For Every End, A New Beginning

If I recall, I started writing for this blog about four years ago.  In that time, there’s been a lot of ups and downs.  I wrote, got burned our, wrote again, and then blew up in the hanger.  Nevertheless, I’ve made a lot of memories and several good friends through this blog.  But with lvlln and Raph officially moving on, I think it’s high time I do the same.  It’s time to let go.

I’m starting from scratch and writing for myself.  I know at the very least, Space Brothers has ignited a spark that’s made me think about writing again.  Hanging out over at Metanorn has given me motivation as well.  I will hopefully continue writing under my new WordPress blog, Derivative Paradise.  Or I could be completely talking out my ass again.  Who knows?

To all of you, past, present, and future, who have read this blog, thank you for your time and participation.  Special thanks to those of you who still have this blog on your reader after all these years.  I wish you all the best.  I have no intention to allow any more posts here.  However, this blog will continue to exist as a testament to both successes and failures.  I think anything less would be a disservice to myself, my compatriots, and the readers who still continue to stumble into this space.

Until we meet again,
~Rakuen

Moving

I haven’t exactly posted here in six months, but hey! I’ve started up a seiyuu blog at Maji Gachinko, where I’ll be posting my seiyuu season previews (and hopefully other things) from now on. Thanks very much to everyone here who read my posts and/or commented so kindly on them, and to CJ and Rakuen for allowing me to write for them. Hope to catch you on the flip side.

 

- Raph

Autumn Season Seiyuu

The last season of anime in 2011 is about to begin, and in this post you’ll find a list of which seiyuu are appearing in what shows and also some notes on various seiyuu. In the notes, I use Western name order (i.e. given name before family name), whereas the list is organised alphabetically and is formatted like this:

[romanised family name], [romanised given name] / [name in Japanese] ([list of shows seiyuu is appearing in])

Macrons are used in names but not elsewhere, for ease of alphabetical ordering. The list will be updated until the beginning of October. Also, this time I tried to write about a few male seiyuu as well instead of just sticking to the women. Finally, as always, I hope you enjoy and please let me know if I’ve made any mistakes or there are roles that should be added (though I’ll try my hardest to stay on top of this).

Update 9/9: More Guilty Crown cast members added (Aya Endō, Takehito Koyasu, others), and it looks like Ai Kayano will be singing in that show. Edit: Apparently Ai Kayano‘s character’s singing voice will be provided by Chelly, a 17-year-old who was handpicked to do just that. Information from Washi’s Blog; this was his source for that information. Update 11/9: More Horizon, Shana III cast members added; Sengoku Paradise cast added. Update 12/9: Additional Phi Brain cast members added. Notably, a fourth role for Chiwa Saitō (bringing her to the top of the pack) and a third role for Takehito Koyasu. Update 16/9: Romi Park‘s presence in Persona 4 confirmed. Thanks to lvlln for the tip in advance (and also for mentioning Rie Kugimiya‘s role in that show). Update 1/10: Bakuman 2, Cross Fight B-Daman casts added; additional cast members for Majikoi and Ben-To added. Yūichi Nakamura now has six roles; Takehito Koyasu has four roles; Ayako Kawasumi has four roles, all of which she is reprising from prior works. This should be one of my last updates. All I’m waiting on is official confirmation of the Gundam Age cast, which I’m being particularly cautious about because of the prevalence of fake cast lists for it. Update 4/10: Chibi Devi! cast added. A fourth role for Yuka Iguchi, a third role for Ayumi Fujimura.

Oh, ara, Sayaka's doing well for herself.

Summer Season Seiyuu

Another season of anime is near, and again I’ve tried to put together a resource for people who want to know how their favourite voice actors are doing. There are notes about casts and actors at the beginning of this post, and there is a list at the end. The list and this post will be updated until the season begins.

Couple of notes: firstly, I’ve used macrons for the names of the seiyuu but nowhere else. (I’m only using macrons in the first place because I needed to romanise names consistently so I’d be able to order them alphabetically.) Show names have been romanised however I’ve see them romanised most. Secondly, the list has men this time! I didn’t really write notes on the male actors, though, because I don’t follow them as much and also because this post was already very long.

Anyway, hope you guys enjoy. Let me know if I’ve missed anything. Liberal use of control-F is advised.

All of the images except the one of Iori Nomizu are from Koebooru.

Edit 5 June: Nurarihyon no Mago 2 cast added. Notably, everyone’s favourite Satomi Arai is back to work, and Jun Fukuyama and Yui Horie join the group of actors with three roles or more this season. Edit 7 June: Baka Test 2 and more of the Nekogami Yaoyorozu cast added. Ayana Taketatsu, Yoshino Nanjō (lead vocalist of fripSide, Kanako in Hourou Musuko, Kokoro in Milky Holmes) and Takuma Terashima join the 3+ roles group. (2nd) Edit 7 June: No. 6 additional cast details have been out for a few days but I forgot to add them. Notables: Rei Sakuma (Ranma 1/2‘s Shampoo, To aru Majutsu no Index‘s Lidvia), Shinichiro Miki (Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood‘s Roy Mustang, Gundam 00‘s Lockon) and Sumire Morohoshi (the 12-year-old who won many hearts last year as Kuragehime‘s Clara). Edit 8 June: Couple more R-15 cast members. Iori Nomizu now has 3 roles. Edit 10 June: Couple more Ro-Kyu-Bu! cast members. Kanae Itō and Mamiko Noto both now have 3 roles. In other Ro-Kyu-Bu! news, here is a video of the lead voice actresses dancing to the opening theme. Yui Ogura (in the number 8 singlet) is the professional dancer. Kana Hanazawa is wearing number 4, Yuka Iguchi is number 5, Yōko Hikasa is number 6, and Rina Hidaka is number 7. Edit 22 June: New Mawaru PenguinDrum and Mayo Chiki! cast members. The popular Minori Chihara (Haruhi‘s Yuki) gets her first role of the season, while another role raises Miyuki Sawashiro to the very top of the pack. To the men, Ryōhei Kimura is the newest member of the 3+ roles group; he’ll take on a lead role in Mawaru PenguinDrum. Edit 25 June: Added more Kamisama Dolls and Morita-san wa Mukuchi cast members. Ayahi Takagaki now has three roles, on par with Sphere co-member Aki Toyosaki. I’m also adding two roles for Rie Yamaguchi, an up-and-comer who debuted in 2009. She sung the ED for Kore wa Zombie desu ka? and has done a little bit of work in a good deal of shows this year. Edit 29 June: Added Double J cast. Chiaki Omigawa (perhaps the most polarising voice actress in Western fandom; I’m in the ‘not a fan’ camp) and Ayuru Ōhashi (whose work I dislike with a passion) are in major roles. Ayana Taketatsu ascends to the top of the pack with a fourth role, Emiri Katō gets a third role; roles for Kaori Ishihara (part of duo YuiKaori with Yui Ogura, Reki in Hidan no Aria), Miyu Matsuki, Ryō Hirohashi.

Ai Kayano

Spring 2011 Season Preview

Alright, so we’re pretty much on the eve of the start of the Spring 2011 season, which means it’s time for our previews. Below, you’ll read what each of the 4 of us think of the many many shows that are coming up. It seems that noitaminA is creating great anticipation again with its financial thriller [C] The Money of Soul and Possibility Control, and the much hyped urban fantasy/scifi thriller Steins;Gate has caught our attention. We fork in our interests quite a bit from there, which is expected given the huge number of shows next season, but studio Shaft’s works seem to be on all our radars, a sign of the respect it’s earned over the past 2 years.

Spring Season Seiyuu

Beneath the cut is 1000 words about the seiyuu – mostly female, because I don’t follow male seiyuu as much, and also because I didn’t want to write more than 1000 words – who will be lending their voices to the spring season’s new crop of characters in its new crop of anime. I’ve also included a list of all the female seiyuu who will appear in spring, and what shows they’ll be appearing in. All images in this post are from koebooru. Have fun! Edit 10/3: Added Jewelpet Sunshine cast. Edit 13/3: Added Honto ni atta! Reibai-sensei cast, more Sket Dance and A Channel cast members. Emiri Katou (Kyubey) now has three roles, on par with agency-mate Kana Asumi, who she’s pictured with in this post. Another role for Ai Kayano (and a good deal more in the near future) signal she’s really on the rise after debuting just last year. And A Channel adds some familiar voices from Saki, the director’s previous work.

Kana Hanazawa

2010 Awards, Part 3: Genre and Medium

Well, it’s the final day of our awards, and after covering the music and characters awards, then the special interest ones, we come the actual meat of them, the genre and medium awards. Here are the shows we considered to be the very best in their respective genres or mediums. The ones that we could point to and say, “This is what other anime should strive to be like.” The ones that we fell in love with. The ones that left us wanting more or overwhelmingly satisfied. In short, these were the best anime of 2010.

Note: due to a dearth of good OVAs this year, we have decided to omit that category and to create a new one, Best TV Show With An OVA-like Release Format. (I’ll give you 12 guesses as to which show won that one).

2010 Awards, Part 2: Special Interest

Yesterday, we kicked off our 2010 awards with the Music and Characters section. We continue today with the special interest awards. This is for all the niche categories, for works that we enjoyed or suffered through in some notable and specific manner. As promised, Biggest Letdown is among them, but to complement it, we also have the Biggest Pleasant Surprise, as well as a bunch of others. But why don’t we start off with what is surely the most obvious of the special interest categories…

2010 Awards, Part 1: Music and Characters

So 2010 is in the books and has been for almost 3 weeks now. And just like last year, we here at Borderline Hikikomori have come together to decide on which works of anime released last year we liked the most – and sometimes the least – and in what ways (Because this is an English language blog run and read primarily by English speakers, we considered works that only became widely available to the English speaking public in 2010 as well, even if they had been released earlier).

In order to properly reflect the variety of opinions of the 4 different bloggers here, each category also has a “dissenting opinion” portion in which one of us who might disagree strongly with our selection makes his case for another one that he deems more or just as worthy (It also helped to prevent us from wanting to tear each other’s eyes out during our discussion).

Unlike last year, due to the sheer number of awards, we’ve decided to split this up into 3 parts. We’re starting today with Music & Character awards, while we’ll present the more niche Special Interest awards tomorrow, and finally finish up with the more classic best-in-class Genre and Medium awards the day after.

So, without further ado, let’s look at our Music and Character category winners for 2010.

12 Days of Christmas – Day 12 – The Power of the Individual

A theme that appeared in a few series this year was the power of the individual – the idea that anyone can make an important contribution, and often also the idea that what makes people different is what makes them valuable. Sometimes, this theme was used well (generally, when the concept cropped up more subtly/not as forcefully). Sometimes, it was used not so well. Frequently, though – in my eyes, at least – it was used memorably. Minor spoilers for Railgun and Liar Game, and slightly bigger spoilers for Occult Academy under the cut.

Only her baseball bat could shoot it.