Nekomimi Music

I must admit, I've been remiss for not posting this sooner. But until recently, I had sort of misplaced the link. Anyway, for anyone who's interested in arrangements of anime music, LevoLution is a must-visit. The "Sound" page has several remixes by a guy named "Lix", who is a very skilled electronic artist. Titles remixed include a lot of games, several of which have been made into anime, including Tsukihime (月姫) and AIR, plus anime-style games like Imperishable Night (which has amazing music of its own), and the Final Fantasy series. They are seriously hot stuff, especially if you like trance, dance, and similar stuff. There has been some talk on Anime Remix lately about anime remixers outside of the United States, and most of us have been hard-pressed to actually find any. The game remix scene also seems to be very biased towards the English-speaking part of the world. If you know of any other cool Japanese remixers - so far all we know of are CROW'S CLAW and Lix - then please let us know!

Oh, how I love the season of new anime starting. And that means this month. Expect a stream of good stuff, since this season looks like it's going to be amazing. After El Cazador, next on my list is Hayate no Gokuto, also known as Hayate the Combat Butler. It's animated in high definition in a style that matches the manga almost too closely: seeing such simple character designs in such detail is kind of off-putting. It's easy enough to get used to the art style, though, because the plot of the series is so absurdly hilarious.

The idea is that Hayate, a 16-year-old with the most irresponsible parents ever, has been abandoned with a debt and the yakuza are coming after him. Following in the vein of GAINAX's maid-comedy "He Is My Master", Hayate comes upon a rich young girl who is in need of a butler. After saving her life from kidnappers, she offers to protect him with the resources of her family, in exchange for his protecting her... from giant robots!

In terms of music (we like to forget it sometimes, but that's what this blog is really about), there's a great opening theme by KOTOKO, the singer you may recall from the excellent OP to Please Teacher! (and its sequel, but let's just forget that existed, ok?) as well as one of my favorite opening themes of all time, "Re-Sublimity" from Kannazuki no Miko. The ending theme is a surprisingly mellow song by the same group that did the Black Lagoon OP - only, this time they aren't trying really hard to speak Engrish and sound badass, so it works alright. It's still more or less your standard ED fare, though. The background music is provided by Kotaro Nakagawa, who's not exactly a newcomer (he did 1998's Geobreeders) but he hasn't worked on a lot of big series in the past, GunXSword and Code Geass being the recent exceptions. The sound he creates is average, so it's decent for scene-setting but nothing special on its own. At least it doesn't actually detract from the anime. (Black Lagoon for example had some moments where the songs being played were just... not appropriate to the mood. No problems like that here, so far.)

One of the weirdest and most distracting parts of this anime is that the "Voice of Heaven" is by Norio Wakamoto, the seiyuu of Onsokumaru from 2x2=Shinobuden ("Ninja Nonsense" in the States), in the exact same voice. I mean, this show is hardly more serious than that one, but having it be narrated by a perverted yellow spherical shapeshifter is a little odd nonetheless. The main voices, for Hayate and Nagi, are by Ryoko Shiraishi (Kaede, the ninja girl, from Negima) and Rie Kugimiya (Alphonse from FMA) respectively, but neither of them sounds very much like past roles I've heard them in. Apparently they were chosen on the recommendation of the manga artist, who named them and one other in an interview before the anime was made.

Overall, this is a pretty silly show, and it knows it, so it's pretty funny. Neither the music nor the animation is remarkable, but at least it's in high-definition, so it's probably worth watching more of. The concept alone is worth bearing out a little longer.

Finally, the series I've been waiting for is here. El Cazador de la Bruja (Spanish: "Witch Hunter") or just El Cazador for short, aired. At the time of this writing, raws are out as are subs in Spanish and Chinese, but no English just yet. Anyway, the series looks like it's everything I hoped and expected. Animation is Bee Train Digital, in 720p high definition, so it looks like a cross between Madlax and .hack//Roots. The character designs are pretty good; they look a lot more... cheery than usual. Nadi (the brunette) kind of reminds me of Nono from Gunbuster 2. Elyse bears a strong resemblance to other Bee Train characters, in case you hadn't noticed.

The plot so far is this: Elyse is on the run, because there's a bounty on her head for murdering someone, but she doesn't know how or why; she doesn't remember much. She does, however, seem to have some subconsciously-controlled witch powers. A mysterious company is observing her and it seems she is the subject of a "Project Leviathan". Nadi is just a bounty hunter of sorts (she tries never to kill if she can avoid it) who has decided to protect Elyse because a nice old woman asked her to. The old woman has told them to travel south, and given them an uncut red gem, which seems the same color as the stone on a necklace worn by a woman in the mysterious company.

The opening theme is "Hikari no Yukue" ("Whereabouts of the Stars") sung by savage genius, who also did the opening to Erementar Gerad ("Elemental Gelade" in the States). I'm willing to bet the song is composed and sequenced by Yuki Kajiura, though. It sounds like her type of deal. It's a great song and very catchy - sort of ethnic-influenced JPOP. The ending theme, "romanesque" is FictionJunctionYUUKA, which is Yuki Kajiura with Yuuka Nanri, a pairing we've seen several times, including the MADLAX opening and ending themes, a couple Gundam Seed insert songs, and most recently the OP to .hack//Roots. It sounds a lot like their regular stuff except with a much stronger focus on Spanish-style acoustic guitar. Being as the show takes place in Central or South America, that's pretty appropriate. The single for romanesque comes out April 18th. Background music is basically the same Yuki Kajiura that you've seen everywhere: mysterious chants, calm piano pieces, and excellent string-heavy electronic action songs. The sequence at the end of the episode has a great song with some nice guitar strumming and lyrics in Spanish - otherwise it sounds incredibly like the music from Tsubasa Chronicle. One song stood out as unusual tracks consists of some bluesy riffing on a harmonica, apparently catching some of that "wild west" feel. It works pretty well.

Oh yeah, and if you're a fan of voice actors, Nadi is voiced by Shizuki Itou, who's done a lot of roles that I mostly haven't seen, and Elyse is by Ai Shimizu, the voice of He Is My Master's Mitsuki, among others. Both are sort of medium-level talents so far as I can tell; they're alright for the roles but I'm not seeing anything special coming in Nadi's voice just yet.

In short, the show is more of the same from Bee Train and Yuki Kajiura; if you were a fan of Madlax and Noir, you'll love it, being as it's the same thing with a Central American twist. If you didn't like those shows, or if you're not looking for more of the same, forget it. But I know I'm going to be loving every bit.