Jumping in Headfirst

Another of my brief rants. I'll be adding these periodically as they come up, and do my best to keep them short 'cause I hate it when people go on and on in cases like this. We get it. You're angry. Go shoot something in a video game and calm the fck down. Anyhow. You know what really grinds my gears? The complaints about superheroes dominating the comic book industry. Don't get me wrong, its definitely true, but to hear these people talk, they sound like they'd be happy if superheroes were wiped out from comics entirely. ...Word, son? So then comics can be a respectable medium of storytelling like the others? And on top of that, exactly the same, too. Filled with the exact same genres except with nowhere near as interesting stories. Brilliant. Don't get me wrong--I don't hate ALL indy comics. Vertigo frequently comes out with some gems, and I really enjoy a lot of the licensed comics coming out of BOOM! and IDW, and I'm giving thought to che...

Here we are again. Its been awhile since I've done one of these, or it seems like its been awhile. Troubles with my connection have been making me pull back on anime a bit. Hopefully that won't last for much longer. As always, the giant chart is posted above. (Click it to get the full image.) Or go here . (More HQ version.) I actually haven't read it yet, so this will be a new experience for all of us! Queen's Blade: Heir to the Throne Brief Summary: The super fanservice-y show from this Spring returns with a sequel! (...Scraping the bottom of the barrel, aren't we?) You know the deal: There's a competition to decide the next Queen, where the winner will be allowed to rule, while the contestants need only be older than 12. They can be from any race, or country. Why I'm Interested: Well...why not? The first one, as I understand it, was full of complete insanity, so the second should be the same, if not crank it up a notch. After all at this poi...

Whew. All this young person stuff is starting to get to me. Let's go for something from a little further back than this decade to finish out this week. And here we are, with The Queen of Music (I could've stuffed this entire week with her stuff...seriously) and one of her really early songs from her very first album, Gyuu. That places this song at about...1994, or so? Back when NGE was just another giant robot series. Back before people knew what a "digisub" was. And, in a way, back when anime was almost...magical to us folks over here in the West. Kind of a golden age, really. Heh, 'course, all that's quite before my time. Really when this song first came out I was still watching Power Rangers and Spider-Man: The Animated Series. But, a few years later, right around the time the anime boom was really hitting America (1999-2000), I started watching one of my favorite series, Sorcerer Hunters. Lovely show I'll talk about more later, but, much li...

Koihime Musou is one of those series that can ONLY come from Japan, with all of its harems and cute schoolgirls with infinite hammerspace capabilities. The Romance of the Three Kingdoms characters...all reimagined either as busty warrior girls or lolicons, and all of them in skimpy outfits. This would drive your average "artsy" anime fan a bit batty, but if you have a sense of humor, this is JUST amusing enough to be addicting. And this incredibly upbeat song by fripSide is the perfect opening.

Of course, sweet as Cosmic Love is (literally, it seems, according to the video), it doesn't come close to the face-burning off pwnery that is Dancing in the Velvet Moon. R+V's end theme, Nana dumps all the cutesy stuff and earns her Sage-bestowed Princess of Music title and shows us her vocal range with what is almost a complete 180 of Cosmic Love. Dancing in the Velvet Moon's epic, almost symphony-like music, paired with Mizuki's voice comes very close to being one of my favorite anime-related songs of all time. Enjoy. ....Gotta give the girl her props. She knows when and where to put the drama. Love her dress, too. (That is probably the most metrosexual thing I've ever said. ...Hopefully, I can keep it that way.)

I feel my Princess of Music hasn't gotten enough attention on here. Its impossible to unseat Masami-chan , but Nana Mizuki would be the one to do it if anyone were to, and because of that she's earned the title of Princess of Music from me. My first introduction to Mizuki-chan was the fanservice (and panties)-laden Rosario to Vampire, where she voiced the main love interest, Akashiya Moka. I've never been the type to pay much attention to seiyuu, but when I noticed she also did the peppy opening song to the series, Cosmic Love, that's when I sat up and took notice.

Sousei! Gattai! GO! AQUARION!!! Haha, I really don't get tired of that. Just such a great sync phrase. Aquarion is one of the few ACTUAL Super Robot series left. Everybody's too busy looking at shit like Code Geass or Macross or Gundam (NONE OF WHICH HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH SUPER ROBOTS...aside from G) and calling that Super Robot lately. Oh well. Akino's second OP for Aquarion is just as awesome as the first, so enjoy folks!s

...Freaking Hyde. You suck, dude. No joke. Hyde never has to do another good song for the rest of his life (though he has), and the sheer, nuts-shattering AWESOMENESS of Driver's High will STILL provide him with cool points. Even the freaking video is top quality. *sighs* Carry on, you obnoxiously talented bastard. Carry on.

Another case of a seiyuu singing. This one's the character song for Sonsaku Hakufu, protagonist of Ikki Tousen. Another case of harmonization reeling me in, but...do you not hear that guitar riff? Its the PERFECT song to play while you're kicking the crap out of someone in your favorite fighting game. (Incidentally, Sonsaku Hakufu has got to be one of the most ridiculous protagonists in a shounen-type series ever.)

Code Geass' first opening. FLOW is a very interesting rock band, to me. Much like L~Arc, normally I can take them or leave them. But every now and again, they'll get on the right anime OP and rip it. You gotta admire that, on some levels. Granted, Code Geass sucks, but we'll get into that later.

Ah, Japan. This whole thing totally threw me at first. I'm used to them bringing in either nameless singers or big-name guys (see: Phil Collins) for songs in animation series or movies, but in Japan they usually try to get the actual stars of the series to do at least ONE song for the series, often times either doing a song specifically related to their character, or doing the opening or the ending song of the series. Occasionally, they'll even drag all the seiyuus together into a room and make them do the opening/ending song as a group. Bamboo Blade's Star Rise is one such case. You'd think this would be awful, as carrying a tune is not a skill all humans possess. Generally though, they seem to know when and where to do this, though either way I usually bail on these things. However, I AM a sucker for good harmonization, something these girls have in spades. So, enjoy!

First day of the new month. Let's try a little something different here at JiH, hm? Its all anime songs week! For the next five days you'll be getting my favorite anime openings and endings. For today, hope you all are in the mood for some J-Pop!