Miyuki Sawashiro’s Desirable Pigeonhole
Just looking up some basic information on Sawashiro surprised me. For starters, she was born in 1985, so she’s just 23 this year.
And already she is so prolific…albeit mostly in otaku-ish productions. Typecasted in the Oujo-sama type roles, she is definitely one of the go-to girl when you hear one of these characters.
What made me took note, however, is her Library Wars performance. That was definitely, by far, her best oujo-sama voice ever. And I mean, wow, that was her? Hawt.
I think my first extensive experience with her acting was back in her Broccoli days with Galaxy Angel and Di Gi Charat. Back then she did seem pretty much just like yet-another-high-strung-typecasted person. Today Sawashiro is in a bunch of different kind of roles, and surprisingly she’s doing fine even in a challenging role like Shinkuro from Kurenai. But I think her oujo-sama voice has definitely grown to differentiate itself too.
I guess you are forced to improve yourself when the subtlety of a Reika Houjo voice is merely the same nasal pitch laid a bit thickly to signify a hint of selfish immaturity? Versus a much lighter voice of Mint Blancmanche to reflect her age and attitude? Or a deeper voice to signify a touch of wisdom behind Shinku? I can only guess. I have no idea what Hagino Senkouji was doing–she was the younger pair acting for the older character? Weirdness.
Does it strike you interesting that Claire from Red Garden was by the same voice? I have to say she sounded more manly than Shinkuro >_> Or Kotarou from Pita-Ten. I think that was her best boy-role ever.
She needs to do more voices like this, I think, just to break things loose a bit more.
But if she can land more roles where she can sound like Asako Shibasaki, that is desirable IMO. Talk about a sexy librarian type!
Soundtrack of Our Lives
I am hardly the first person to ever blog about this, but what would the soundtrack of your life be like?
Maybe I should be a little more specific; open-ended inquiries like that are good ice breaker questions for airy-headed groups of people. But as I was walking down the street one morning the song I was listening to just struck me as a good match to the feeling and the visuals I was seeing.
In my own limited experience, music works with the visuals to achieve an intended result, at least in directing a film. As people listen to more music more often and more frequently, we can achieve the same — by seeing and listening to certain things, and to achieve purposeful results.
Perhaps listening to a pumping soundtrack while driving enhances your enjoyment even if you are just doing your weekday commute. Or listening to a strong melody that can help me me march down the street quickly. Or a soothing song to relax during some private break time.
It also has to do with your own enjoyment of the music as well. But I found that people who listens to music all the time tend to also listens to a wider range of music; maybe because that’s just how it works.
Much like the science fictional future of our fathers’ generation, there are a lot of little, yet important aspects of today that people did not foresee. Just how many people are carrying around a personal media player today? The soundtrack question lights up differently when one can potentially be listening from a collection of sounds from a wide variety of sources? It’s virtually limitless if you take into account MIDs.
It’s almost Shirow-ish to think that our perception of reality is augmented by little things like this, but it’s the reality we face today.
Recalling the original Macross series, we see the effect of culture as represented by music on a race of people. Macross Frontier is just a timely reminder of how things have (and have not) changed since. Some of us are still high on protoculture, but a new generation of kids growing up will be taking that and inventing new things to do, new ways to explore the world.
I Am a Bad Seiyuu Junkie
Confession: I watch anime, at times, purely for the voice actress.
It’s really sad. I almost wish I want my time back after some of these experiences.
I want to make a distinction, though. A lot of people like a certain voice–Norio Wakamoto is one popular example–because they like that voice and the way the actor does his or her thing. And that is great. There are some actors like that for me, too, and I would go out of my way to check out a show done by that person. What’s interesting is that a lot of people who don’t normally pay attention to voice acting still gets hooked by some of the more amusing performances, and that is remarkable. If I was Mr. Wakamoto I’d be surprised that all these non-Japanese speaking people like my works.
But what I’m confessing is worse. For example, as much as I’m all “notokawaiiyonoto” about it, I think Mamiko Noto’s boy voice really … isn’t all that. Perhaps the voice itself is exactly what the director wants out of that character, but it hurts to watch. Still, I’m going to watch Kanokon. And I respect the Ayako Factor. Or recall how Kawasumi did her Mahoromatic role with such vivid memory and superimpose that onto Kanokon.
Times like this I wish I was a green, mean pet alligator.
But being human, we are called to a higher level of existence. We should recognize how funny episode 3 of Kanokon was, not just because it lampoons, but because of how it lampoons and what it lampooned. Is this what people get out of radio shows? Or phone sex? WTB more Saito Chiwa lines. Or Mai Nakahara lines, if that’s more appropriate.
But all that is second to what some junkies get out of a fairly pedestrian comedy affair–by all means, don’t watch shows like this.
Why can’t these enjoyable voice actresses just work on shows that are worth watching? Nana Mizuki finally stars in a show that I can stand to watch, so I guess I should be glad for what I can get.
Maybe I should be content about Kanokon’s massive dose of fanservice, and watch Kanokon in silence. Sadly it just doesn’t work.
Nine Years with Maaya Sakamoto
It’s weird, but today I thought about Maaya Sakamoto.
Her debut in Escaflowne was back in 1996, a journey of 12 years. I took notice of her pretty soon after that and was following her pretty much since then. Whoops?
But what was especially memorable to me was the song she released along with Platinum on the single, named simply “24.” If you recall Platinum was a bit of a hit and it rode the CCS wave during its hottest hour. That was 1999. I thought 24 was a cute song in a clumsy “lol engrish” way and the general idea behind the song was encouraging. I guess that was a time in my life where I had a lot of personal struggles, so it stuck.
Sort of like how every time I listen to Break of Dawn I think of Everquest, because I’d be listening to it hours on end on EQ binges. (…often when the dawn breaks…) Sigh.
Perhaps it is just that I listen to her music quite often, it’s gotten to a point where I’ve started to associate her songs to random memories I’ve had. It isn’t like I particularly like her songs, even if they are pretty soothing. It just sticks?
Still, what’s amusing is the continuing development of Sakamoto as a musician over the past decade or so since her first solo album. It’s hard to say for me, as I did not really keep a detailed tab on her career. And there was always the Yoko Kanno factor to consider. But others have, and that’s all we need.
But man, recalling seeing some early day videos of Sakamoto when she was barely out of high school, compared to her more recent sighting in musicals and in American con appearances… she’s doing well.
So why “24″? I thought it was a clever dual-use of the number both as a time notation and as an age limit. You can think of it in terms of the societal norms of women in Japan, but I think of it more generally–as a generation of young adults looking for direction in a rapidly changing world. Maybe you can interpret it differently. But that’s what is so great about it.
I Can Fly
(First, a bit of admin: we’ve had some service interruption on Friday and it’s an ongoing issue, hopefully I’ll have time to resolve it this week.)
JAM PROJECT is coming to the United States of America.
I don’t really care for 90s arena rock music, but the essence of their burning soul is undeniably attractive. I own a few of their CDs but rarely will these albums make the trip to the mp3 player/cd changer/etc simply because it’s not easy listening.
Otakon purposefully tries to reel in different sorts of performers every year because I think they value the diversity that’s within the kind of “visual culture” context that Otakon works within. JAM Project, personally, embodies the heart and soul of a particular subculture of this visual culture nonsense that has been long neglected. Are there any other band that embodies the concept “anime” + “music” in greater perfection? It’s a little ironic but understandably so, that cons will invite pop rock artists and jrockers to perform, because they are just straight-up performers with little agendas otherwise. JAM Project, on the other hand, is much more purposeful, even if they are also just performers not unlike any other at the core.
JAM Project historically is a “supergroup” of ???. ??? as in a lot of people will have some problems make sense of them. Ichiro Mizuki is the original leader of the team, who sort of retired (part-time member status?) not too long ago during a lull of the group’s activity. And interestingly enough, JAM Project’s membership includes an international individual who’s known for his works in Brazil, Ricardo Cruz. The other folks currently a part of JAM Project rocks out anime-style. So you have a few old guys, a few young(er) folks, and a guy from Brazil as an associate. And they rock out and jump around like nuts! Okay…
Still, and again, ultimately JAM Project is true to its namesake–it’s about Japanese Animation songs. If you don’t know the shows they sing for you wouldn’t know who they are. The careers of the men and women of JAM Project is the precise marriage of the two (well, and also tokusatsu). What does it mean as a musician when the works you produce are just half of an interactive relationship? Is it really surprising that hot-blooded arena rock becomes the primary means of expression for them? It’s both why they’re so powerful as performers but also eternally relegated to a very niche audience. They are not a group or performers that we can easily pigeonhole into some kind of categorically familiar thing. JAM Project is its own, unique thing.
Personally, what makes JAM Project interesting is its international perspective. Of course for oversea fans their perception will vary depending how much old school pop anime they’ve swallowed, or if they happened to be a Masami Okui fan or something, but this world tour folds well into the recent effort for the anime industry to export and explore their cultural “cool” globally. Will Americans be too “cool” to receive them? Only time will tell.
Meanwhile, it’s time to get prepared:
1. SKILL karaoke. Simply because it’s pretty awesome the first and second time I’ve done it, I should do this again. For it to be possible, I have to recruit a few helpers to scream along with me. Post or email (click on my name at the bottom of this post) if interested ;).
2. Get in shape. I’m going to jump around a lot. Well, if KOTOKO threw a show at the 1st Mariner Arena that’d be a good way to practice…
