Seiyuu hobbies: Kana Ueda's Halo 3, etc.

(tags seiyuu, game, Halo 3)

So Microsoft Japan is a making a smooth promotional move by inviting self-proclaimed Halo 3 fanatic and sometimes seiyuu Kana Ueda (植田 佳奈) to play in a online event, and you're invited! (Thanks seiyuu3)

If she really does play up to 16 hour marathon sessions, she must be really good with the sniping and the elbow-shotgun. Ph33r.

I also recently read j1m0ne's seiyuu profile for Shizuka Ito (伊藤 静). I know her voice from Hayate no Gotoku as Hinagiku. It's interesting to learn about the people behind the voices and to ponder how seperate their lives are from their roles. "Groping"?! Naw, she couldn't be... Never mind. Anyways, Kana Ueda seems to be her regular drinking partner. I wonder if Ito plays games.

Screech, screech: recent seiyuu cd buys

(tags seiyuu, anime, music, CD, failure, manga)

I've always had a stack of CDs I haven't ripped, and I can't figure out how to motivate myself to get through them all. Mostly they consist of anime/manga drama CDs and character song CDs. But if it's purely music, rippin' is totally effortless.

I watched (田村ゆかり) Yukari Tamura's recent live concert DVD at a shop. It is really annoying to see her look down at her feet every few seconds. Anyway, I happened to find a song I liked from her. I couldn't figure out the name of the song though. So (therefore?) I got her "best album" Sincerly Dears, but still a sucker for completeness so it's the DVD + CD version. This is not a recent release, however. After listening to the CD, the only song I liked was "douwa meikyuu" (「童話迷宮」, lit. fairy tale maze), the song from the anime Akazukin (おとぎ銃士 赤ずきん), which I already had. I like her deeper "grown woman" voice than her "Nanoha" voice, when singing. Another example is "kagayaki no kisetsu" (「輝きの季節」, lit. bright season) and "fukashoku-na ai" (「不可触な愛」, lit. untouchable love). Perhaps I need to give the new songs a chance, because my other 5 star songs from her are "Nanoha" like.

The blind-sided release this time around was (高橋美佳子) Mikako Takahashi's Sweet CD, pictured middle. I like for her parts in Honey and Clover and probably other animes I can't remember. And I thought she was totally hot in one of those H&C interviews. Unfortunately, apart from the up tempo rhythm and the zettai ryoiki front cover, I don't like this CD. :-/ It must be her wavering, quick to clip voice. According to Wikipedia, this is her self produced album, taking about three years to create. On a related note, ever since her character in Hayate no Gotoku was associated with a hamster, I've had a hard time seperating her voice from that image. :-)

I wasn't expecting more than a couple of good songs from (堀江由衣) Yui Horie's latest CD release (pictured right), but at the last count I've five-starred 6 out of 14 songs, with the rest at four stars. It must be the upbeat rhythm and the way she hits those high notes, which sounds so pure. "zutto" (「ずっと」, lit. always) and "lovely everyday" (「ラブリエビリデイ」) stick in my mind. Instead of buying it at Gamers (for a poster and point card exchange) I bought it at Animate (the one pictured below) because B5 paper holder takes up less space (above pictured bottom right).

I also recently bought (茅原美里) Minori Chihara's Message 01 DVD + CD. I couldn't stomach finishing this DVD. She sounds like an dumbass! :-/ Some of her answers to an interview are truly WTF. The above picture is her shop tour at the major Animates. Okay, I'm going to fast forward to the part where she's street singing in Akihabara, according to houkoholic. Oh yeah, it starts at 37:05, all 20 seconds of it, and at 38:42, for a little more than a minute . She sounded so good with her solo rendition of "hare hare yukai" (「ハレ晴レユカイ」, lit. sunny sunny happiness), but the other songs I have of her just don't deserve more than 4 stars.

edit: added Chihara picture

Shikigami no Shiro 3 seiyuu guessing

(tags game, shmup, seiyuu)

First off, in my last post about the seiyuu in Shikigami no Shiro 3, I was three for three. See, when you make a "guess", you make an "ess" out of "u" and "g". Uh huh. :-/

The game devs seem to replace the seiyuu every iteration. Stage 4 boss Yukari in SoS2 is voiced by Yuki Kaida (甲斐田ゆき) but I don't know her. Stage 1 boss Yukari in SoS3 is (as I guessed correctly) voiced by Ryoko Shintani (新谷良子), and all for the better.

==?

But I don't understand the story or why Yukari came back. All I know is that Shintani is lively and playful with the lines. Yes, sir, I like it. And I really like the character design of SoS3. Flowery, purple hair twin tails, I am in love. :-)

Running down the list of people I (should) know:

Megumi Toyoguchi (豊口めぐみ) voices Reika Kirishima. I can't seem to remember her but she has graced many of the recent animes I've watched, such as Claymore, Kareido Star and Ichigo 100%. I've probably seen her in one of those Ichigo 100% interviews. Reika is ditzy, so unfortunately that colors my perception of Toyoguchi.

Daisuke Kishio (岸尾 だいすけ) voices Koutarou Kuga, the character I usually select. I can't remember him either, but he's the ever crafty Suginami in D.C. Da Capo. I like his voice. I cannot make the connection between the Kuga voice and the Suginami voice, though.

Mamiko Noto (能登麻美子) voices the final boss Tsukiko Joshima. I had no trouble remembering this person, ha. (Ana in Ichigo Mashimaro, Ai Enma in Jikoku Shoujo) I only like her lines where she's not serious, e.g. the slapstick lines. Her regular lines just make me remember her Jikoku Shoujo line "ippen shinde miru?" ("Taste death, now" ugh I suck at trans). If that's what scary women are supposed to sound like in Japanese, lend me some more clues because I don't really get it.

And let me not forget Romi Park (朴璐美), voicing Mihee Kim. I know her from Princess Princess as the male lead Yuujirou Shihoutani and from Claymore as Teresa. I can remember her kanji name. I would like to hear more of her deep voice roles. Also she's one example of zainichi Korean that I can remember.

Playing SoS3 reminds me that I still haven't unboxed my Fumiko O.V. figurines (the game pack-in and the seperate one). I really like this long purple dress and matching hat motif.

Epic Yuu: a leg model or a seiyuu?

(tags seiyuu, Yuu Kobayashi)

j1mOne's recent post that included a crazy Yuu Kobayashi reminded me of this unreleased blog post which I originally wrote back on 2007-08-07.

Well I first checked out Yuu Kobayashi (小林ゆう) because she had epic legs (down, boy!) in the Animal Crossing movie book:

Yuu's heads and shoulders above the rest. Hey there's Yui Horie (堀江由衣) and Fumiko Orikasa (折笠富美子). And the short one is Misato Fukuen (福圓美里).

And now she's the front cover model of a seiyuu mook with epic legs.

The magazine came with a poster. Truly epic poster. And a DVD with a video of the photo shoot.

I find it funny though that she voices young boys, especially in this Animal Crossing film. But she's talented and practices a lot. If her apparent airheadedness is an act, then she's a real actress.

j1m0ne wrote an informative seiyuu work oriented post about her (back in 2007-06). Linkage brings up my post from horndog to fan, maybe. And her recent post has a Yuu in a cheerleading outfit picture. Truely epic. :-]...

"Hazumu" digs Halo 3

(tags seiyuu, FPS, Xbox 360, Halo 3)

Totally late with this, but I found it amusing. Kana Ueda (植田佳奈, picture), the voice of Hazumu from my last year's most favorite anime, Kasimasi (かしまし), totally digs Halo 3, to the point of playing it for 16 hours straight. (Thanks Kotaku)

Now that's my kinda seiyuu. Ha ha.

Wonder Momo dress DLC

(tags Idolmaster, cosplay, video, seiyuu, game)

I was discussing Idolm@ster DLC prices on #insertcredit and "Cortana" mentioned the "Wonder Momo" costume was worth my while. Intrigued because this person bought the Ace Combat 6 DLC Idolm@ster "Miki" plane, I looked it up. It's in the fourth catalog as the third "Extend" costume, for 1000 points.

I had no idea why this was included, but then a video url showed up. Halko Momoi (桃井はるこ) does a rendition of "Wonder Momo-i".

I couldn't stomach the audio in this video, but it was interesting and cute nontheless.

Still I was clueless, but as always the Wikipedia (en, ja) was useful in telling me that Namco released an arcade game (1987) and the corresponding PC-Engine port (1989) called Wonder Momo. Hm, a beat-em-up where she kicks high and she has to watch out for fan-service camera kozou (カメラ小僧). And your boss in Idolm@ster claims to have managed Wonder Momo in a previous life. It's a tenuous connection strictly for the old-school Namco fans, but at least they aren't forgetting their heritage.

Idolm@ster step 1.9: "Azusa Miura" is Chiaki Takahashi is Tomoko Ishibashi

(tags idolm@ster, seiyuu, voice actor, game, CD)
(originally written 2007-10-07)

I don't boast my voice actress recognition skills because I don't have any. I can't pick out the difference between seiyuu A and seiyuu B if I don't have at least their names. It doesn't help when seiyuu change their name.

Take for instance, Tomoko Ishibashi (石橋朋子). I loved to hear her voice Mizuki from Kimi ga Nozomu Eien. I looked her up in the Japanese Wikipedia and her career seemed to be stalled in 2005. But an #insertcredit regular, kyouji, pointed out that the English Wikipedia version of the page linked Tomoko Ishibashi to Chiaki Takashashi (たかはし智秋). Foreign Wikipedia editors FTW. So that woman that I considered the strange finger-point dancing sidekick in Aice5 is one of my class A favorite seiyuu. Huh.

When I figured that out a couple of weeks back, I first thought, ugh, I'm going to have to buy the Aice5 music, ha ha. But no, the Idolm@ster works have plenty of Chiaki Takahashi. She is one of the regular hosts of the Idolm@ster Radio (アイマスレディオ):

(Pictures swiped from Geemaga blog: 「ゲーマガblog: アイマスレイディオ・舞台裏中継」)
(10/7, 10/14, 10/21, 10/28, 11/4)

I don't make time to listen to web radio so I bought her character CD instead:

She sounds just like the Tomoko Ishibashi I want to hear. WIN! I like most of the songs on this CD except that her singing seems a little coarse at the high end. For example, she did a cover of the PS2 game Final Fantasy XII song "Kiss me Good Bye". While her start sounds excellent, in the end I prefer Angela Aki's original version. She is killer great in dialogue, and the CD's drama parts had me melting. It also helps that my favorite tsundere voice Rie Kugimiya (釘宮理恵) guest stars on this CD.

And this also puts to rest who C.T. Veronica was in the duo Exige. I bought the Exige single because of Minami Kuribayashi (栗林みな実), but C.T. (Chiaki Takahashi) Veronica sang so good I wondered who this "gaijin" was. Hehe.

Still, learning that my "hero" has resurrected from a 2005 "death" is great. Now to find more of her work, on the cheep. More fun links: "elder sister Chiaki Takahashi info site" 「elder sister たかはし智秋さん情報サイト」.

Dead or Alive 4 hunt, Hisashiburi Osaka, Kureha digitized

(tags Osaka, purchase, character goods, telephone card, game, Xbox 360, anime, seiyuu, PlayStation 2, Kasimasi, Ikaruga)

Last post was a real bummer. How to get back to my dreamland? Goods!

On Saturday I headed to Tennouji and Nipponbashi Den Den Town for some Xbox 360 game scoping and telephone card hunting. I haven't been there since middle September because I spent 5_0000+ yen on an Xbox 360 last month, so the change of season makes the area look different. I didn't know how the Osaka tower looked at night, but it was so so. Anyways, the obligatory goods picture:

My goal was to get Dead or Alive 4 for less than 2200 yen, with original cover. The Platinum Collection covers irritate me and the DoA4 Platinum Collection edition comes out on 11/1 so maybe there are old copies lingering somewhere. Unfortunately I only scoped a 2900 yen one at A-Too, that crazy price used game shop that also carries a good selection of foreign console games. I let it pass (I got that telephone card there as a consolation prize). I could have snatched up a foreign edition BioShock with embossed case, but I don't need it yet at 7000 yen. One interesting find at another shop: a Panzer Dragoon (?) Xbox 1 console going for a little less than 3_0000 yen. No box?!? Oh please.

My buy threshold was 2000 yen for other games. I found Gears of War english-only edition for 1880 yen and Bullet Witch original cover for the same. At the northern Super Potato (?) I could have picked up Trusty Bell and Ridge Racer 6 for about 1900 yen each, but I figured enough was enough. BTW, at the same store, the Dead or Alive 4 arcade stick for the Xbox 360 was selling 12800 yen used! Why? Why!? It reminded me that I don't want to play Ikaruga on the Xbox controller. I'm not so hot on a joystick, though.

A semi-serious goal was to get the various Street Fighter on PS2 re-releases. The highest priority is on the Street Fighter Alpha collection. I had some fun times playing Guy on SF Alpha 1, but he wasn't the same on Alpha 2. Anyways, this game disc never got "Collection"-ed so its still 4500 yen new. Then again why should I bother since I already have the Windows PC port. I notice that there are no used copies of these SF games (!?!), but plenty of SNK fighters to be had.

Explaining the other items: various TCs abound. j1mOne's recommendation of Tiaraway's music made get the Seiyuu Gran-prix TC. I don't know the name of this anime, but a neko-mimi maid, right. The recent anime Kimikiss reminds me of the artwork from that old True Love Story - Summer Days and yet PS2 game, which was great illustrations by itself. Could they be related? Something to research. I wonder if I got that Kasimasi TC already, but it's a scratched reference. Oh yeah, I had fun watching Zettai Shonen (絶対少年) so I couldn't pass up this Quo card.

And still I have Kureha fever so I bought that Shining Wind Fun Disc from Sofmap Saurus Treasure Box. It was a special preorder item, which explains the 1200 yen used price. I bought it for the wallpapers, and I am a bit disappointed that Kureha doesn't smile in any of them. :-/ I found a Kureha telephone card at K-Books where she was smiling... only 8000 yen :-( Still, official artwork on my desktop background rotation, FTW. Pretty much I'm into Shining Wind based on the Tony artwork only. I know nothing about the game.

The cover for the drama CD Vol 1 is nice, rawr. :-) It surprised me that my class A seiyuu Yui Horie (堀江由衣) voices Kureha. The drama CD could be a buy.

On the way home, there was more security guards at the JR Osaka entrances, something like 10 to 15 guys in blue uniforms patrolling. "Osaka Kanjyosen" Halloween Train?

I am definately not going to Nipponbashi next weekend. I decided to get Ace Combat 6, and before that I need to start Idolm@ster. So I'm not going to repeat the Dead or Alive 4 hunt for a couple of weeks. :-)

Season 2007/10 animes and the seiyuus that drive them

(tags anime, season 2007/10, seiyuu)

Yes I'm watching anime, but no I'm not up to date. But j1mOne is: Autumn 2007 Anime Preview. She concentrates more on the seiyuu (pictures included) and not the stories, which is the way I like it. She does link to other general previews (1, 2), but the format of the page is way easier to read that the others.

I wanna check out Kimi Kiss (キミキス), Kodomo no Jikan (こどものじかん), Kawaii Jenny, and probably the other schoolgirl, bishoujo animes. But I actually don't watch a lot, only 4 or 5 a week.

(picture thanks: アキバブログ)

BTW, I still haven't watched that DVD that comes with that Kodomo no Jikan manga. ^_^;

The scenario's too long: Suzumiya Haruhi no Yakusoku (PSP)

(tags PlayStation Portable, game, seiyuu)

One picture maybe worth a thousand words, but in the case of the PlayStation Portable game Suzumiya Haruhi no Yakusoku (涼宮ハルヒの約束), it could be mean a thousand pages. In a picture that I'm not going to swipe this time, the scenario booklet for the game was revealed (thanks Akiba Blog). And it's massive, probably 1000 pieces of A4 sized paper. Even Kyon's seiyuu (and one of the guy voices I melt on), Tomokazu Sugita, says "yare yare".

The laugh's on me, though, I'm going to read and listen to it, come 2008-01.

Odin Sphere goodies, seiyuu style

(tags seiyuu, game, PlayStation 2)

I have been ignoring Odin Sphere (オーディンスフィア) even though the 2d anime-like side scrolling action seems to be right up my alley. I did pick up the previous game Princess Crown on the PSP to see what the fuss was about, but the PSP presentation didn't sway me.

It turns out that Famitsu did a special interview session with the main voice actors, Ayako Kawasumi (川澄綾子), Susumu Chiba (千葉進歩), Miyuki Sawashiro (沢城みゆき), Mamiko Noto (能登麻美子) (『オーディンスフィア』声優インタビュー＆声優コメント動画を独占配信!! / ファミ通.com). There's a video as well. Finally there's a raffle for 5 autographed copies of the art book. Never hurts to try to enter.

Off to see the seiyuu

(tags anime, failure, games-of-chance, Ichigo Masimaro, live, seiyuu, Tokyo, voice actor, game, import)

Well I'm turning in, so that I can get a jump on the shinkansen tomorrow. So that I can attack the Akiba stores on Saturday. So I won't have to worry about Sunday. So that I can show up to the Ichigo Masimaro voice actor event (帰ってきた「苺ましまろでショー」in豊島公会堂イベント) with good seats (but seat assignment is a raffle).

But I'm laid back you see. The only thing I need to worry about is being at Ikebukuro at 16:00 on Sunday afternoon. No problem.

I haven't prepared anything except the invite and what import video games I should consider. Racketboy is putting spike in my punch with his recommendation for TMNT for the GBA. And I don't really want anything... except Puzzle Quest for the DS, and maybe some PSP games like After Burner: Black Falcon and Ratchet & Clank. Perhaps I'll see some telephone cards, or I'll see some CDs to complete my collection. Shoot, I should have prepared my inventory. My memory is not so good, but it keeps telling me it's excellent.

Well I am bringing an extra PSP battery (from my silver) and charge cables for iPod, DS and PSP, but its all really dead weight until I wait in line on Sunday. I should not be playing my games when stores are open! Plus I have a plan to reconnoiter Ikebukuro on Saturday night to make sure I don't get lost. I do wish that my copy of Harry Potter was electronic so I can get rid of dead-tree weight. I am not bringing my computer, there's plenty of Internet cafes to be had.

I am wondering if I'm going to write up this event. I failed to write up the Sachi Tainaka (タイナカサチ) live in-store event (last year), the Halko Momoi (桃井はるこ) live in-store event (last year), and even the recent Midori Karashima (辛島美登里) event (last month). I took notes,though! I'm not aiming to report at full verbosity like I did with Yoko Ishida (石田燿子) or Savage Genius, but just a liked it/hated it would be useful.

Um, maybe I should get to sleep now? With this, my vaction in Kobe (at home) is officially over.

Can't take it with you, but you can certainly put it in plastic

(tags poster, anime, game, seiyuu)

I don't collect posters really, but they just seem to accumulate. I finally started organizing some of them:

I love this poster set from Kimi ga Nozumu Eien (君が望む永遠) DVD series. Animation character designer Youko Kikuchi (菊地洋子) translated this PC game well.

When I first tried to take a picture of this poster set, it was hard to capture the immense size of two A2 B2 JIS B2 posters side by side (which makes it A1 B1 JIS B1 size but I digress). So I put in the other posters that were laying around, though I probably have twice as many stuck in the closet.

I am sticking the unravelled posters into a poster binder. Unfortunately it's hard to get the paper to stay unravelled while I put it in the plastic sheets, so I prep them by hanging on my refrigerator. I do have wall space but it's undiscovered country. In fact, I still have some calendars from up from previous years, even a Salvador Dali one from 2003. Ugh. I don't really want to turn my rooms into an emulation of a gal game shop, however.

You may notice that posters on the right hand side are from Mahou Shojo Lyrical Nanoha A's (魔法少女リリカルなのはA's) by the font design. Also there are some seiyuu artist and game posters mixed in. I probably need to buy another binder though, this one is getting heavy and full. At 3000 yen a pop, though, it's expensive to keep paper.

(I wrote this post because I wanted to take a picture of the Hekiru Shiina poster)

edit: The posters are JIS B2, not A2 or B2.

piyo pi pi: Tokimeki Memorial Only Love

(tags anime, season 2006/10, seiyuu, figure)

I finished marthoning the Tokimeki Memorial Only Love (ときめきメモリアルOnlyLove). Wow. 4 out of 5 stars. Story was predictable and less than completely satisfying, because this is another harem-can't-decide-guy anime. The visual quality never stopped for one second though, nice.

This was the first time I heard Hekiru Shiina (椎名へきる) as a voice actor, though it seems that this 1990's seiyuu-idol is making a comeback.

Also heavyweight voice actors Yukari Tamura (田村ゆかり) and Kikuko Inoue (井上喜久子) make their one-shot appearances, ho hum. Even Masumi "Masumin" Asano (浅野真澄) is in this one but in an unforgetable role, ugh. And main guy Mamoru Miyano (宮野真守) was partly on the annoying side but still servicable.

I hated when the changed the ED to a different song. The OP song "Yokan" (予感) is brilliant. In fact I had a devil of a time trying to find this song's single, but I nabbed it at Sofmap Nipponbashi Saurus. The first half ED song "Kiseki no kakera" (奇跡のかけら) is wonderful. I suppose I want to get the character singles now. I don't want to buy the DVDs, though.

And I can't let go of hiyokko-kun (ひよこっこ). A little chickadee voiced by Mai Kadowaki (門脇舞), nevertheless with a bad attitude (shown by the anime-styled angry mark). It is so funny to see it eat, like a jackhammering woodpecker. Ha. "piyo pi pi pi pi pi pi"

I even went to the official home page and scoped out the official "Sayuri Amamiya" (天宮小百合) figure, w00t zettai ryouiki. There's just something about the sound of "amamiya", which sounds lovely because its all vowels and soft consonants. The previous time I recalled an "amamiya" was from Nanaka 6/17 (ななか６／１７).

edit: Added the Hekiru Shiina poster from HM3 Special 45 and expanded Shiina comment. Grammar fix on Masumin comment.

Good and bad luck is with me: Ichigo Masimaro Voice Actor Event

(tags anime, games-of-chance, Ichigo Masimaro, live, voice actor, seiyuu, Tokyo, failure)

Yesterday was a good day. This whole week has been a good week actually, but let's concentrated on specifics.

One contributing factor was that I won the chance to see the Ichigo Masimaro voice actor event (帰ってきた「苺ましまろでショー」in豊島公会堂イベント) in person. I had all but given up hope of going to this event.

But unfortunately, it's on a Sunday (2007/05/06). Furthermore, the event starts at 19:00. I have to be at work on the following day! Did I mention it's near Ikebukuro? Which means Tokyo, which means returning to Kobe via overnight bus is not an option, and neither is Shinkansen or a plane flight. I can't help but think that the Shinkansen will be packed on the Monday morning...

I'm elated and depressed at the same time. This is one of those times where I wished I lived in Tokyo for my hobbies. Oh I'll definately be there, but I'm going to face hell at work, but that's fine.

Winter Garden DVD: Charmingly cute

(tags anime, DVD region 2, kawaii, seiyuu, Koge-Donbo, Sugar, omake, telephone card)

Winter Garden aired at the end of 2006, but I knew this would be my type of anime to purchase, so I didn't watch it live. Instead, I waited for the DVD to come out. It's been 4 months people! I've been waiting to open this Christmas Box for some time now.

It has the lively Di Ji Charat sisters banter coupled with the cute character design originally by Koge-Donbo. Shinya Hasegawa (長谷川眞也) refined the character design for animation, and this refinement looks so very familiar to me because he's the same person who took care of the A Little Snow Fairy Sugar series.

Greatest! I'm pretty happy just watching this anime because so charming. Then again, I'm not very well versed in the Di ji charat universe, so I didn't figure out the in-jokes. I only know about the in-jokes because of the booklet and the audio commentary, which was very entertaining and informative. Other works' audio commentary tracks left something to be desired (ugh: Kasimasi) because they lacked focus. This anime's audio commentary was blessed with the director, Hiroaki Sakurai (桜井弘明), adding the necessary backbone to the talk. For example, I totally forgot that Dijiko is a Akihabara gal, because this anime forgos the otaku atmosphere, but Sakurai explains this point.

Since I'm not a hardcore Di ji charat fan, I welcomed the change of pace of this anime. It's more homely and down-to-earth, with a little bit of romance to lighten it up. Gone are the "cat ears". I did have to question the connection of this series to the previous outings, because it seemed so out of character. Asami Sanada (真田アサミ) and Miyuki Sawashiro (沢城みゆき) reprised their roles. I didn't expect Sanada to have a normal girl voice but I'm not an expert. Sawashiro's definately has range and variation to her voice based on the different series I've seen with her, but I kept superimposing her "Shinku" persona onto "Puchiko".

I do have to admit the animation is a little rough in places, but there are plenty of high quality scenes. There are not much gags in this run, so the director emphasized the little body movements that make a character seem alive. There are references to other series. Even the live band scene took on Haruhi-like parody atmosphere.

For this photo-expose shootout, I didn't open that Christmas Box, which evidently contains a micro-fiber towel, a telephone card, and pocket watch with serial number. But instead, I bring the picture of the Gamers' tokuten mug cup and Comi-Deji magazine's special telephone card for Winter Garden. Isn't it just so kawaii? I do have a gripe with that mug cup picture. It just doesn't seem cute enough. This is blasphemy because Koge-Donbo herself drew it.

Thumbs up. 5 out of 5 stars. Only 2 episodes but this is very special.