. So lame =_=;;

AND speaking of games, this was Sony’s greeting card to their business partners this year. Wish it snowed PS3 here. People might die but at least I’ll get a PS3 for free.

A beautiful short animation created by Mitsukawa Maboro. This guy does animation works (mainly in Flash) about a girl who’s very lonely. I dunno what the details are, but the video is definitely enough to stir up my emotions. Comes with Chopin’s beautiful music rendition too.

Ryuichi Sakamoto is one heck of a musician. He has made a name for himself by winning an Academy Award, a Golden Globe award and a Grammy award. Talk about being greedy lol. His most popular piece has gotta be this one, Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence. Needless to say, it’s beautiful. In YouTube and NicoNicoDouga you can find many fan-made remixes and renditions of the song, shows how influential this dude really is.

For you people who like a more youthful vibe (read: handsome young men), then you can listen to this one, Exile’s Holy Night. The A Capella version is nice too.

Hey look it’s Gackt *hears many girls screaming*. Alright then, this song needs no introduction, it’s simply one of his greatest hits, December Love Song.

Rewind back to the mid-80s where we had Yamashita Tatsuro sing “Christmas Eve”, which became an instant hit. To an average Japanese, this song is considered to be the standard Christmas song. JR used the song to advertise their Christmas CMs as well. I’m sure some of you have heard the English version, but this is the original one. You decide which one’s better!

Or if you think that’s too much of an oldie (how old are you anyway?!), then you can go for the rap version. Eh, not really my type, but at least it’s by Kick the Can Crew. Like their songs when I was first introduced to them in my previous office.

Another beautiful Christmas song, this time by B’z. Even if you’re not their fan, I’m sure you’ve heard it some time or another. Don’t you just love that husky singing voice?

Bump of Chicken don’t only sing One Piece songs ok! This is a new down-to-earth Christmas song by them this year. Very soothing. The original MTV had its embedding disabled *grumble* but if you wanna watch it, click here.

Ok enough of guys man, sheez! An energetic hip rendition of Last Christmas by Foxxi misQ. So which one do you wanna see under your christmas tree tonight? ;)

Komaneko is a little kid’s show for Cartoon Network Japan, and they had this seasonal ending theme up, sang by Solita. There’s just something about the French language that triples the romance of a song, don’t you agree?

Wanna kick it up a notch with the “mengada” (roughly translated to English, “ARGH”) factor? I present to you little boys group singing Winter Wonderland!

Watch all the stupidity and humour that is the Japanese commercial in this compilation, all for this year’s Christmas. Look out for Nodame and Tommy Lee Jones!

How about a cute computer-rendered voice singing Silent Night? You know I can’t escape Miku’s charms rite? :D The PVs well made too.

And to end the post, we have Osaka sing Jingle Bells. Or should I say arranged to make it *look* like she’s singing Jingle Bells. Tomo (who doesn’t believe in reindeers) and Chiyo-chan joins in the fun as well. Esukareta~ Erebeta~ Sataaa Andagiii~

Have a Merry Christmas! Hope you’re not all alone and writing a blog post on this merry day.

Even if you have no idea what Touhou is, watch it for the visuals. This has gotta be the most stylized and tastefully designed Touhou-related video I have ever seen. Features most of the popular characters in the Touhou universe.

Again, the power of doujin culture shines with bewildering creativity. Thanks, Zun.

I was watching the raws of Cross Game last night (couldn’t wait for the subs) and out came the drawing song of Nomo, the cute little cat of the Tsukishima family.

Thought it was smart coz the lyrics described a baseball match which follows the show’s premise.

I only saw the Japanese version in YouTube, so I took the liberty of ripping that, reuploading it to my own account and adding little subs of my own :) Hope they’re accurate. Enjoy!

Playing Pop’n Music 17 while waiting for my clothes to be tumbled’n dried in a nearby laundromat.

All game centers were instructed by Konami last week to unlock all songs and bonuses. Those many plays to unlock these secrets, all go to waste!

(This beautiful wallpaper is courtesy of Mimi-na)

Recently my cousins and I were discussing about Disney princesses. Yes we talk about girls of all formats! Nothing like a bunch of macho guys talking about Disney princesses amirite.

A little trivia: Did you know that I watched Tarzan more than 10 times in the cinema? Don’t ask.

To satisfy my curiousity even further *ahem*, I went to Google Image Search with Safesearch off YouTube to check out some clips. Really brings back a lot of memories. Getting past the horribly mushy self-made music videos which I can’t stand watching 5 seconds of, I came across official Disney japanese dub clips.

Let’s watch them while reminiscing on Disney’s magic and wonderfully smooth animation.

The Little Mermaid. I know, should put the signature song Under the Sea. But Ariel’s japanese voice sounds great! … Sure

Beauty and the Beast. It doesn’t feel as magical as the English version though.

Aladdin. I’d say this is pretty well done! Aiyoh tarik bawah sikit…

The Lion King. A bit rushed rite the lyrics lol. Do note that some of these videos don’t have movie dialogue as the song was extracted from the soundtrack CD.

Pocahontas. Quite ngam!

The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Wow I quite like Quasimodo’s voice in this one! And even in the original it really feels like an intro to a musical. Charming!

Hercules. Dare ga ichiban tsuyoi? Herakuresu! Yes hontou! Too bad the sound effects were not there (again extracted from soundtrack CD). For Megara fans (me), watch this one!

Mulan. I’m guessing Mandarin would be more suitable for this :P

Tarzan. Surprise! It’s the Malay version, simply coz Zainal Abidin rox.

I watched the bonus materials on Daim’s Prince of Egypt DVD and saw the multilanguage version of When You Believe. Epic and inspirational! And I know it’s not Disney k!

Ok so it’s another YouTube-ridden blog post. Sue me.

It has the usual NicoNico recent favourites: K-0N, Miku vids, Macross, Evangelion, Touhou and even Ponyo! Let’s test your otaku skillz. See how many anime, memes and MTVs (Genki Rockets w00t) you can identify! If you know more than half of it, you’re a certified otaku.

…wait, more than three quarters, THEN you’re an otaku :P

To help you out is a popular NicoNico VIP named HongKong (is she really from Hong Kong?!) who has lent her singing voice to many NicoNico vids in the past. Amidst all the chaos she tries her best to sing according to the original source. Then she digitally edits the tone, pitch, etc. The whole video is sung by her, and even some sequences have her trademark character. Cool!

Here’s the original song without HongKong’s voice: Click here.

I like the last part where the songs from the previous medleys are played in chaotic manner. Brings back memories of the countless wasted hours of surfing Nico Nico Douga ^^;;

What surprised me was the appearence of Tentai Senshi Sunred, a superb anime about a sentai superhero leading a normal married life, drinking tea with weird villains and all that xD

Told James that I talked about them in the blog before, a little here and there, but he asked why I didn’t have a single post about Polysics. So yup, here we are!

They like to call themselves the “Technicolor Pogo Punk” group. In simple terms — trippy! Their songs remind me of old video game soundtrack. The reason I love them is that they’re focused on using their instruments to play high energy music rather than just have nice vocals. They are obviously enjoying themselves!

Possibly due to their whackiness, they’re one of the few Japanese groups that could do live tours in Europe and the US, and have their albums sold there too. You can see their live concerts on YouTube, in Japan, London, Portland, Bristol and California. You can read more about their worldwide success on their Wiki page.

Ok enough talk! Best to just look at the real thing, rite? Well here are my Top 5, starting from numero uno:

#1 — I My Me Mine

The song is just so catchy that it plays in my head every so often. And the dances LOL, love the road signs that come with them too, very symbolic. No surprise that it inspired Miku fans to create the popular MMD video.

#2 — Baby Bias

I love Kayo-chan! She has all the talents that suit 70s/80s trippy music: the keyboard sounds, her vocals and her actions. Just look at how she literally tramples on the keyboard! If you prefer more guitar riffs, you can check out their live concerts. This song is almost always played at the end, so you can see them already sweaty, tired and still going at it at full speed!

#3 — Computer Obaachan

Song title literally translates to “Computer Granny”. Quirky title indeed! The truth is that this song was taken from an old kid’s show Minna no Uta, but Polysics took it and brought it to a more awesome level! The MTV’s good for typography motion class too.

#4 — Electric Surfing Go Go

My mouth gaped wide open when I saw the MTV. ‘Nuff said.

#5 — You-You-You

The best intro song of Keroro Gunso. Love the 3D “You” jumping into your face, wonder why they didn’t do it often. But the 3d guy being hit by a bunch of balls was totally random lol.

My cousins and I were having dinner there, and I thought I heard something familiar. It was Miku’s voice coming out from the speaker above, singing my fave Miku song “Melt” :3 Her voice resonated throughout the entire street!

To promote the latest album by the synthesizer-voiced wonder, advertisements were placed on the lamp-posts of this busy street. Supercell, a group of composer geniuses in NicoNicoDouga, remastered their Miku songs and came out with a major debut album.

Needless to say, it became a BIG hit. It became 2nd place in the ORICON album chart. It was sold out in Amazon and Sony Music Japan in an instant. Heck, even the TV commercial looks awesome. (Yes there’s a TV commercial!)

Looks like it’s Akiba time this week! ^_^ I’m just glad that Miku and Supercell are gaining the wider recognition they deserve.

Yes I watch the show too. I watch it for its unique approach to child psychology. Really! Why won’t you believe me?!

Anyway, the first TV season had a really cute ending sequence, to which many fans followed up with many fanvids. Hanamaru Sensation by Little Non. That was back in 2007:

Now let’s rewind back to 2000 and listen to Offspring’s One Fine Day:

So Little Non, is this… coincidence? Borrowing a note or two, or a hundred maybe? Who knows. Regardless, I still like both singers (yes I like Offspring songs, u know!).

Little Non started off from singing in parks to having albums and singing official soundtracks, so she deserves my respect. And I love her latest song for Kodomo no Jikan 2nd season, so all is well!

Expect more NicoNico fanvids for this one. Getsu Ka Sui Moku Kin Do Nichi!