Hirano Aya's first full album comes out on 16 July, and the name of the album will be...Riot Girl.I can't help but compare this with the original Riot Grrrl movement. To quote Wikipedia: "Riot grrrl...is an underground feminist punk movement that started in the early 1990s.... Riot grrrl bands often address issues such as rape, domestic abuse, sexuality, and female empowerment. Some bands associated with the movement are: Bikini Kill, Bratmobile, Le Tigre, Excuse 17, Free Kitten...."Aya's rock can be a little rough around the edges, but nowhere near as rough as, say, Bratmobile (YouTube). Once again, much as I like Aya's music, she seems a bit of a wannabe at this punk stuff -- which, if you watch the Bratmobile video, might be a good thing.In any case, the album will feature a number of Aya's old songs (Breakthrough, Bouken Desho Desho, last year's three singles, etc.), as well as some original material. (click photos to enlarge, mouseover for captions)But this album is far from the only thing Aya is doing these days. She is busier than ever. Besides starring in two current anime -- Nijuumensou no Musume and Zettai Karen Children -- Aaya has been doing live events, appearing on radio and TV, doing PS2 games, has a couple of interesting drama CDs coming up, and is already slated for one fall anime and three summer OVAs. In anime, both Nijuumensou no Musume and Zettai Karen Children will go right through the summer. A Lucky Star OVA will be released sometime this summer. And Aya appears in Macross Frontier as the Indian crew member Mina.She will appear in future episodes of the OVA Amuri in Star Ocean as Femina. The next episode of the show will be released on July 25. She will also appear in the OVA series School Rumble 3 as Sasakura Youko, with an episode scheduled for release on 27 July. She will also play, alongside Miyano Mamoru (Light) and Takeuchi Junko (Naruto), in Eguzamurai, an OVA featuring members of the pop group EXILE. Release date will be sometime in July.In the fall, she will be in the mecha anime Kurogane no Linebarrels, in the supporting role of Mika, alongside an all-star cast including Noto Mamiko, Kakihara Tetsuya, Nakamura Yuuichi, Fukuyama Jun, Sawashiro Miyuki, Ueda Kana, Kugimiya Rie, Nakata Jouji, Ohara Sayaka, Saitou Chiwa, and Shitaya Noriko. In her work as a "personality" and idol there is her second idol DVD, Love Story, which came out last month. She continues to host two radio shows: Animelo Mix and Say Good Luck.And she appears every Friday as host of the hour-long film review and interview corner of the Web TV show Midtown TV. Her segment is called "Cinema Renaissance, Princess Aya's Castle." She dresses in a new outfit each week and is co-host with three guys. Her Moegaku 5 kids' show is over, but the DVD of the entire series will go on sale at the beginning of August. In pure voiceover work, her voice is still heard weekly on the NHK edutainment program Kaitai Shin Show. But I'm not sure if these are new progams or repeats.And having been one of the subjects of NHK's Anime Giga interview show, on 2 June she will get the honor of appearing on the NHK show Top Runner, which broadcasts features on top performers in the arts. The week before will feature the band Acidman, and the week after will do photographer Ume Kayo. The show's feature from a few years ago on singer Onitsuka Chihiro turned me on to this show.In live events, she has already been busy. There was a recent Galaxy Angel live event. And she had a mini-live in March connected with the three singles she released last fall. And another in April for the release of her single unnamed world, the Nijuumensou no Musume ED. There will be an event for the Love Story DVD in Tokyo on 22 June. And she will be in Animelo Summer Live 2008, along with Mizuki Nana, Ali Project, Suara, Savage Genius and a long list of other top anime music acts. Let's hope she can do a better job than last year, when she had microphone problems and then was far from her best singing live. In games, she continues to do only all-ages games. She is in a DS Katekyousha Hitman reborn game that came out at the beginning of May. The PS2 game Akaneiro ni Somaru Saka comes out Thursday in Japan. She will be in a Memories Off PS2 game that comes out in July. A Railway Girls DS game will come out this fall. The PS3 version of Trusty Bell will be out sometime this year. And a Wii version of Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu is in the works.It's one of her two upcoming drama CDs that interests me most. On 24 July, she will appear with Tai Yuuki, Yamamoto Maria, and Kanda Akemi in Gakuen Sousei Nekoten (学園創世猫天). But before that, on June 25, she will appear in a drama CD version of the popular TV dorama Ima, Ai ni Yukimasu with Ishida Akira and Ogata Megumi. In the story, a boy's mother dies, but he remembers the story she wrote for him, about a mother who died but promised to reappear at a certain time and place. The boy and his dad go there and find her, but she has no memory of her life with them. Aya has the lead role of the mother. I certainly hope this becomes an anime, because the story is moving, and the mainly serious role would give Aya another character to really sink her teeth into.So far this year, the two best female lead seiyuu performances I have seen are Koshimizu Ami as Horo in Wolf & Spice, and Aya as Chiko in Nijuumensou no Musume. If this show becomes an anime, I have hopes that Aya could reach similar heights again.
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Hirano Aya will play Yukiko in a new Lupin III OVA, Green vs. Red, which is due out in April.This is the 40th anniversary production for the classic franchise, which includes numerous manga, TV anime, feature films, direct-to-video releases, television specials, music CDs, video games, and a musical, as well as a Hollywood movie, slated to come out in 2009.This spring, Aya will also be in a Fist of the North Star OVA, as well as the series Zettai Karen Children.She is currently hosting Moegaku 5, a language-learning program for kids, five days a week on TV. Starting February 1, she will co-host a weekly variety TV show about movies, called Cinema Renaissance -- Aaya City 「キネマルネッサンス　あ～や城」 on Midtown TV on the web TV channel GyaO.She is in the game Appreach Majyan (associated with Final Approach 2) of which a version is now available for free download from Princess Soft. She is billed fifth in the cast, after Katou Emiri, Sendai Eri, Toyoguchi Megumi, and Hisakawa Aya.She does the voice of a cat (or maybe cats) in the film Honjitsu no Nekojijyo, which comes out on DVD 22 February.She plays Ilona in the animated part of the film Renaissance, which is now on sale in DVD.She plays the fairy Emily in a Hello Kitty anime now on TV in Japan on Kitty's Paradise: Apple Forest - Parallel Town.And she is host or co-host of three different current radio shows: Animelo Mix, Say Good Luck, and the radio show for the game Ramen Angel Pretty Menma, in which she is Menma.She will appear in a Galaxy Angelune live show on 27 February. And she will have her own mini-lives for last fall's CD singles on march 1 in Osaka and March 15 in Tokyo.And there are more versions of Suzumiya Haruhi games coming out. There was a wild rumor that she was giving up the character Haruhi, but her presence in the new games puts the lie to that. Rumors are that the second Haruhi anime series will start either this fall or next spring.All these bits and pieces add up to a lot of work, but it is not straight anime work. Cast lists for spring anime are just appearing, so she may be in more than one show.Her idol work continues apace, however. She is in Guam right now for some kind of photo-shoot.The photos on her blog have suddenly become larger. She says that she has a new cellphone, and by checking the posted photos with the program Exif Reader, I can say that it is an NTT DoCoMo N905i, which features a 5mpx camera with face detection.I found out about Exif Reader from the 2channel Aaya thread, where someone used it to show that the photos of a Christmas party she posted on Christmas Day were actually shot December 21. The poster and others came to the conclusion, from other blog posts, that she spent Christmas alone, eating Italian food. Lol. What a world is 2channel.
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After 2 or 3 episodes, the new season of Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei seems to lead the pack, with true tears, Yattaman, and Shigofumi next, but far behind.Spice & Wolf, Persona, and Rosario to Vampire come next, with others strung out behind. It's hard to gauge how popular Minami-ke O-kawari is, since it is simply continuing the original series' threads (and is on its 96th).Here is a rough list showing which thread each show is currently on. Each completed thread represents about 1000 posts.Zoku Zetsubou Sensei 67 True Tears 17 Yattaman 13Shigofumi 11 Spice & Wolf 9 Persona 8 Rosario to Vampire 8 Hakaba Kitarou 7 KimiAru 7 ARIA the Origination 6 H2O 6 Hakuten Yuugi 3Major 4 3 Ayakashi 2Moegaku 5 1 true tears is getting the attention I think it deserves. Yattaman's popularity shows the effect of its long history. With all its faults, I enjoy Ayakashi more than 2channel does. Major and Hakuten Yuugi's low popularity are a further demonstration of 2channel's allergy to any anime that can be classed as shoujo.Moegaku 5 is more an educational variety show than an anime show, even though it has an anime element.A show or two may be missing since I included only the top 100 most recently posted-to threads.
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This winter, Aaya is hosting a daily 15-minute language-learning show ostensibly for kids called Moegaku 5 もえがく★５. Not something that will keep you glued to the screen, but amusing and useful in its way.And next April, she will star in a new "action comedy" anime called Zettai Children. In between, of course, she will be in the new one-episode Fist of the North Star OVA that comes out in late March. A new Suzumiya Haruhi series is expected either this fall or early next year. Moegaku 5 starts with an anime of about 7-8 minutes, set in Akihabara. The anime features foreigners speaking words from a foreign language: Monday English, Tuesday Korean, Wednesday Spanish, Thursday Chinese, Friday French. Aaya voices the big maid character.Then Aaya sits down with a child who is a native speaker of the language but also knows Japanese and the child teaches her three words or expressions from the anime, correcting her until she gets them right. Finally, there is a session with a team of rope-skippers, in which they and Aaya and the child dance and skip as they repeat the words learned on the show. Here's Aaya learning Spanish, from YouTube. And here's the anime for the first week's French lesson, including the anime OP.The words taught seem to be either very idiomatic or direct approximations to Japanese, and not the usual words you see in language teaching. Such as Spanish "hasta la proxima" or Chinese "chuci jianmian 初次见面 (that "ci 次" gave Aaya a lot of trouble）. I think the value of the show could be mainly in making young kids familiar with the idea of a foreign language, and with some foreign sounds. The skipping and chanting in particular, weird as they seem, may be useful. As Aaya said in her blog when these first episodes were being recorded late last year, the kids can be hard taskmasters. The little Chinese girl in particular wouldn't let her get away with pronunciation that was too bad. In fact, I think Aaya is doing okay -- with everything except pronouncing Chinese. It ain't easy for any non-Chinese, so she can be forgiven.The kids are not the greatest dancers -- again with the exception of the little Chinese girl, who is clearly a ball of fire.Especially in the opening, Aaya uses her highest and most artificial voice. I personally can't stand it, but it follows a Japanese norm for manic entertainments of this kind. The manic presentation comes down a bit when she is sitting there actually trying to get the pronunciation right, so there is hope.Aaya also wrote in her blog that she was exhausted from the rope-skipping and dancing. She clearly takes the easy way out in the little bit of skipping she does on-screen.In news of a possibly more interesting show, Aaya will star in a new "action comedy" this coming April. It is Zettai Children, which is from a popular manga involving three girls who have super-powers, and the young man who manages them as they solve mysteries and problems.Aya will be the main girl, Kaoru, who has telekinetic powers and can also teleport herself short distances. The pic is from the manga's official site. No news yet of who the staff will be.Starring with her will be Kamiya Hiroshi (Zetsubou Sensei), Shiraishi Ryouko, and Kanda Akemi.
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Usually, the fun of Nico Nico is watching the comments from the peanut gallery. I was watching the anime portion of Moegaku 5 (think Moetan but with more weeaboos) on there, and I laughed at how the English lessons were “translated”, so “Hajimemashite” was translated as “nice to meet you” on the show, was [...]
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Hirano Aya made a quick trip to Hawaii last weekend for a photo-shoot. She found it beautiful, but a bit chillier than she expected. Click photos to enlarge. She enjoyed some bits of American commerce (below): a hamburger as big as her head, and a big Disney store, where she bought pajamas, among other things. "I want to be a kid again." She says that girls' sizes for 8-10-year-olds or 10-12-year-olds seemed to fit her. Below left is her New Year's picture, with which she wished everyone a happy new year on January 1. And here are a couple of pics from late December: one from a photo-shoot, and one that shows her eating dinner at a restaurant. Is that the "real" Aya? All these photos are from Aya's blog. There were some great shots in late December. She even did a photo-shoot as Alice in Wonderland. She wrote that when she lived in the US as a toddler, she won a Halloween costume contest as Alice, so she feels a connection with her. She laughed that the right-hand picture is "disgusting." Finally, here are some pics of Aya with her family's dog Chibi-chan ("Midget"), also known as Chibi Taikun ("Lord Midget"). She says it's a seven-year-old male "wiener dog," and she loves it, and it loves its "big sister" Aya. Personally, I find kissing dogs fairly disgusting, but since it's Aya.... Besides the continuing stream of TV appearances and photo shoots, Aya's main work this month is as host of Moegaku 5 (もえがく★５), a daily 15-minute TV show that teaches kids languages. She also voices a character in the animated part of the show.
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