Nobuhiko's Singing Debut!

Voice actor Nobuhiko Okamoto (Rin from Blue Exorcist), announced today that he will be debuting as a singer in 2012. He will be debuting with Kiramune, Lantis and Bandai Visual's music label.

Okamoto will be performing in the Kiramune Music Festival 2012, which runs March 17-18.

His other roles include Eiji Niizuma from Bakuman, Night Kijima from Sacred Seven, Abel from Slayers Evolution-R, Ivan Karelin/Origami Cyclone from Tiger & Bunny and Shin Kanzato from Persona -trinity soul-. 

Source: jpopasia

Voice Actor/Narrator Junpei Takiguchi Passes Away

Voice actor and narrator Junpei Takiguchi passed away Monday, August 29 at 7:33 a.m. due to stomach cancer. He was 80 years old.

Takiguchi's best known voice-acting role was Dokurobee, the head of the Dorombo Gang in the Yatterman franchise from the first anime series to the 2008 remake and even Takashi Miike's live-action film. He was also Uranai Baba and other roles in the Dragon Ball series. From 1992 to July of this year, he narrated the popular railroad travel program Burari Tochū Gesha no Tabi on NTV for a total of 958 episodes.

Services will be held for relatives only at the request of the family.

Source: Anime News Network

Rest in Peace~ A great legend in seiyuu will surly be missed~ 

Differences in Anime languages

I found this video on Youtube by Themultilanguage which I thought is extremely hilarious and interesting. The difference between the original (Japanese) and the other dubbed versions can be clearly compared. It is also why I will always watch the Original version since I believe it is the best! However, I do get credit to some other version because I couldn't hold my laughter for some of them XD

Seiyuus: Maaya Sakamoto & Kenichi Suzumura Are Getting Married

Voice actress Maaya Sakamoto announced on her official page on Saturday that she married fellow voice actor Kenichi Suzumura on Monday, August 8. Suzumura confirmed the news on his own blog.

The two voice cast members both worked on Ouran High School Host Club, Kara no Kyōkai - the Garden of sinners, Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Destiny, Black Butler II, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, Star Driver Kagayaki no Takuto,Soul Eater, and Birdy the Mighty Decode.

Source: Animenewsnetwork Facebook

Takumii Notes:
Major congratulation to the golden couple in voice acting. They have worked as anime couples for so many times that they became attracted to each other~ I like them both and all the best to them :)

News from Animania on Face Book:

Animania Festival is proud to announce that this year's guest of honour is Ikue Otani, the voice of Tony Tony Chopper in One Piece, Konohamaru in Naruto, Gash in Gash Bell, Merle in Vision of Escaflowne and Pikachu in Pokemon.

This will be awesome!! How often can you meet someone like her?? Animania Sydney is on the17th-18th, September and Animania Brisbane is on the 8th of October.  We would love everybody to go Animania because it will be fun!  Let's all go Animania for Pikachu!

Rie Kugimiya ~The Tsundere Queen~

As many would know, the title of 'Tsundere Queen' is in fact entitled to Rie in the anime community and she is welly recognized by a huge amount otakus/anime fans. Why? because she is extremely famous for the roles she has voiced over the years. The roles are all very similar, yet everybody still loves them; they are just absolutely excellent voiced characters. She is also the first Seiyuu I fell in love with. She could synchronize her voice with her roles really well and turn them into realistic characters. It was also her which has led me into the seiyuu addict now. XD

Everybody knows Shana right? From Shakugan no Shana. Taiga, in Toradora? Nagi in Hayate no Gotoku? or Louise from Zero no Tsukaima? They are all really well known roles voiced by Rie among a list of other characters she has voiced. Her characters mostly have similar characteristics and even personality at times. The common traits for her roles are: really short, tsunderes and lolis. Not surprised since... IT IS WHAT SHE IS FAMOUS FOR!!

Her voice is of course, really easy to recognize in animes. It a very stand out voice which is really high pitched and sharp. She also sings for anime openings and endings. Due to her voice, her songs sound kind of kiddy. Not saying they are bad; I personally don't like them, simply because they are not my cup of tea. I like powerful female voices in singing. I prefer her voice acting over her singing. Well, she did win the 3rd Annual Seiyuu Award for 'Leading Actress Award' ("Toradora" Aisaka Taiga).

Rie has voiced more than a decade now, let's hope she can do more roles in the future!! Honestly, if you ask me. I love Lousie, Taiga and Kagura the most out of all her roles!

Top 10 Female Seiyuus 2010

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~Mizuki Nana~ The Anime Goddess

I'm pretty sure the name Mizuki Nana have reached your mind once or twice in your anime life already. If not, OH MY GOSH!! THIS IS MIZUKI NANA WE'RE TALKING ABOUT!! Well I was kidding but she is a seiyuu/singer just like SPHERE. She is indeed the most well known seiyuu currently due to the success of her singing career. 'Innocent Starter', 'Eternal Blaze', 'Secret Ambition', 'Dancing in the Velvet Moon' and many other top of the Oricon Chart songs are all sang by Nana-sama.

Her Seiyuu career and her singing career has a huge different but her seriousness towards voice acting gained her the respect. Whether it's the soft Hinata form Naruto or the dark Moka from Rosairo to Vampire, Nana does it all with her skills.

Though now she hasn't been voice acting as much as she was in the past few years. She became more of a singer than a seiyuu now due to her tight schedules. As a big fan of her, I absolutely loves how she sings. That deep and powerful voice of hers makes her a very different singer among the other singers!!

PS. She is the seiyuu for Window 7 Mascot, MADOBE NANAMI!! XD

SPHERE

Ayumi Hamasaki, Arashi and YUI; obviously we know who they are but what about others?
That is why I will start introducing some Japanese singers/bands/seiyuus for AUA so people could have a deeper knowledge of these not so famous skillful artists out there. To make my first post, I just had to do the cutey happy band SPHERE.

SPHERE (スフィア, PL@NET SPHERE) is an idol band debuted in 2009 which made up of all female seiyuus. It is managed by Sony Music Entertainment, under Lantis music label in the Music Ray'n subdivision of GloryHeaven. They mainly do anime songs  is very obvious due to the fact they are seiyuus. The four female seiyuus include: Minako Kotobuki, Ayahi Takagaki, Haruka Tomatsu and Aki Toyosaki.

 SPHERE

 

Members

Minako Kotobuki: She is the youngest in sphere and that's about it... jokes. of course not. However her anime career is not so active compared to others in taking roles. She however, is clearly famous for her role of Tsumugi in the anime K-ON. She is the elegant type in the band but I don't know why, I haven't taken much notice of her compared to others probably because of her singing style/voice. Reason being, she still has not find a way to appeal people (at least me) with her voice in the songs or PVs. But other than that, I put her second for the best looking among the 4

Ayahi Takagaki: Has the deepest voice of the four. She is least popular among the four probably the anime roles she has picked up was not as memorable than others. I personally think she is okay but not at a level with seiyuus like Tomat chan etc. I began noticing her after I discovered the existence of sphere. Her singing voice is so different to the other three which was I began admiring her too. Even her anime roles are powerful/skillgul females which fights bad guys with ease.

Haruka Tomatsu: Tomat chan!! The one I love the most!! Her looks/body certainly makes her an ideal idol. Even her voice acting skills are beyond many veteran seiyuus. Ever since she was debuted as a seiyuu, she immediately began doing main roles such as Lala from To love ru. Since then, her popularity sky-rocketed and allowed her to win the best female rookie award in the 3rd seiyuu awards (2009). I, as her major fan have watched most of the animes involving her.  Her songs (just her) are very unique and I guess cutey which is not really my cup of tea. I do love her however, when she with other members of sphere because of the different voice combos.

Aki Toyosaki: c'mon. It's Aki Toyosaki. Who doesn't know Aki Toyosaki after she has sucessfully voiced Yui in K-on. Also her vioce!!
It's extremely unreal. I thought it was fake at first. But did some research and realized it wasn't fake. So I was really shocked especially her singing. I thought it's like how the people made Miku Hatsune's voice through computer effects. Once again, has a very unique voice in the band which was easy to pick out it's her in songs. But I still notice more of tomat chan and ayahi's more for some reason. She has the extreme kiddy voice. Really kiddy!! trust me.

Let's hope they can sing more great songs in the future and voice more excellent animes too. I would really love the band to maintain for a long time. Would hate to see them disband when they are all so talented and pretty. Afterall, all the previous songs they released are all in my favour. It's catchy and worth my repeat button. I just love them all!! ><