Month: April 2022

May is my favourite month, Nagi has my favourite lore, Liella is my fa…oh, hang on a minute – Musings #7

Posted on by eonleader

1. By next week, we’ll be into the midst of a huge month’s worth of lives. There’s all sorts going off here, some of which I’ll cover as they come up and as they happen. Let’s just take a look at some of the highlights:

Firstly, for Golden Week, two days of Uma lives. About as prominent as lives get in the current climate, this should maintain its status as chief headline-grabber among franchises in the modern age. All manner of seiyuu are pencilled in over the course of the two days, promising a great degree of variance to go with it. You won’t be able to hear of anything else on these two days. Good job I’ll be too busy to pay it any mind, then. Our extra holiday’s on the Monday prior, as it turns out.

In the middle of the month, Bannam Fes. Now this right here is a mega-bucks cast list. The embarrassment of riches scheduled throughout the two days of this boggles the mind. A top-notch representation from CG, given how little they’re actually bringing. Million Live’s endlessly brilliant stoplight trio. A good chunk of the OG13. Everyone from Shinymas (barring the lovely Mariko Nagai). A full house from Denonbu. Solid showings from all the Niji members on both days of the live (with the exception of the beleaguered Tomori Kusunoki). Fuckin’ Liella. Oh, and a few members of Aquors, for what that’s worth. But one of them is Arisha, at least! If there was one event I could want a stream of more than any other, it would be this one. I suspect I won’t get it. More’s the pity.

i☆Ris’ huge 7th live tour also starts this month, stretching all the way into July. Whether I’ll be able to take in any of the lives from there remains to be seen. I suspect that’ll be reserved for their 10th anniversary live later in the year, which is gonna be an absolute monster no matter what. Miyutan’s gonna be putting in a hell of a lot of work this month, by the way. What an idol she is.

Here’s the other real big name event for me, though. D4Fes, featuring everyone in the cast. Even bearing in mind Bushiroad’s continued bumbling management of its lives, in which they’re dragging the great and the good of the fandom all the way out to FujiQ again for some reason, I’ll still be looking to take in streams of both days. Quite apart from all the big names I love showing up here, it hopefully means I’ll be able to remember what got me so hooked on this in the first place, much like the CG live recently. Not that my D4DJ phase lasted anywhere near as long. There’s a lot wrong with it at the moment deep down, but this will be a glorious reminder that its potential is undeniable. Just give it to an organisation that knows how to make the most of it and it might just have something to cling on to for the distant future.

Even Liella’s getting in on the act again with a solo live of theirs – an MTV Unplugged live, no less. Sadly, as with their last live, the timing couldn’t be worse. I’ll be working when they’re performing Friday and busy watching D4DJ Saturday. Because for all the love I’ve given them, they still don’t have Amita. Luckily, they’ve got a huge batch of events coming up in June to satiate my appetite… Or will they?

2. Finding past lore of Liella members seemed limited exclusively to Liyuu and Naomi Payton. The former’s back catalogue is quite eye-opening, if not exactly unexpected. Peering into Pay-chan’s early career as an idol, meanwhile, is rather more alarming. Not as alarming as what I found with a third member of the group, though.

It was nothing more than a casual Googling of Nagisa Aoyama that brought it up. Unsighted up until now, a recommended image search for her offered up the term ‘beauty pageant’. I thought at first it might be ironic. This, after all, is The Eventual Most Beautiful Person In The World. Or perhaps it was a photoshoot of her I had somehow missed. How wrong I was.

There it was, irrefutable proof that Nagi-chan had indeed appeared in a beauty contest once upon a time. One of the biggest in the country, in fact. But the entrant they were detailing out was not Nagisa Aoyama.

That beauty pageant entrant was someone by the name of Nagisa Saito. But there’s no mistaking it. That’s who we all know and love as Nagisa Aoyama.

Yes, that’s right, we have a real name situation upon us. Of course, there aren’t many real names going around this industry, and people have changed identities before. For instance, even The Actual Most Beautiful Person In The World hasn’t always been known as ‘Suzuko Mimori’. But there’s still something quite enticing about finding out someone’s previous identity, and their past with it. Especially when you’ve known them pretty much since the start of their time as a seiyuu, as I have done with Nagi. Her at an actual beauty pageant, though? That’s almost too on the nose.

Mind you, I don’t know how I didn’t find this sooner. Especially as she’s literally mentioned it in passing during interviews as well.

You know what’s craziest of all? She only won second prize in this contest. The judges genuinely looked at The Future Most Beautiful Person In The World and went “You know what? I think we can do better here.” The winner must have paid off the judges. There can be no other explanation. (In actuality, the winner is pretty good. But she’s not Nagsy.)

It doesn’t end there, though. With her successes on the beauty contest front came some actual endorsements. Most notably, her deal with Over Excellent which is still going now. She’d also been doing some livestreams on Showroom up until September of 2020.

The thing is, if you actually search for ‘Nagisa Saito’, you get a Japanese idol. So she had a practical reason to change name. Presumably she wasn’t willing to go all Minami Takahashi on us. If you type in the more accurate ‘斎藤 渚’, though, then you get the full look behind the curtain. There’s instances of her mentioning that she wants to be an actress (note the absence of the word ‘voice’ in that). And especially prominent is this little interview, where she chats about her ideal date at considerable length. You wouldn’t get away with that today, love. Oh, and she looks precisely as beautiful here as she does nowadays.

The incoherent noises I make whenever I find a new Nagi pic were especially noisy here.

If you want, you can even dig far enough to find what she used to put on her Twitter account under this name, or the odd picture where she actually doesn’t look like herself. But let’s not go there. That’s otaku level stuff.

If you want to see the last we knew of ‘Nagisa Saito’, here it is. A video uploaded the day before she was announced in Liella.

Confusingly, though, she’d already made her Twitter account and started working under her new name. Which meant she technically had two identities for a couple months.

So, there you go. Nagisa Aoyama really is beautiful enough for a pageant. It’s just you won’t find her in one. You’ll find the real Nagisa within. The truth is never too far away in this world. Finding it for someone you’ve known for her entire career, though, is the most intriguing of them all. It’s changed my view on Nagi, but if anything I feel quite validated by her past. Especially as she’s picked up where she left off.

Like I said: those photobook makers couldn’t be wrong. And they really weren’t.

3. Let’s see what Liyuu’s up to then, shall we?

…Whoa.

…Had you fooled there for a hot second, didn’t I? I know I was.

No, this is not Liyuu but fellow cosplayer – or so she says, her Instagram feed very much suggests ‘gravure idol’ these days – Enako. And this isn’t even as close as she’s looked to Liyuu. Check out her Instagram and you’ll find she’s basically been a dead ringer for her for years.

She is damn spicy, though. Which probably explains why she has 1.9 million Instagram followers. Not to mention a healthy and reasonably regularly updated YouTube channel. Look, she’s even playing GT7, so I don’t have to.

Of course, the real punchline to all this is that one of those myriad followers of hers is Liyuu herself. So perhaps they’re sharing tips between eachother. But then their paths will have crossed time and again on the cosplay circuit anyway so that’s not exactly a great surprise. In fact, there’s photo evidence of them together to prove they are not, in fact, the same person.

Not that you can tell this when they’re both in cosplay, of course.

But it’s not like Liyuu has been averse to more risqué shoots and/or costumes in the past. They’re all around if you look, and I shared that one Marisa cosplay here before that showed more than its fair share of skin. Plus what we’ve seen of her photobook so far may only be the top of the iceberg in that regard. But I wouldn’t expect her to go too far. Much as I’d love it, Liyuu doesn’t seem the type to go the full Rikako Aida. (Remind me that I went on record with that if she actually does go there.) But her style has always angled towards the more playfully understated side of the gravy train.

It’s always great to find another personality of this ilk to follow, though. Especially as Enako is technically a seiyuu as well. Albeit one who has only had two roles, in two anime you haven’t heard of. So calling her a seiyuu would be like calling me a footballer because I’ve played on my local five-a-side pitches before. I’m just not. And all activity for Enako has to play second fiddle to her irresistible charm. It’ll be good to keep up with her comings and goings, for what those are worth in Instagram terms. Alas, I already have a prime candidate for my favourite gravy idol at this moment in time. So much so I’ve got her latest photobook on its way to me now. But she’s not a seiyuu, so let’s move on.

4. …Oh, what’s this, more content from Liella? Oh, you shouldn’t have. You’re far too kind. What’s the news this time, girls?

…Oh. Right. I see how it is.

Remember all I said about how the five-girl formula had revitalised Love Live?

They have less members than the Love Live norm; just five in total (all first-years, incidentally). A perfectly good number. That, by itself, puts more focus on each of the characters in the group … Whether or not you prefer it is immaterial: the willingness to change in and of itself is a step in the right direction for the series’ mindset. A sign that it is willing to break free from the formula that has served it so well to date, and which it probably should have evolved around about the time they decided to can mu’s. But still, better late than never.

They feel like they’ve really turned a corner for the franchise. They absolutely champion the idea of shifting the formula in just the right way: ending up with something that’s the same, but different, in the best possible sense.

Yeah, all those words I wrote… You can take them on the floor and smash them to pieces, burn them to cinders and erase them from all consciousness.

I don’t want to be mean here. I really, really don’t. But man, seeing Love Live revert to type and turn Liella into just another 9-girl group…I’m crestfallen. It seems they just cannot wean themselves of this habit. They’ve relapsed. And it breaks my heart.

I hate that the new characters and seiyuu are going to be tarnished this way. Good luck to all the latter, who will appear on the June tour. But their addition will change the group irrevocably. And critically, they will take the superb dynamic the current five have formed with them. Losing that from the group is to take away the most critical part of their brilliance; their heart and soul, the very essence of Liella. Technically it’ll have the same, apart from the bits that’ll be different. And it’s all the different that will jar too much to bear.

I suppose there is a practical point to be made here. By giving the group extra members, it means they can start to cover for each other on their countless online streams. And they don’t have to all turn up to them any more. This is a point that can be noticed across the other three Love Live groups over time, as well. And it means the current five can stretch their legs a little beyond the currently demanding confines of Liella. God knows they’ve earned it. Sayurin has top-class voice acting and singing skills. Liyuu has also proven her worth as a brilliant seiyuu and is continuing to expand her solo profile yet further… Hell, she might even be able to get back to her roots and do some cosplaying with this. Nagi-chan is also becoming seriously hot property courtesy of having a personality to die for and being, as we’ve already established, at least The Second Most Beautiful Person In The World. We now know she wants to do some actual actressing, too. And if she does anything more, I sincerely hope she can take Nakonako along with her. That duo is one of the great combos when it comes to humour. Oh, and Paychan’s free from the grip of education as well, now she’s graduated. So she’s a free woman, as well.

I’m sure once this revelation blows over I’ll gather enough sense to stop feeling sorry for them and follow them wholeheartedly in their individual efforts. Nagi and Liyuu most of all, of course. But for them as a unit, as a joyous quintet, the moment is gone. The potential has been squandered on the altar of Love Live’s bad habits.

I had a lot of thoughts running through my head as I came to process all of this. Weirdly, the most pertinent was how hard it seems to be to find a seiyuu that doesn’t let you down, or gets let down by their franchises. Amita has done little in the way of meaningful content since her photobook’s release. Himi always comes up with the goods, but isn’t really in the same league as those on her level. And Nagi and Liyuu have had their main source of goodness harpooned. Which left me concluding with just how brilliant Hasshi is in this regard, again. This is what I meant when I said that Hasshi has become a ‘comfort’ seiyuu for me. She’ll never let you down. And that’s true to the point where, in my eyes, she’s come out looking better from something that has nothing to do with her. God knows how my mind came to think that way. But then that’s the way when it’s mostly full of nothing but deep, deep sadness.

Frankly, the only vibe I can think of to sum this up came from this set of pictures I was reminded of from that other trusty, if rather less popular oshi of mine.

5.

No comment. Because I’m too busy laughing.

Accidental crazy endings, and one true ending – Musings #6

Posted on by eonleader

Apologies for the severe lateness of what has now become last week’s musings. I was incredibly busy on all fronts from Thursday to Sunday, and I needed plenty of time to corral my thoughts on my first musing, then more time to adjust my second to account for the fact it had gone from ‘happening’ to ‘happened’.

1. I mourned the lack of games that were interesting me last time out and how sad it was that so many of my favourite series were dormant or had gone off the boil. Turns out that the very last game I mentioned has provided – albeit temporarily – a solution.

Needy Streamer Overload is the game I purchased in the middle of writing that up, for the reasonable price of £12.39. It was certainly worth it.

Spoilers within here, of course.

Read More

A loss of love in gaming – Musings #5

Posted on by eonleader

Before we begin, I should note that this isn’t about seiyuu or anime for once, as neither have given me much to shout about this week. But since I’m pretty much inclined to mention them in some way on every blog post this day, I’ll leave you with the one post this week that had me doing silly things and trying to stop me crying out in public. And, well, it was Mimo.

Most. Beautiful. In. The. World.

Right, that’s that out of the way. Moving on.

In my other blog, I recently touched upon how the latest instalment of my favourite series, Gran Turismo, had put into stark reality how outdated its concept looked in a modern context, and how, for a series where I had heavily played each of its games to some degree, I had found myself barely touching GT7. This is all very disappointing. And it got me thinking about which of my favourite series and/or genres were really doing it for me at this stage, if any. Is there a possibility that there is no game doing for me at all, at this moment in time?

Looking at each of my favourites on a case-by-case basis, let’s start by considering which is closest to how I like it best. Unusually, right now, I think it might be Metroid. This, of course, is on account of its most recent release, Metroid Dread, which signalled the first entirely new 2D entry to the series (as opposed to the remakes Zero Mission and Samus Returns) for close to 20 years. It’s unmistakably brilliant. Filled with action and a properly fluid game to play. The trouble is, I’ve never been particularly good at these games at the best of time. I was a pretty dab hand at Zero Mission at some point, but that was about it. And without that extra bit of ability to really play the game well, nor the time to improve on it, comes less time and will to end up playing the game with. It’s a great game, but not one I’d drop everything else to play.

The last game that I did that for in any capacity was probably Pokemon BDSP. I actually contemplated blogging about it here, but not necessarily for all the right reasons. That’s because the ever-helpful Pokemon fandom was giving it a hammering it didn’t deserve. In truth, Pokemon itself probably deserved it at the time. That’s thanks to SwSh, truly the most denigrating, insulting entry any series may have had brought upon itself. The carry-over from that was clear, but BDSP itself was absolutely fine. Fears about a total lack of changes from the original were unfounded, as the Grand Underground spiced things up nicely, gym leaders were given some gnarly movesets and the post-game was vastly improved. It struck the right balance between faithfulness to the original and new content, in a manner much like HGSS – which I suspect a lot of people would broadly consider the absolute apex of Pokemon’s powers.

A lot of the saltiness behind BDSP actually felt like leakers being made to look foolish by the initial version actually hiding a lot of the real content, with it being added in a day 1 patch. Mind you, that day 1 patch still had bugs in it that brought glitchiness to a level genuinely not seen since Gen 1. Ironically that might have added more fun to the proceedings, not that it necessarily looked great. Unlike Gen 1, though, this is an era where patching is possible and thus those glitches have been consigned to history now.

The thing is, though, that BDSP’s limelight was stolen by the other game that came not long after it, Pokemon Legends Arceus. This was billed as the most transformative addition to the series ever, with a real genre shift towards actually catching Pokemon outside a battle context. And it was received very well indeed. So much so that the revamped style will form the basis of the next game and, indeed, generation, via Pokemon Scarlet and Violet. It feels ludicrous to me to think we’re already at Gen 9. As if they’re coming far too quickly for comfort. In reality, the time frame for this one is bang on schedule relative to the introduction of new generations. Which leads a little bit into my next point.

That being, while I’m very happy that the ever more unpleasable fandom is pleased, the new style is just not my kind of thing. I’m happy with PLA’s plot, insomuch as it brings Pokemon back to the roots of its tagline – ‘Gotta catch ’em all’ – by asking you to form the first Pokedex, and rewarding you in ways no Pokemon game has ever done before. But Pokemon to me will always be defined by its classic battle system – the sort of system that has become totally ingrained in my psyche over the years. And it’s hard to get onboard with a game where that isn’t present. Yes, I know battles are still very much there but, in revamping the way you play Pokemon, they took the opportunity to revamp the battle system as well.

I won’t begrudge Pokemon the opportunity to make more games in this style, but it does make me feel that Pokemon is no longer at one with me any more. It was always a trustworthy series to lean on for a bit of fun, and to be fair each of the first five gens remains so. But before ditching its tried and tested formula so readily, Nintendo, Game Freak, The Pokemon Company et al would do well to remember what got it this far in the first place. I suspect it will be back some day. We just might have to wait a while. And hopefully it comes in a package worthy of the series’ name. Not what we got with its last new versions for each of the past three generations.

I suppose there may be a spinoff around that does it for me. Something like Mystery Dungeon DX. That was fun for a bit. But nothing like that’s on the way either. And I did play Pokemon Unite for a little bit, and what I did play of that was quite enjoyable. But again, enjoyable enough to take up on a full-time basis? No.

So Pokemon’s not doing it for me either. I’m through with Touhou now, for this blog’s sins, and either way ZUN’s releases of shmups have slowed to a crawl relative to the peak of the series. The problem is that there’s nothing in its sphere to fill its place now. Because, as it turns out, I’m through with gacha games as well. Obviously I ditched iM@s’ instalments a while back, and its favoured son of Shinymas has the sort of gameplay I’m not interested in either. D4DJ filled the mantle for a time, except I haven’t played that for ages, either. So much so, that I wasn’t even bothered about losing my 100% Ibuki record by not getting her recent birthday card. Oh well, there’s always next year. If there even is a next year. The motivation of some of its cast is highly questionable. Most of all in its best group, Photon Maiden. Imagine letting all that potential go to waste. Unbelievable. DoAX:VV was only something to casually enjoy at best for me, and now that DMM has locked its player out from Japan, I can’t enjoy it at all. (You’re supposed to be able to get round it with a VPN, but my VPN of choice doesn’t seem to work.) And nothing else is blowing my frock up, not least Love Live, whose great white hope in SIFAS is looking dead in the water. Again, the fact they have included Liella in the relic that is SIF, but not SIFAS, is truly extraordinary. No other gacha game, meanwhile, is of a suitable genre for me. Plus I’m way less inclined to spend on them than I was in my Deresute days. Which is a good thing, obviously.

It probably doesn’t help that a lot of my favourite series are dead in the water right now. If I had a new Mega Man, Punch-Out!!, Mother or F-Zero game to look forward to, I’d lap those up in an instant. But none is forthcoming for any of them. And any series I’ve played that would have a game forthcoming has its reputation in the toilet.

Nowhere is this more obvious than in the sports game world, which now has its very own holy trinity of series to hate – FIFA, Madden and NBA 2K. More than ever, these three have been found out for what they are – yearly updates that actually update nothing, but rip gamers off with the full price for a game and then take yet more with microtransactions and the kind of behaviour that encourages people to spend on them. The trouble is, there are too many millions around the world who will never clock that, and so the cycle these three are in may never be broken. FIFA will never get back to around its modern peak – I’m thinking 12-13 here. It genuinely hasn’t moved the needle at all since then. Madden has been long gone for a while – you probably have to go back even further than FIFA for its last solid instalment. And as for NBA 2K, even as recently as 2K17 or so that was reputable enough, until their makers saw the almighty dollar before them and went for it like nothing else before or since. That’s why my sports game of choice these days is Football Manager. Not least because its brand of sports gaming is more up my street. But even that has struggled to inspire me this year. Possibly due to a lack of inspiration from actual football (and I have my team essentially conceding their season in November, and being as shambolic as I’ve ever seen them, to thank for that). And, while touching on racing games will be saved for my other blog, that only really applies to the serious simulation ones. More arcade affairs that usually hook me in – Ridge Racer, Wipeout and Need for Speed – aren’t offering anything right now, either. Especially not the lattermost, which has failed to inspire with each and every one of its efforts since 2006.

That leaves only the rest of the standard mainstream offerings. But which, if any of those, has really looked inviting to me on a consistent basis? There’s only a couple I can think of. And one of those is the most obvious pick of all in Mario. But that’s never going to be able to innovate, captivate and excite in the manner it could back in the days of SMW, SM64, Sunshine and even Galaxy, both in 2D and 3D form. So that’s not going to hook me in either.

The only other series that has come close to managing that level of interest for me is Final Fantasy. That’s a series that did manage to release something to hook me in recently enough, in FF15. But that leant in nicely to the nostalgia that Final Fantasy had built for itself. It also carried a vibe not dissimilar to my favourite game in the series, FF8, which helped a bunch. But that nostalgia still comes from the series’ peak – which was a very long time ago. Of course, it went right in with FF7R, which really should have caught my eye as well. And yet it didn’t. Partly that was down to bad luck – it came around during peak lockdown, when I had other things to be worrying about (because I was actually going in to our office at that time). Partly, it’s because I’ve never actually really felt as great a connection to FF7 as with other games – possibly because the original hasn’t aged particularly well. And partly, it’s because it was never going to be the full monty, and we’d inevitably have to wait for the whole game to be made available, with the time Square Enix takes to make a game. And that problem has been compounded by FF16 ostensibly being a thing now as well, which will probably take another thousand years to be released. And that looks as if it’ll be closer to the old-school fantasy style which has never really been my thing. And it’ll be in the undoubtedly successful but more copybook and identikit style of action RPG that many games have taken onboard now. Frankly, returning to the days of FF4, FF6 and FF8 won’t happen. So be it.

The last truly great game that got my attention from outside my main interests was Smash Ultimate. But then it would have done, because that stands as a possible contender for the greatest game of all time. And it stands especially well as a metaphor for how they managed to squeeze so much fun onto one tiny game card. Unbelievable, incredible stuff.

So what I need is something new to hook me in and light my fire. But most of the more prominent new offerings haven’t managed that yet either. I would have bought the Elden Ring just on the balance of its sheer success, but that would have relied on me having a next-gen console. And that’s another problem in itself which has potentially contributed to this. The plight of stock for PS5s (the Xbox isn’t really a factor while I have a laptop that can handle anything that would have been exclusive before) has made it less rewarding to stay in top of the latest gaming developments. I’m ostensibly following an account which should notify me any time new stock in the UK crops up: in practice, it has not notified me once. Not great when stock comes up while I’m at work, or at an ungodly hour of the day. And the problem has been such that a lot of PS5 games have been forced to been put back on PS4 as well, which somewhat undermines the need to get a PS5 at all.

While I have a worthy gaming laptop, it’s filled to the brim right now and there isn’t room for a modern-sized game these days. So the Elden Ring certainly isn’t going to fit on that. And in any case, the PC launch of the game had the opposite problem to that other much-hyped game of late, Cyberpunk 2077, which was hugely blighted on consoles. For Elden Ring, it was the PC version that had to bite the brutal bullet of a glitchy release. Even with that fixed though, I’d probably not be much cop at the game, especially with how difficult it is. The only original series in this bracket to attract me at any stage within the past handful of years is Overwatch. But I came to that way too late to make that worthwhile.

I could try and turn to the indie game side, but that’s cluttered as hell now and there are few diamonds in the rough. I mean, the updated re-release of DDLC was only gonna sustain me for so long. If an indie game is really to hit me, though, it would have to be on a par with my favourite of them all, which is VVVVVV. I saw Needy Streamer Overload recently, and that looked quite enticing. But I was too busy to pick that up at the time and now it’s probably too late.

What this is, more than anything, is a call to arms for a game to come along and get me really into this interest again. Right now, it’s lagging behind – and badly. Whether this does come in the form of something new, or something that was hiding in plain sight, I don’t know. I’d just like something I can get my hands on and sink some time into. And I’d like your help on this, in finding something to interest me. Based on everything I’ve said above, has anyone got anything for me? Anybody know?

A gentle reminder that the best will always be the best – Musings #4

Posted on by eonleader

This week, a one-topic edition of my musings. It’s on the main focus of my weekend, the Cinderella Girls’ 10th anniversary live tour finale. Because you don’t get too many of their lives very often, and because, as it turns out, they’re useful reminders that they are still the pinnacle of their profession.

1. As I covered at length last time round, I missed Saturday’s live thanks to giving myself actual work to do. As it turned out, I could have watched at least the first hour of it, but that’s how these things go. And as if to prove that point, I promptly missed about the first hour of Sunday’s live as well thanks to oversleeping. Good job I didn’t miss any of my favourite bits there, then.

But before we get to those favourite bits, take a look at the whole damn cast and set lists from both Saturday and Sunday. You’re gonna need a while.

Yes, that is 100 different songs they did. 50 per day, no repeats. That puts into perspective the scale of the universe CG has created for itself. Oh, and the crux of the set list was formed by a top 30 ranking, decided by the great and the good of the fandom.

Each of this top 30 featured at some stage, whether in full or in brief, with its exact cast or a typically wild live-exclusive mix. Of CG’s myriad songs, only a very select group would have been truly worthy of #1. Girls in the Frontier, the song that ultimately won out, is one of them. I’d proudly go along with its placing. Most of all though, I’m happy that four of my top five (Secret Daybreak, Tulip, Trancing Pulse and, of course, Hotel Moonside) made it too. There’s only one omission I’d like to question – especially as the day 2 cast list had its performance written all over it – but we’ll get to that one later.

But first, the seiyuu. Always them first. Last time out, I half-jokingly touted the dream lineup for me would inevitably all turn up on Saturday and then leave me hanging on Sunday. Obviously, that didn’t happen. But I did get a good cross-section from it.

Ayaka Ohashi was an obvious guarantee for both days. Azumi Waki certainly wasn’t, but she showed up on Sunday, albeit only for 2 songs. Both of which I pretty much missed. Oh well. Aya Suzaki appeared a surprise absence, until you remember she had Covid not long before the live, which judging by some of the symptoms she suffered scuppered any chance she had to get in – if that was the plan at all, of course. I knew Yuuko Iida was one of the most likely candidates to be there for both days – and so it turned out to be, and some. Sumire Uesaka and Maaya Uchida were two quite predictable absentees, with good reason: they’d both been booked in to an event Saturday before this live had even been announced. (The latter openly said as much herself.) The other attendees from my top tier were Haruka Yoshimura – but, alas, not her ‘sister’ Nozomi Yamamoto – and Ruriko Aoki, both there for the entire weekend. Other seiyuu I was glad to see there were: for both days, Minami Tsuda, Mai Fuchigami, and Ru Thing. For Saturday only, Atsumi Tanezaki, Mako Morino and Haruka Chisuga. And for Sunday only, Masumi Tazawa, Teru Ikuta, Sayaka Harada and Yuri Noguchi. Perhaps the only other regrettable miss was Eriko Matsui, whose singing as Nao can provoke me into liking any song she gets involved in through sheer force of will. With a setup like this, you can’t win them all.

Of course, there were always going to be a couple of surprises in there, and they saved them for Sunday. But even as surprises go, very few could have realistically seen Saori Hayami coming – not least because she was at the same event Sumipe and Maaya were at the previous day! Fair fucking play to her for that one. But perhaps an even bigger surprise was Hitomi Harada, long considered one of the hardest of all to get. To put it in perspective, this was only her second ever appearance at a CG live. But appear she did, even if only for one glorious song right at the end. So I think we can safely say this cast list delivered in all aspects.

Before we go, it should be noted that, technically, no one missed out entirely. That’s because those who didn’t appear got nifty little MVs between themselves which served as breaks in the action. So in that sense, this live really did feature everyone. Not that we’re really counting them as showing up.

2. My favourite section of either day, annoyingly for me in a live sense, came on Day 1. I’ve at least been able to watch it back. Either way, it was the stretch from Nation Blue up to Trancing Pulse. That was absolutely mental. Notably, the heart of this section came during one of the ‘previous live tributes’ that were dotted around Day 1. And they chose to do Funky Dancing – aka, the live that got me into lives. Cue a triple belter: Mirror Ball Love, Hotel Moonside and Babel. Sheer nirvana for a man of my tastes. The first had a free-for-all cast, the second saw Iidashi joined halfway through by Rui Tanabe and Mina Nagashima – the pair who had brought about the superb Needle Light and both supreme singers in their own right – and the third was completely original. And then they finished up with Sayonara Andromeda, the #2 ranked song. Simply magnificent. Nothing was going to top that effort, but they squeezed in some classics in Hi-Fi Days, Midnight Legend and Trancing Pulse soon after, to keep the wave going. A true demonstration of CG’s brilliance, crammed into eight straight songs.

Other than that, they notably bunched a load of the top songs in one rapid-fire mix, which served as their version Serendipity Melody tribute. This included Secret Daybreak, with Iidashi joined by two more brilliant singers in Minori Suzuki and Haruka Chisuga, appearances from PCS and Posipa to complement the thirded Triad Primus – who would get Trinity Field in as well – at least one song with nothing but unvoiced idols on the screen (yes, they got them in too), and the realisation of at least one meme in Mai Fuchigami singing Syoko’s solo. After that came a tribute to the much love Glowing Rock, which went down equally well.

But was Day 2 better? Well, I’d suggest Day 1 started off hotter – but after Day 2 reached its own rapid-fire mix, the second half of which was especially terrific, it really took off. A visit from U149’s producer, coupled with a Doremi Factory performance, proved to be a hint of the big announcement to come from this live. In hindsight, given they did a hearty tribute to the anime afterwards with Star, Happy Happy Days and Watashi-iro Gift, we could have seen said announcement coming – that being the arrival of a new anime for U149. Needless to say, reaction to that was plentifully joyous.

After that came the best musical tribute of the bunch – to Project Krone, with Absolute Nine, Nocturne and then the dramatic reveal of Koi Kaze and Hayamin. But if anything could match Day 1’s best, it had to be the final stretch of Day 2. From the final MC on, they left nothing on the table. After the guaranteed-UO-cracking Yes! Party Time!! and Orange Sapphire, they rattled off the remainder of their top 30: the lovely Twilight Sky first, then the utterly iconic Tulip with all of Lipps – the only way it should ever be done. Then Brand New, including one Maki Kawase, who had been killing it with her voice all night – across seven different songs, no less! Stage Bye Stage and GOIN’!!! wound up the memories some more, before Girls in the Frontier’s crowning glory – featuring the three brilliant singers there from the original (Minami Tsuda, Ayaka Fukuhara and Ru Thing), with a few others layered on top as the song went on to boot. The last song bar one (excluding the compulsory all-cast songs, which were Always and the suitably-10th-ranked Onegai Cinderella), complimenting Mitsuboshi and Never say never which had kicked off Days 1 and 2 respectively, was, of course, S(mile)ING!. And the crescendo to it all was Koko Kara Mirai e, the all-Cinderella Girl epic, done by each of the eight Cinderella Girls present. Quite simply, they nailed it. A finale to sum up CG, and do it all the justice it deserves.

About the only song I can think of that they missed out on – even given that it hadn’t been ranked, somehow – was Pretty Liar. Once we’d all taken in Hayamin’s Koi Kaze, the penny dropped that this could be the first time it ever appeared at a live. Indeed, under the circumstances it felt like a dead cert by then. And yet…it didn’t show up. Obviously, you can hardly blame Hayamin for only getting two songs in – again, she’d literally been at an event the day before. And Iidashi had already done eight songs throughout the weekend, among the highest rate of the lot. Certainly, I wasn’t left wanting for more from her. I got more than my fair share of Kanade action – and that’s what I wanted more than anything, on a CG-only scale. But, man, Pretty Liar…when will its day of days come? At this rate, I might even be around to see it.

3. Taking pride of place in my mind, though, was always going to be my oshi. It’s been a while since I’ve blathered rhetoric on Ayaka “Hasshi” Ohashi, even given that I did it for pretty much an entire year. I haven’t felt the need to do it much more since then. Partly because Hasshi has settled into my life as ‘part of the furniture’, somebody I can take for granted to deliver the goods. A comfort blanket among seiyuu, as it were. Turns out that this all came down to the fact I simply hadn’t been taking her in for long enough. In between having flings with god knows how many other seiyuu, making 300-deep sorters and messing around with other series, I had neglected the very person who got me to that stage. This was the first time I had taken her in, completely unadulterated, for so long. And what a reminder she gave me.

Of course, that didn’t hit me until the end. When she was doing Smileing on her own – in there as ‘only’ the 18th-ranked song in CG, something the cameraman and/or director inexplicably failed to bring to our attention*. That’s when the epiphany I was having when I first fell for her, and fought to try and quantify coherently for months, hit me again, all in about three minutes. The first minute, I could only sit back and watch. The second minute, I realised why, after getting to know hundreds and hundreds of seiyuu since finding her, why she was still the best. You could say there are more beautiful seiyuu. Prettier seiyuu. More attractive seiyuu. Better smilers. Better singers. Better dancers. Bigger talents. Bigger personalities. More interesting backstories. More compelling interests. But unlike any other seiyuu around, if you want someone who is 99% there in all of these aspects, then Hasshi is the one. Except for the smiling. Let’s be frank – there’s a good reason she fits the role she plays here, that of Uzuki, so well. It’s Uzuki who was picked out as an idol, most of all, for her smile. And Hasshi’s smile? No one’s going to top that. Ever.

Once I realised that, I didn’t bother thinking about much else the rest of the way. I was too busy getting, dare I say it, a little emotional. Well, OK. I don’t get emotional, but…I’m starting to get a bit shaky, you know what I mean? I’m a little bit wahey.

The one golden rule I’ve implemented with seiyuu, especially any I’ve taken a real interest in, is to always remember my little secret: No matter how good one is, they’re not as good as Hasshi. But this has largely been down to importance – as above, “without her, you don’t get into the others”. However, in valuing that so much, I had forgotten what it was that drew me to her in the first place. In watching her live again, she confirmed my rule. Not because she’s more significant than anyone else, but because no one else could ever get close enough to touch her. She’s a perfect angel who, quite simply, leaves all others in a sea of also-rans.

…Forgive me, for I have simped. Let me have this one. I’ve wanted to see her for two years. The time that comes can only get closer.

*I mention this solely because both of these parties were absolutely on one on Sunday. Seriously, you’d think they’d all been on the lash the night before the way some of their shots were coming and going. Except for a prodigious use of close-ups on Iidashi, oddly. Was the director her new husband, or what?