I walked around the commercial booths, I had pasta and coffee at the Moe Moe Kyun meido cafe, I attended the Chiwa Saito and AnoHana panels and, of course, the I Love Anisong concerts. Let's start with quick impressions of the latter. All the concerts were well attended by paying ticketholders - unlike last year when a large amount of unsold tickets were given out at the last minute to fill the venue space (this is based on hearsay but I heard it from two unrelated parties and I regard both as reliable).

MikuPa had the best turnout, the Main Stage (Suntec Exhibition Hall 402) was full and even invited AFA guests and artistes who had not bought tickets had to stand on the far left side of the hall which had seats A-Z and 1-45 (1,170 total). Assuming half of the "VIP" tickets (reserved seating) concert-goers bought only MikuPa (I Love Anisong Day One Only) tickets at SGD 148 and the other half bought Three Day packages which would cost SGD 125 for the first day, then a guesstimate of revenue generated by Vocaloid fans would amount to SGD 159,705. Assuming an equal number of standing tickets at SGD 48 each (sub-total of SGD 56,160), Miku, Rin & Len and Ruka, as well as their live band raked in SGD 215,865 (USD 167,068). Not bad for 100 minutes' work. And also quite respectable when compared to how the concert revenues of nine acts SeaA, Aniki, LiSA, FLOW, Kanako Ito + Chiyomaru Shikura, Milky Holmes, angela, Kalafina, and May'N, (using similar assumptions except seating was reduced from A-S) amounted to SGD 35,055 per act. The equal weight assigned to all nine acts is grossly unfair as it was clear that some acts pulled in way more tickets than others but this calculation usefully dramatizes the pulling power of Hatsune Miku and her brethen.

In terms of personal marginal utility (i.e. enjoyment imho), my ranking of the I Love Anisong acts would be:

1. Hatsune Miku: superb holographic projection and audio, a setlist which included a good mix of old favourites and newer Project Diva2 numbers (I've fallen hard for Rollin' Girl and Uta ni katachi wa nai keredo, both by doriko), an excellent live band who seemed genuinely gratified by the audience response, I've never cared much for the Kagamine twins but this live party has made feel positive about both of them, yes, even Len.

2. angela: atsuko-sensei's voice and katsu-oniichan's guitar playing sounded as good as their studio-produced albums, their charisma and experience performing live then further enhanced the former, I wanted to hear more songs e.g. YOU GET TO BURNING

3. LiSA: the only other act backed by a full live band, shouted myself during the singing the chorus of a surprise rendition of CROW SONG, nice mix of songs from her own album and anisong (including Fate/Zero's Oath Sign)

4. Kalafina: superb vocals, sang all their biggest hits, Hikaru-san surprisingly conversant in English

5. Ichiro Mizuki: I grew up listening to his songs but I honestly could not remember most of them beyond some faint stirrings during the opening strains and the chorus, unveiling of the Katte ni Kaizo anime OP marred by audio lag while the OP animation played but Aniki was unfazed and carried on like a HERO, some fans who didn't know him seemed amused but also remained respectful due to the presence of passionate fans of his in the rest of the audience

6. Kanako Ito + Chiyomaru Shikura: Kanako-san's singing did not sound as good as her studio album and Shikura-shachou's prancing around with his guitar compared poorly against katsu-oniichan's effortlessly flamboyant flair but it's hard to feel badly towards Kanako-san as she was very friendly and chatty when I got her autograph and Prez Shikura is 5pb.'s President Boss Guy so I feel grateful to him for giving us Steins;Gate. All four songs (Universe Engineer, Another Heaven, Skyclad Observer and Hacking to the Gate) generously catered to the Steins;Gate fan in me but concert goers who haven't seen the anime would have been left cold.

7. May'n: I appreciate that she's supported AFA/I Love Anisong, coming faithfully every year, but LiSA having a live band (probably due to Sony Music's support) spoilt the market a bit particularly as I didn't care much for the four backup dancers in her act, I understand that, like LiSA, she wants to establish her own identity through her own songs but I couldn't help but feel I wanted more Sheryl Nome at this nonetheless very hardworking and competent performance.

8. Milky Holmes: I didn't know either of their two songs and one of the four were not present, they were certainly cute and played their roles unabashedly so I can see how they appeal to certain demographics.

9. SeaA: The first song was ok - being somewhat familiar due to being on heavy rotation as the AFA official theme certainly helped but the rest of the unfamiliar songs, the garish outfits and still-needs-work dancing actually made me feel bad for them. When they introduced Deli-Delidelicious as their last song for the evening, a little girl in my row shouted: YAY! which nearly made me OTL physically; so cringe-inducing as it was spectacularly rude and yet reaffirmed that old adage of true words out of the mouths of babes.

FLOW: Not rated as I left after LiSA's performance. Sorry guys but in the immortal words of Utamaru: who cares about guys?

The most important daytime Main Stage event in my book was Chiwa Saito's live dub and Q&A. I (and I'd wager many in the audience) hoped that her final afureco would be of the scene when Homura's leg got trapped (and probably crushed) under the collapsed well and she started to fill with DESPAIR and then Madoka showed up to finally make her wish. But I guess they didn't want to spoil us, part of this whole charade of see no fansub, hear no fansub and speak no fansub thus assuming that we haven't seen the show yet orz

The presence of producer Iwakami-san was an added bonus and it was great to hear from him that she was directly recruited for her roles as Hitagi Senjougahara and Homura Akemi without needing to audition. This really needs to happen more often if our favourite senior seiyuu are going to make a decent living and go on entertaining us.  I was also LOL at how Iwakami-san almost had to stop himself from bowing whenever he mentioned, in reverentially hushed tones, Shinbo-kantoku. I still rank Shizuka Itou's live appearance at STGCC 2011 over Chiwa Saito's due to the marathon 10 min afureco of the former and the five line requests. We were all grateful to the person who made the line request for the Embarrassing Words Are Forbidden line from ARIA's Gatchapen and the question about which character you're most like in RL - apparently Keroro Gunso's Natsumi, causing her to bellow the character's trademark WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING!? line.

I didn't plan to attend the Ano Hana panel but it was memorable for the enthusiastic response of the audience to the Q&A wrt Yukiatsu's crossdressing as MANma (which then became a running joke for the rest of the panel). I was also LOL when Danny Choo had a spot of trouble trying to think of how to translate osananajimi and members of the audience had to help him out, shouting: "Childhood friend!!"  I suppose Danny doesn't watch much harem/moe anime and that this concept isn't going to appear in his Mirai Millennium anime (though he definitely knows what tsundere is).

Concluding this post with a note on commercial matters (all completely based on hearsay, anecdotes and quick personal impressions): the number of companies taking up booths have thinned out. I think this is a positive thing as the surviving players are committed to bringing genuine merchandise to Singapore fans for the long term. The goods of the usual shounen shows did very well as did Gundam merchandise (via Sheng Tai Toys which is also involved in the Gunpla Expo Singapore 2011 at Compass Point from 15 to 27 Nov). Shana limited edition goods sold out pretty quickly but it seems that sales of Madoka merchandise slowed down on Sunday while there was moderate interest in Ano Hana goods and not very much interest at all in Hanasaku Iroha stuff. I was somewhat suprised that Madoka goods did not sell out but, other than that, it sounds about right.

©2012 hontou ni. All Rights Reserved.

Related posts:

1. [Zyl] Anime Festival Asia 2011 Day 0 Intro
2. Anime Festival Asia ’08 Day One
3. Anime Festival Asia ’08 Day Two

It's time to play the music / It's time to light the lights

Redemption queue for light sticks prior to the concert

A bit of confusion earlier when people queuing to collect tickets (SISTIC booth in Millennia Walk, not here at Suntec)

Well, light sticks (green) are pretty much a Must Have piece of equipment for any Miku Live attendee

The Hardcore: Part of a contingent of Japanese fans who had flown in specially for this Miku Live Party; their energy during the concert was really infectious and their unabashed love for Miku also helped normally reticent (tsundere?) Singaporean fans come out of our shells much more quickly

The Japanese contingent (just left, under of the right screen) leading the celebratory cheers at the end of the concert

Tribute by a pair of Singaporean Vocaloid fans

...and GATTAI with the Japanese fans

Japanese cosplayer: this was her second trip to Singapore

with another one of her countrywomen

Both belonging to two of the same countries; Japan and the Miku Prefecture of Otakuland

A pair of Australian (?) Vocaloid fans; incidentally there was an Ancient Greece themed wedding ongoing at the same building LOL

Singaporean Miku and Len cosplayers: their friend (not pictured) kept urging them "dun keep using the same poses leh!"

Kagamine Rin cosplayer

She had lots of variety of poses

Later saw her right at the front: Row C

But she was to the far left so it's a great pity that not likely she'll appear in the BD/DVD when it comes out; you could clearly see some of the cosplayers among the audience in the recording of the 2011 Sapporo Live

Not sure about her but I saw one Miku cosplayer at the taxi queue; she was going home while still wearing her full costume!

Heard that there was a Japanese fan who turned up when the sales just started and said (a la Comiket): All two please

And this post concludes with some shots of a Snow Miku cosplayer

While there are lots of versions of Miku (my favourite is Love Is War Ver), this is winter-themed one harkens to her hometown of Sapporo in Hokkaido

Thanks for the live and the memories! See you again soon!!

©2012 hontou ni. All Rights Reserved.

Related posts:

1. [Zyl] Hatsune Miku Live In Sapporo 2011 Screening
2. 2009 Moment of Anime: Melting into the Fandom of Miku Hatsune
3. [Zyl] My First Year with Miku

I returned from Los Angeles and Anime Expo 2011 a few days ago and I have to say that the highlight of my trip, other than the soon to be regretted level of purchases I made in the dealer’s room, was anything dealing with Hatsune Miku. While the high point of all things Miku was obviously Mikunopolis, it was fun to learn a lot more about Miku over the course of the weekend through all of the panels. Before heading to Los Angeles, I was definitely a fan of the virtual idol, but going into the weekend I didn’t really know what to expect. After leaving, it struck me that being a fan of Miku was really a lot like believing in Santa for a few reasons.

First, like the meaning of Christmas, Miku can really be whoever you want her to be depending on what you like to do, and I’m not talking about her seemingly endless wardrobe for all the perverts out there. Well, I suppose that might be part of it. Still, fans can create new songs, animations, or character designs of and about Miku and send them out there for others to enjoy through the use of the internet. But just as Christmas isn’t just about candy canes and sleigh bells, Miku isn’t just about the music. One thing that became perfectly clear to me almost immediately this weekend is that Miku could very easily be a synonym for Commercialism, and in a lot of ways this is a good thing. It is because of this entrepreneurial spirit fan designs for Miku show up in games or on figures. It is because of this entrepreneurial spirit that allows companies to make money off of Miku’s products, even through the use of a decentralized business model. And in the truest of sense of all things commercialism, Miku is often depicted in pictures that are less than pure.

Continuing the Christmas analogy, it is often difficult for kids to understand the concept of Christmas during their early years. A 2 year old doesn’t necessarily understand what it means to get free presents, but within a few years it is the center of their kid universe. I kind of got this same feeling over the course of this weekend when it came to Miku. Obviously, many of the people who came to Anime Expo had some idea of who Miku was, but for many, this was their first large dose of all things Miku. While it seemed like the interest in the virtual idol slowly grew over the course of the weekend, I think most people really began to appreciate Miku during her concert. At first, it seemed like only select groups of people were cheering and fewer still were standing. However, as the concert progressed more people got into the groove of things, so to speak, and by the end of the night it seemed like almost every person in the Nokia Theatre was on their feet screaming their lungs out for Miku to return for an encore. So I guess like a lot of things in life, Santa Claus and Miku included, it takes a little time to understand what it going on, but once you do, it is something special.

Now, while I admire everything that the Japanese companies have done to increase the popularity of Miku, from implementing fan designs into concerts and figures to giving individual creators relative freedom to use Miku in their productions to this past weekend’s concert, I kind of got the sense that the Japanese feel that other nations need to follow their model for Miku to be a success, which I don’t think is the right approach. Just as people celebrate Christmas and Santa differently across the world, so should we Miku and the other Vocaloids. While having different language software available in the future is a step in the right direction, it is an obvious one. What is worrisome is that Miku won’t necessarily be available or well known to the wider audience of people in the U.S., or other western nations. Now I suppose it might be impossible for people outside of the normal anime, j-pop, etc. fan to ever really be a fan of Miku, but the creation and use of new sites in the United States, like niconico.com, seems like it will go about as well as the United States trying to introduce democracy into the Middle East.

So, assuming that Miku (and her handlers) truly do want to conquer the world, it would become absolutely necessary for them to conquer a wide range of the Otaku fan base, from Narutards to people willing to travel across the country to see Miku and everyone in-between ( as a sort of power base). From a few panels I attended during the Expo and people I’ve talked to in the past, it doesn’t seem like the anime industry has done a good job getting its online product well known. I remember several people during the con didn’t know that Crunchyroll offered free anime (and to be honest, it seems like a very small subset of people know you can get anime online via streams, legally or otherwise), so it is by no means a given thing that people will utilize niconico.com or the newly announced Mikubook on a regular basis, especially when there is the 500 pound gorilla in the room that goes by the name of YouTube.

If there is one thing I learned from my business consulting classes, it is that if you have the ability to work with a company who already has the resources needed to help you produce a product, it is better to work with that company, than to try and develop the capabilities yourself. The use of joint ventures is even more crucial when you are trying to introduce a product into a foreign country. Obviously, I have no idea if the Miku people have tried to create a joint venture of some sort with American based web companies, but if they haven’t, that would seem to be a blunder on their part. The time and money it will take to make the average fan of anime/j-pop become aware of niconico or Mikubook will more than likely not be worth it, and they can forget about ever drawing the attention of the average American consumer. Instead, Japanese companies should really think about doing special promotions for Miku on already popular American internet mediums, so that Miku will not just be searched for by those who already know of her.

That’s not to say that Miku is doomed to failure outside of Japan. The business model developed in Japan really does seem to be working and they have a great product to work with. As a person who would like to see Miku become more popular, I would like to see Japanese companies work more with American companies as a way to promote her, which they have done to some extent with the Toyota commercials in the U.S. Still, these things need to be more than gimmicks; they need to be real sustained attempts at letting people learn about Miku through already established video mediums, or eventually the costs of doing business will become too high, which force them to cut and run.

I first came across Supercell the same way I’m sure many people have: the ending theme to 2009′s hit Bakemonogatari, Kimi no Shiranai Monogatari (The Story You Didn’t Know). I remember being captured immediately by the opening guitar melody, then Nagi’s gorgeous singing about 10 seconds in. It was one of those songs that I fell in love with immediately. It was only natural that I immediately looked up just who this “ryo” and “nagi” as mentioned in the ED sequence were. Since then, Suprecell has quickly become one of my favorite bands, and 2010 was a fine year for the band. We’ll look back at some of my favorite songs that it released this year.

Supercell’s Wiki page has plenty of info on it, including the peculiarity that there is actually just one musician and no performers in this band. This peculiarity makes talking about Supercell a bit of a strange endeavor. Do you use the plural pronoun “they” when describing it, as is the standard for bands? Or do you use the singular pronoun “he,” because the actual music is composed and written by just one person? Furthermore, when Ryo does a piece of work, such as the background music to the OVAs Cencoroll and Black Rock Shooter, do you say that Supercell did it, since, for all intents and purposes, it’s equivalent, or not, because the rest of Supercell, the visual artists, weren’t involved?

I don’t know. I’ll refer to Supercell using the pronoun “it,” as it is a single unit, a band, after all, and I guess it makes sense to separate the works that Supercell did, which includes visual art (in the form of nothing more than album covers, really) and the ones that Ryo himself was only involved in. It’s all very confusing and, really, it doesn’t matter. I can’t think of any other musical band with one visual-arts-only member, much less where the vast majority are visual-arts-only.

Then there’s the issue of capitalization. Traditionally, names like Supercell, Ryo, and Nagi are capitalized, but every official text that I’ve seen have been all lowercase. Of course, that’s something that resonates with me, since my screenname lvlln is meant to be in all lowercase. Lvlln just looks weird. So in short, just writing about this band introduces some unique issues. I’ll stick with capitalizing them as expected. It makes the text easier to read.

With 2009 being the year Supercell went professional, 2010 was its sophomore year, and what a year it was! It strengthened its ties to the anime world with another anime ending theme, the opening theme to a PSP game, the ending theme to Type-Moon’s new (now-delayed) visual novel Witch on the Holy Night, and most recently, the theme song to a manga. Not to mention the extremely hyped but ultimately disappointing Black Rock Shooter anime, which was based off its song by the same title, and for which Ryo composed the music.

2 of these songs continued what I think of as Supercell’s “unrequited love” series of songs, which started way back in December of 2008 with its upload of Hajimete no Koi ga Owaru Toki (When the First Love Ends) and continued with the aforementioned Kimi no Shiranai Monogatari.

Anyway, here are 5 of my favorite releases by Supercell from 2010, in chronological order: Sayonara Memories, Kocchi Muite Baby, Utakata Hanabi, This Star Sparkling Night, and Hero.

Sayonara Memories

Sayonara Memories, released in February of this year, was Supercell’s 2nd single, its followup to Kimi no Shiranai Monogatari and also featured nagi on vocals. Though the single had 2 more tracks, the title track really was the only good song among the 3. I consider this to be the 3rd of Supercell’s “unrequited love” series.

Like Kimi no Shiranai Monogatari, Sayonara Memories was accompanied by a music video that showed the story of the song being told. This video was a bit more traditional, though, in that it featured clips of the band actually singing the song interspersed with clips from the story. The thing to note here is that the singer (and main character) in the video is not Nagi, the actual singer! Sony is clearly aware of the mystique of having Supercell’s performers remain semi-anonymous behind their online screennames, and they hired an actor (Sakura Ema) to play the part.

In more ways than just the video, Sayonara Memories felt a lot like Kimi no Shiranai Monogatari part 2. If you read the Wikipedia articles on both songs, you’d be hard pressed to tell them apart:

“Kimi no Shiranai Monogatari” is a J-pop song with instrumentation from electric and bass guitars, drums and piano. According to a book of sheet music published by Yamaha Corporation, it is set in common time, and moves at a quick tempo of 165 beats per minute in the A major key throughout the song. The introduction starts with only piano accompanying Nagi’s vocals, and uses a bridge with added guitars and drums to transition into the first verse. Another bridge is used between the first and second verses; both verses use the same music with different lyrics. After the third verse, a break is employed, followed by the fourth verse. After a short outro, an instrumental coda is used to close the song. … The lyrics tell the story of a girl with an unrequited love who was never able to convey her feelings to the person she loved.
Source

“Sayonara Memories” is a J-pop song with instrumentation from electric and bass guitars, drums, piano and violin. According to a book of sheet music published by Yamaha Corporation, it is set in common time, and moves at a quick tempo of 160 beats per minute in the B major key throughout the song. The introduction starts with only piano accompanying Nagi’s vocals, and uses a bridge with added guitar, drums and violin to transition into the first verse. The song continues with the second and third verses, which also serves as the chorus melody, before employing another bridge. The musical structure used in the first three verses is repeated for the next three with different lyrics. After a short seventh verse, a break is employed, followed by the eighth verse. After a short instrumental outro, the song ends with Nagi singing “Aa, yatto ieta” (ああ　やっと言えた?, “Ah I finally said it”), referring to a love confession at the end of the eighth verse.
…
The lyrics tell the story of a girl with an unrequited love who was never able to convey her feelings to the person she loved.
Source

(emphasis mine)

…yeah. One difference I noticed was that Kimi no Shiranai Monogatari has no chorus, whereas Sayonara Memories has one, a quick shout of “Sayonara Memories!” reminiscent of the short choruses of “Melt!” in Melt and “Arigato, sayonara” in When the First Love Ends. However, in all those songs, no line other than the short 2 or 1 word choruses are repeated, giving them that stream-of-consciousness storytelling feel. Story-wise, the trip to see the shooting stars was replaced with the daily walk to school (fitting for the shift in theme from summer to spring), and middle school was moved to high school, but they’re pretty much the same songs. Not that that’s a bad thing, since they’re both great songs. And though Sayonara Memories has no ties to anime, it is clearly using the same tropes and themes seen in many of today’s high school anime.

Kocchi Muite Baby (Come Over Here Baby)

Supercell’s first Hatsune Miku song since When the First Love Ends was released in July on a collaborative single along with Livetune’s Yellow, as the opening song for the PSP game Hatsune Miku: Project Diva 2nd. Though I don’t like the song that much – it’s decent, not great – I do respect that Ryo was finally exploring a theme other than unrequited love with a major song. Instead, this song has a more aggressive, playful tone, similar to that of Love and Roll, the second track from the Kimi no Shiranai Monogatari single.

Plus, both the game’s opening video and the in-game animation were great. The song is one of the most fun to play in the game, because of the fast, dynamic camera shots and fun choreography. It also has Ryo’s trademark scream, which he’s used in all sorts of songs including Melt, World is Mine, and Oishite Ageru (the only one officially released with Nagi). At 3:30, it’s a more typical pop song length and much shorter than Supercell’s other main songs which tend to run over 5 minutes.

Utakata Hanabi

With this, Supercell returned to the anisong world, as a 90 second cut (just 1/4 of the whole song!) of it was used as the ending theme for a series of episodes of Naruto Shippuden. I’m no fan of Naruto, but the ending sequence accompanying this song was great, literally putting Sakura in the position of the singer and even having her lips mouth the song at parts.

Utakata Hanabi – literally Water Bubble Fireworks but commonly translated as Ephemeral Fireworks or Transient Fireworks – has the singer reminiscing about a summer festival when she spent the evening watching fireworks with her love. Like other songs in Supercell’s unrequited love series of songs, the details aren’t clear, but the singer’s feelings are, as is the importance of this moment in her memory.

The tone a bit of a departure from the other songs in the series, in that this song does not end with hope for the future and letting go of the past. Rather, the singer seems unable to let go of her sorrow, perpetually stuck in that moment that she knows she can never experience again. The overall mood of the song is also much more somber than When the First Love Ends, Kimi no Shiranai Monogatari or Sayonara Memories. The tempo remains a slow burn throughout, never speeding up to the high tempos of the other 3.

Utakata Hanabi also got a music video which you can see above. It was the first not to feature live actors since Supercell’s Nico Nico Douga days. The art and animation style is unique and somewhat psychedelic, and it perfectly complements the song, showing us depictions of both that summer evening that the singer is remembering and how the singer is feeling now as she remembers. It took me a few viewings to warm up to it, but the way it visually represents the lyrics to the song is truly compelling.

Due to the slower pacing and more depressing mood of this song, it’s not quite as enjoyable as the other songs in the unrequited love series, but it’s a great piece of music nonetheless. However, it really got outdone by the second track in the single:

Hoshi ga Mattataku Konna Yoru Ni (This Star Sparkling Night)

Technically, this is the 2nd “side A” to the single, though it is still the 2nd track and wasn’t released to the public until the CD release in late August. You can read the lyrics that I translated. It is the ending theme song to Type-Moon’s new visual novel Witch on the Holy Night, which was delayed from its original 9/30 release date to Christmas Eve of this year.

This was my preferred song from this split single, and I believe it shows Ryo taking a major step away from the “unrequited love” theme that he had been pounding on so hard. Even his early songs, including the hit Melt as well as the less well known That One Second of Slow Motion, played on that theme.

Instead, this song was all about the new beginning of a relationship. The subject material is reminiscent of Kimi no Shiranai Monogatari, in that it’s about the singer looking up at the stars with the boy she has a crush on. Unlike that song, this one is not about looking back to that day with regret, but rather about being there now, at the moment, when the two begin to fall in love. Along with the general theme of the lyrics, the faster, more upbeat tempo contrasts greatly with the depressing mood of Utakata Hanabi and makes it just a more fun song to listen to. Instead of Nagi’s beautiful voice being used to express regret at the first love, we get to hear her express the joy of the first love.

I find it noteworthy that this song actually has a real chorus, the full line, “On this star sparkling night.” The line is always followed by a different line each time, as is the tradition for choruses in Supercell’s songs. Also noteworthy is that at 4:28, it is over a minute shorter than Supercell’s 3 “unrequited love” songs with Nagi, 2 of which are over 6 minutes long and the shortest (Kimi no Shiranai Monogatari) clocking in at 5:41.

Hero

Hero has yet to be released commercially, only being released on the internet at the end of November. Like This Star Sparkling Night, I posted a translation of the lyrics to this.

Also like that song, this is about budding first love. We get to hear Ryo and Nagi expand their horizons further by having the singer be a male this time, with a crush on a girl. Nagi has quite a high voice which is part of her appeal, but somehow she manages to make it sound boyish enough for most of the song, raising it to make the parts when she’s singing the girls’ speech stand out.

Hero is the latest song to be released by Supercell, and that it continues the theme from This Star Sparkling Night gives me hope that Ryo has gotten out of the rut of making the same “unrequited love” song over and over again. All those songs have been excellent and remain in my playlist to this day, but it’s good to see his works evolve. Of course, there’s the risk that this is the new theme he’ll latch onto, but This Star Sparkling Night and Hero have already differentiated themselves a bit with the different perspectives, and I wouldn’t mind hearing what ideas Ryo has to play on this theme.

So all in all, even discounting that horrible Black Rock Shooter OVA, 2010 was a pretty huge year for Supercell. Still no full albums since its first one, but 1 online release plus 3 CD singles (and another song called Kibou no Neiro to be released at Comiket the end of this month) is certainly nothing to sneeze at. More importantly, the releases have continued to impress me. 2 anime from 2009 for which it did the ending themes – Bakemonogatari and Cencoroll – are set to get sequels next year, and I’m hoping that Supercell once again gets that responsibility for the sequels. Either way, Supercell has managed to tie itself to some very powerful and popular companies, including Sony, SEGA, Shaft, Ordet, Good Smile Company, and Type-Moon, and I’m confident we’ll be hearing more hits out of it in the coming years and more.

One of the main events I attended during this year’s New York Anime Festival was the Hatsune Miku “concert” at 8pm on Saturday. This was actually an “encore performance,” arranged due to the high demand for the initial “concert” that morning at 10:45. It was held in a room far too small for the event, and most people who wanted to go ended up unable to attend, it seemed.

My friend and I had actually arrived at the room for the first “performance” 30 minutes before it was to start. When we saw that there was no line, I decided to show my friend around the anime section’s artists’ alley a bit. When I got back to the room literally 8 minutes later, a line had formed and had already been cut off for new people as the room had reached capacity. Clearly I and the con organizers had misunderestimated the popularity of Hatsune Miku.

I was initially pretty pissed, at myself, more than anything. I was right there, less than 10 minutes ago! I could’ve been at the front of the line! But, well, there’s no use dwelling on the past, and I got over it pretty quickly. So it came as a pleasant surprise when I learned that there would be an “encore performance” of the “concert” that evening at 8. This one, I wasn’t going to miss, even if it conflicted with the Minori Chihara concert. I wasn’t a fan of Minorin, anyway.

I was at the front of the line for the “encore performance” an hour early and got to meet some very nice fellows from Baruch College, a college of the City University of New York. I can’t think of the last time before that day that I had played the card game bullshit.

They called it a concert, but really, it was just a screening of a special 1 hour cut of the Hatsune Miku 39′s Giving Day concert Bluray. That said, that’s pretty much what I expected going in, as I heard that the earlier “concert” in San Francisco in September had been the same thing. Though it would’ve been nice to have exclusive footage from the concert other than the ones on the disc.

Some people brought glo-sticks. Fans started claps, cheers, applause, etc. as if it were a real concert. When some of the more popular songs started playing, cheers would spread throughout the crowd. The loudest one was for a Kagamine Rin + Len song, when Rin initially appeared and Len suddenly popped out from behind her. Megurine Luka also made an appearance for the always fun Just Be Friends. The guy to my right, who knew nothing about Vocaloids going in (“So it’s like a virtual Japanese Britney Spears, right?” after the first couple songs – note that at this point, he didn’t even realize that the singing was synthesized) was one of the most energetic of the people I saw there, starting claps and fist pumping along with the fans in the video.

There was a very surreal feel to the whole thing. Here we were, sitting in a room, watching a recording of a concert that featured a virtual idol that had been projected onto a glass screen, and people were loving it. It was one of those experiences that was uniquely possible in the world of Vocaloid. All in all, it was a lot of fun, thanks to the concert-like atmosphere. It was somehow fitting that the fans had made the “concert” a success, given how the success of Hatsune Miku and the Vocaloid software is thanks to the fans.

The final song, fittingly enough, was Melt by supercell. Though I’ve grown to like supercell’s final Nico Nico Douga song, When the First Love Ends, more, Melt will always hold a place in my heart as one of the classics, the one that put ryo on the map. After the “concert,” I went up to the front with a lot of people and got to shake hands with Hiroyuki Itoh, the CEO of Crypton Future Media and one of the creators of Hatsune Miku. I also got to have a photo taken with him, which was pretty cool. Even though there wasn’t supposed to be anything after the “concert,” Itoh was very welcoming of everyone who wanted to greet him and get their photo taken with him.

What I want to get to, though, is my disappointment in the concert. Not the fact that it was just a screening – again, that was expected – but rather, the unimaginativeness of the contents of the concert itself. The guy to the left of me – one of the students from Baruch (sorry for forgetting your name) – and I had some short conversations throughout the “concert” about how to improve it. For example, there was a lack of variety and difficulty in the dance moves performed by Miku. Given that she’s a computer generated image, I thought she should be doing “flips and shit” that normal humans can’t do, or at least can’t do consistently. She’s a computer generated image! Have her do some freaky circus-type shit!

And on the flipside, how about making her seem even more real? For example, why not have her appear to sweat as the concert went on, like a real performer would? That Baruch student commented that that might be too kinky – my response was, all the better. Or, have a staged trip or wardrobe malfunction that shows her messing up. The Baruch student suggested that she could throw something out to the audience, which would be synced with an actual item being thrown out.

Really, there are so many possibilities that become open when you have a virtual performer, and the producers of the concert seemed all too happy just to emulate a regular idol. They did prepare an “encore” at the end after the show was technically supposed to be over, but that was too predictable. And the performance of The Disappearance of Hatsune Miku did use the fact that Miku was just a computer image to some effect, having her faze out into static at the end. But more could have been done throughout the concert.

Perhaps reflective of the anime industry in general right now. In the world of animation, anything and everything is possible, but the industry players seem all too content to pump out the same shit again and again. Even though I’m enjoying quite a few shows this season, the only one I can honestly say is doing anything creative with the animation is Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt.

Another idea I with regards to the concert was to have some of the popular Nico Nico Douga Vocaloid performers come on stage, unannounced. Start a song with Miku, then have someone like Nayuta or Chouchou walk on stage and sing. Reveal partway that one of the guitarists or keyboardists is a Nico Nico Douga performer. Use the concerts not just to promote Miku or the composers, but also the performers who have helped create this movement by uploading their own renditions of the work. I, for one, would go absolutely nuts if Nagi suddenly appeared on stage and started singing Melt, instead of Miku.

So I wonder, what else do you think could be done in a Vocaloid concert that simply wouldn’t be possible in a regular one? What should be done to take full advantage of Hatsune Miku’s unique properties? I feel like there are some real opportunities being missed here by playing things too safe, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s had ideas like this.

After much delay and, depending on where you hang around, much hype, the 50 minute OVA Black Rock Shooter was finally released yesterday, July 24. Despite the solid visuals and music, the poor pacing and storytelling make this an anime that I can’t recommend, even to die hard fans of Vocaloids or Supercell like myself. You’re better off just waiting for the soundtrack and seeing some of the highlights.

For those who don’t know that much about Vocaloids or Supercell, here’s a brief introduction to Black Rock Shooter. Ryo, the only musician in the now professional band Supercell, got his start uploading his songs sung by Hatsune Miku onto Nico Nico Douga. One of his most popular ones, perhaps second only to Melt, was Black Rock Shooter, a song that he had written based off of a picture drawn by an artist who goes by the name of Huke. It was uploaded in June of 2008. You can see the original video with English subtitles on Youtube.

Some time since then, anime studio Ordet decided to pick it up and to create a 50 minute OVA based on the song – which itself was based on a picture. It was originally supposed to be released in September 2009, but it got pushed to Spring 2010, then again to Summer 2010. And yesterday, on 7/24, it was finally released, for free on DVDs that came with the September issue of Hobby Japan. There are a couple other magazines will also have the DVDs packed for free.

An iconic shot from the original Nico Nico Douga animation, rendered in the anime.

One of the biggest questions I had going into this was what the story would be like. After all, the OVA is ultimately based on an image, and the lyrics to the song don’t exactly build up a cohesive world. Well, contrary to the more fantasy oriented images associated with this production, Black Rock Shooter tells the story of a middle school first year named Mato Kuroi (Kana Hanazawa) and her friendship with classmate Yomi Takanashi (Miyuki Sawashiro). The 2 become friends on their first day of school and grow closer throughout their first year despite their being in different sports clubs (basketball for Mato, volleyball for Yomi). About half way through, the basketball team manager Yuu (Kana Asumi) gets into the mix as well. The main conflict manifests itself as jealousy when Mato and Yuu get put into the same class for their second years while Yomi gets put into a different class, stuck outside looking in.

Interspersed in this story are brief scenes of the eponymous Black Rock Shooter – an obvious stand-in for Mato – chasing and fighting against Dead Master – Yomi’s stand-in – in the dark fantasy world most associated with the work. The action scenes are short and inserted fairly evenly throughout the OVA, and it’s only at the end when Yomi disappears that a clear connection between the 2 settings is shown.

Dead Master looks down at Black Rock Shooter, both about to fight.

The core problem with Black Rock Shooter lies with the storytelling. The pacing is horrid, with pretty much nothing happening in the first half. 50 minutes is longer than a TV show episode, but it’s still not a long time, and you simply can’t waste that much time with the set up. The more action packed fantasy scenes inserted throughout that half didn’t do anything to help the pace, because they felt unrelated – at best, only loosely connected – to the main story in the real world.

The first clear indication that the 2 worlds are connected, about 2/3 of the way into the OVA.

On that note, the story just doesn’t tie together. There is a fundamental disconnect between the scenes in the fantasy world and in the real world. There are hints at how the events in the two settings relate to each other, but it is only at the end that a clear connection is made, and even then, the explanation is unsatisfactory. Clearly, the fantasy scenes were meant to serve as a metaphor for the emotional conflict taking place in real life between Mato and Yomi, but the rest of the connections, including the reason for Yomi’s disappearance or her blank text to Mato at the end, are left as exercises for the viewer. Same goes for the opening fight between Dead Master and Black Rock Shooter, which clearly happened before the events of the show. Having an open ended story up to the viewer’s interpretation is one thing, but this is either laziness or ineptitude by the director.

The orange, yellow desert background contrasts with the dark green castle background of the other fantasy scenes when this character appears. That's about all this character does before she disappears.

Heck, there is even a 3rd character in the fantasy who never does anything. Perhaps the entire purpose of this OVA was to set up a series. At least, that’s what it feels like with its open threads and the cliffhanger-style ending.

Even the fantasy scenes, while containing entertaining, visceral action and beautiful art, suffers from the fact that nothing about these characters’ motivations is revealed until the very end. There were hints here and there at the bigger story, but the mismatching chronology – the fantasy scenes have no connection to the real life scenes being shown at the same time – meant that I was left wondering why Black Rock Shooter and Dead Master were fighting for most of the time. And fights in which you have nothing invested in the outcome just aren’t as fun to watch.

It doesn’t help that neither of the two show any emotion through most of the fight. As they get hit, thrown, shot at, and tied up, their faces rarely change from their monotone dead stares, as if they were both Terminators programmed to fight each other. The closest thing up until the climactic moment was Dead Master’s evil smirk. They don’t talk, and they barely even grunt as they fight. The brevity also hurt these fight scenes, as none of them lasted long enough for a real story to develop within the fights. Just as the fights started to get into their grooves and made me excited, the OVA would cut back to a plain real life scene. There are things that can be done with single long action scenes that can’t be done with many shorter ones. They need time to build a sort of rhythm, something that Black Rock Shooter never managed to do.

The action, while pretty, doesn't make for very good still shots. Hence why I'm showing shots from still scenes.

That being said, Black Rock Shooter is still a very pretty anime. The real life scenes have the level of detail you expect from an OVA, and the stylized animation of the action scenes work very well. Some of the backdrops in the fantasy scenes are obviously created using CG, but they almost never stand out. The use of the color and light, as well as the architecture in those scenes do a wonderful job of creating an oppressive, dark, almost depressing mood to the speechless fights. I’m a fan of the character designs as well. The purposeful contrast between Black Rock Shooter’s tall, lanky, unbalanced design with Dead Master’s curvaceous and symmetrical one was not lost on me. Heck, they even put scars on Black Rock Shooter’s stomach in order to emphasize the straightness of her design (ironically, Yomi is taller than Mato).

And the music was very enjoyable as well. No, there was no Hatsune Miku music; not even Black Rock Shooter was played. Instead, it was a largely classical score, fitting for a school story. In some scenes, the music really took center stage in communicating the emotion to the viewer. One of the first scenes, in which Mato climbs the hill near her house before going off to school, sticks in my mind. In the world of TV shows, where usually some plot has to be fit into a 24 minute less 1:30 OP less 1:30 ED slot, the background music almost always stays right there in the background. Without such limitations (in fact, one might argue that they didn’t even fill the pressure to fit a story into its 50 minute slot), the OVA was free to implement more movie-like usage of background music, to good effect. There were also call backs to Supercell’s Black Rock Shooter song as well, with some of the music, particularly at the beginning and end of the OVA, using themes pulled straight from that song.

This picture kind of summarizes Black Rock Shooter. So much badassery when free to act, but chained and restricted by the plot, unable to fulfill its potential.

Ultimately, Black Rock Shooter is two separate stories connected only loosely by theme and character design, with 80% of the time spent on a, though heartfelt, tragically generic story about friendship, and the other 20% dedicated to the good parts: the fun, even if meaningless, action scenes. The uneven pacing and storytelling unraveled a technically solid production, and as the credits rolled, I felt sorry for all the people whose hard work went into producing what amounted to essentially nothing.

The only way I can see this OVA being somewhat redeemed is if it turns out to be just the 1st part of a longer series, one which explores the fantasy world that this one only briefly touched upon. Both the pre-credits ending and post-credits ending tease a possible continuation. But as a stand alone work, it is incomplete and not worth the time to watch it.

This is when the story finally begins, right? It couldn't possibly be that the ending credits are about to start in less than a minute, right? Right?

Notes:

• As always, screenshots galore at Tenka Seiha and Random Curiosity.
• The free magazine-packed DVDs include 7 different languages of subtitles, including English. The other 6 are Japanese, Chinese, Italian, German, Spanish, and French.
• Other magazines that will have this DVD are Megami Magazine (7/30) and Monthly Animedia (8/10). (source: Anime News Network via Vocaloidism)
• The character Dead Master was never named in the OVA. I got her name from the figures of her they’re selling, such as this one.
• This is the 2nd anime for which Ryo of Supercell did the music. The other one was Cencoroll, and it also starred Kana Hanazawa as a leading role.
• Kana Asumi starred as Poplar in last season’s Working!!, in which one of the running gags was that she would always mispronounce the main character’s name “Takanashi” as “Katanashi.” Her character Yuu has no problem with that in Black Rock Shooter, however. The OVA also made the same pun as in Working!! regarding Takanashi’s name being able to be confused with “Kotori” (Takanashi’s name when he cross-dresses).
• At the point when Mato was giving Yomi the star cell phone strap, I started wondering if the fantasy world was far in the future, given the post-apocalyptic style of the setting. I was hoping that there was some falling out between the 2 that the OVA would show, before they somehow became Black Rock Shooter and Dead Master. I think that would’ve been a better twist than, “It’s a metaphor, lol.”

As expected, day 2 saw more cosplayers than day 1. Day 3 had fewer, of course, and had a more relaxed, muted atmosphere as well.

Again, I’ve uploaded the photos I took onto Picasa: Day 2 and Day 3.

Maybe this will help him get over his depression

Some that I found notable:

• A Bayonetta with a chainsaw she uses in one of her torture attacks.
• A Lucy and a Nyuu from Elfen Lied.
• The only Kino from Kino’s Travels I could find. That show’s quite obscure, so finding a cosplayer was satisfying.
• Princess Tutu, who actually stood on her toes for the photo.
• The only Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei cosplayer I could find, a very tall Itoshiki Nozomu doing the dance bit from the burebure opening.
• A girl as Pilaf from Dragon Ball. Talk about an obscure character from an ancient show. A show I grew up with.
• South Korea from Axis Powers Hetalia. There was a metric ****load of Hetalia cosplayers there, this was the only South Korea I could find. I didn’t even know South Korea was in Hetalia.
• The Jenova tube (that’s right, the actual tube) from which Sephiroth escaped in Final Fantasy 7.
• Windows7-tan. The best operating system out there right now, bar none. All you Mac users and Linux fanboys can suck it. (There was actually an Ubuntu booth at the dealer’s room – there’s apparently an on-going manga about Ubuntu that’s being published in Japan).
• I got a Lady cosplayer to hold her pistol in her mouth, like one of the cut scenes in Devil May Cry 3. She also had an excellent Kalina Ann.
• There were 2 Yokos from the My Stars music video based on Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. One as a bunnygirl, the other in the black suit with a guitar.
• Izaya and Shizuo from Durarara! It’s hard to find cosplayers of shows this recent, in my experience.

Arcade Bumstead from Tsukihime, if you don't know.

There were also a lot of Vocaloid cosplayers. Like, a lot. So many you wouldn’t believe. It was awesome.

I won’t go too deep into the panels. I attended 3 more by Alex Leavitt, one about anime pilgrimages which made me more interested in going on a cycling trip than on anime. He talked about how otaku in Japan were making so-called “pilgrimages” to actual locations that their favorite anime were using as backdrops. He used a shrine that was shown for about 5 seconds in the Lucky Star opening as an example. He provided a link to a site that attempts to catalog all the anime with real-life locations and provides links to photos/comparison shots. The list on the front page of that site is 453 long. Some people even went all the way to Spain, from where Sora no Woto’s backdrop was inspired!

I stood in line for a 2 hour Touhou panel that was absolutely packed. I was hoping to learn more about the fanbase and the entire sub-industry that this one series of games has inspired, but it was more about the games and official works themselves. They spent a little too much time on just playing the game on the big screen. I did learn about a boxer who cosplayed as Touhou characters during his entrance to the ring. Here’s one such entrance and here’s him KO’ing his opponent while his posse of (female) cosplayers celebrate.

"My spoon is too big!"

I went to dinner on Saturday with founder and fans of Fakku, a site I won’t link to as it’s very very NSFW. Turns out the founder, Jacob, is a Massachusetts native, having grown up and still going to college in Worcester! Met some interesting people there, one of whom was kind enough to give me a ride back home at 2AM (Boston’s public transportation sucks, and part of the reason is that it shuts down around 1AM).

Jacob's the one with the FAKKU shirt in the middle

Other than photographing and attending panels, I spent a lot of time at the artists’ alley and the dealers’ room and spent a little too much money on the artists’ wares. At least the money’s going to support the artists directly. I bought 4 prints of Black Rock Shooter, 2 of Hatsune Miku, 1 of Hitagi (the only Bakemonogatari picture I could find there – the artist mentioned that he had the idea of painting a picture of her onto a stapler and selling it), and a couple bookmarks, including a Durarara!! one which goes nicely with the book I was already reading.

I regret nothing

Anyway, I had a good time. Spent probably about $200-$225 for everything, including food, with a grand total of 12+15+7=34 hours spent at the convention center. Definitely a much more exciting atmosphere than PAX East, with more people just looking like they were having fun. Like me. Looking forward to it next year.