On the fifth day of Christmas my true love gave to me,
Five ending themes
Four pretty maids
Three liquid kisses
Two mahjong tiles
and Mio saying ‘moe moe kyun’

Twelve Moments in Anime 2009 #8: kevo’s Top Five Ending Themes of 2009

I believe in the original Christmas carol 12 Days of Christmas, the fifth day is the line is rhythmically different in that it’s basically yelling “FIVE GOLLLDDEENNN RINNGGSS”. I always found this rather weird, why five? Why was it in there? But then again, the song would be quite boring otherwise, it would kinda sound like a shopping list or something. That is, if you were shopping at a slave and animal auction in pirate bay.

…Speaking of music, let’s take that obligatory journey back though the last twelve months and look at all the cool anime ending themes that we have been treated to. It’s been quite a good year for anime themes, so I’m pretty excited to write this post, even now as I type; even though I know exactly how this posts ends. Why only ending themes kevo’? Because I feel like it, that’s why. The list is in no particular order, so feel free to debate. (more…)

If nothing else, animation studios know one thing: fans of a franchise will buy anything you throw at them. So when a studio strikes gold, silver, or moderately shiny rocks, many are quick to offer a heaping plethora of anime-related merchandise to the masses. This can include soundtracks, figurines, drama CDs, artbooks, and of course, the character album. For those of you who watch anime from underneath a rock without going on the internet, character songs are songs sung by an anime character’s voice actor that is supposed to embody the personality of a character. Viewers can enjoy first-class seiyuu-pop while also learning more about a character, understanding deeper aspects of the character through the power of music. Or, at least that’s how it’s supposed to work most of the time. Oftentimes, some character albums start to reveal that a studio is starting to just milk its franchise for money, much like how Star Wars has 87,224 video games, a spinoff animated series thingy, and countless other media floating around outside of books and movies. Other times the songs are tailored to odd choices of characters and downright strange. And sometimes they just downright suck. Today let’s explore some examples of the most baffling character songs I could find in the short time I compiled and researched for this post.

Make a Miracle! –Mitsuki Shina (Akane-iro ni Somaru Saka)

As a rule of thumb, if the lyrics in your character song outnumbers the number of words of dialogue you have in the whole series, something might be wrong. I know I may be beating a dead horse here but Akane-iro ni Somaru Saka sucks so much it’s laughable. I actually like this song quite a lot. Tanaka Rie’s high-pitched schoolgirl voice is generic as hell but pretty cute (in my opinion; most people actually hate it). Shina is also my favorite character in the anime.

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French Canadian anime singer Catherine St-Onge, better known as Himeka, apologized on her blog yesterday (or today? Stupid international date line…) for running off the stage during a song after forgetting the lyrics. She was singing the opening theme to Valkyria Chronicles when suddenly the dreaded “oh shit” moment came.

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Recently, Japanese teenage pop group SCANDAL covered K-ON!‘s wildly popular and recognizable ending theme Don’t Say Lazy to commemorate their third anniversary. It’s quite fitting because simply, SCANDAL “lived the life” glorified by K-ON!, going from a completely unknown group of high school girls, to giving live performances, balancing schoolwork with the labors associated with being in a band, to (ok, maybe they went a little farther than K-ON! did) becoming a smash hit and going on international tours. Every teenage kid who picks up a guitar and starts a band in their garage has this dream of ascension though the indie scene in their minds. Stateside, punk-rocking, hormone driven teens may not exactly be thinking about K-ON! and SCANDAL but the basic idea is the same.

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*ding dong*

Oh, hi there. Thanks for coming to Desu ex Machina in your annual costumed pagan inspired candy run. Dasaku is a decent neighborhood of trick-or-treating, but only if you know what the good houses are. The old man at Mega Megane Moe, the house down the street, never answers his doorbell. Cokematic gives out cans of soda, he’s that strange man in every neighborhood that thinks soda-pop constitutes as a treat, and that house around the corner is kinda scary. Definitely wanna hit up the house across the street, however. Xephfyre gives out extra candy to Fate/Stay night cosplayers and even copies of Together with House-Husband. Yes, books on Halloween. How many times have you seen that. The dude at the house all the way at the end of the street is psyched for Halloween, with decorations and everything. He’s handing out eroge, so I’m not sure parents want their kids heading over there.

Before I continue, excuse me. This is obligatory.

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I know you instantaneously clicked in as soon as your read the title. Who wouldn’t? It’s the divine combination of Naruto and hardcore rap, dawg. It’s a tad old (a few months ago) and I found this on a forum and I thought I would share. Did I mention this is a combination of Naruto and rap?

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I’m moving back to college tomorrow morning. I’m getting an apartment with my friend, which means I finally get my own bedroom and private space. This means I can finally watch anime without giving a damn who is walking into the room. The bad news is that I don’t get internet installed until Wednesday, so I’ll be without internet for an uncomfortably long time. I guess this means I’ll be catching up on a lot of anime. So here is my final blog post for like five or so days.

Watching anime purely for Engrish is actually not a wasted endeavor. The folks on Danbooru have even apparently started to translate Engrish as if it were another language (work safe). Producers and directors can spend thousands of manhours creating, drawing, animating, and writing an episode, working with musicians to create a perfectly functional piece of music for an opening or ending theme. And in the following cases, apparently, no one in the studio spoke a lick of English. I guess since they assume the audience are just random Japanese people it doesn’t really matter.

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