Aquaplus Festa 2008

Top L-R: Nazuka Kaori, Tanaka Rie, Nakahara Mai, Ishii Makoto, Ohkawa Toru, Namikawa Daisuke, Koyama Tsuyoshi
Bottom L-R: Sakurai Harumi, Ono Ryoko, Kogure Ema, Mizuki Nana, Hirano Aya, Yuzuki Ryoka

Staged on November 29 in Tokyo Kosei-Nenkin Kaikan, the full event includes musical event Aquaplus Live at 3pm, followed by seiyuu event Aquaplus Festa at 7pm.

Aquaplus Live was basically a Suara mini-concert since she sang 10 songs out of the total 18 performed. Also on stage were ToHeart2 singers Uehara Rena, Ono Ryoko (Sasara), Sakurai Harumi (Silfa), and Utawarerumono’s Koyama Tsuyoshi (Kurou).

Let’s move on the festival.

Namikawa and Koyama opened Aquaplus Festa 2008, introducing themselves as “the Bathrobe Brothers”.. right.

ToHeart2 and Utawarerumono Corner

Yuzu-nee looks as adorable as usual, but is she gaining some weight there? ^^;

Announcement and creditless OP screening of the new ToHeart2 OVA, to be released on April 24 next year.. who the heck still watch this series? I think the first anime was pretty good but the next installments are meh.

Also on sale June 5 next year is Utawarerumono OVA, which gets me a bit excited because we’re getting a new Suara song, the OP titled “adamant face”. Lol had to check dictionary for the word “adamant”.

Also both franchise are getting PSP adaptations.

Tears to Tiara Corner

..and why is Gotou Yuko not there? I thought she’s supposed to voice the leading female? ^^; But we got RieRie and Nakahara Mai there so who cares.

Anime adaptation will start airing next Spring. The cast list is very yummy, with the addition of Ueda Kana (who is probably busy playing the game to join the event), Koshimizu Ami, Shimizu Ai, and Sawashiro Miyuki. Suara is in charge for singing the OP, as she also did both theme songs for the PS3 game, but this time it’s a rock song titled “Free and Dream”.. what? @_@

Aquaplus Kentei Corner

This is quite interesting: a quiz session related to the participating seiyuu, involving all audience, whoever gets perfect score will be awarded a PSP-3000. And sure they make it hard, but some question were really cruel, like “Which state does Eruru’s American voice actress came from?” I don’t even know who.

Obviously nobody got a perfect score, but an audience with the best score got the PSP and a stick poster set in the end of the night.

White Album Corner

Suara opened the section with the game’s ballad theme “POWDER SNOW”, which we can only get in the Aquaplus acoustic CD. Too bad no sneak preview on the anime ED. Kinda glad Aquaplus loves Suara so much that she’s singing everything, so we don’t have to hear you-know-who.

Up on stage next were the two seiyuu responsible in causing some ticket-bidding chaos in Yahoo! Auction last month: Hirano Aya and Mizuki Nana. ^^;

Like the other promo corner, the creditless OP was also screened.. it’s so unfair they get to hear Shinai first! >_< Hopefully she’ll let us hear it in Smile Gang soon. Well, in last week’s Smile Gang we got to hear Fukuen Misato’s tone-deaf version of Shinai, which wasn’t a pleasant experience at all, lol.

Live Afureko Corner

Afureko is, uh, literally after recording, is a dubbing session over a finished anime on screen. It features all seiyuu from the 4 works, combined into an original story titled “Determination! Best Star of Aquaplus”, focusing on the two WHITE ALBUM girls and ToHeart2′s Maryan (which explains the stage arrangement). Like other live afureko, there were many funny spontaneous ad-lib.. do want.

Ending

Last words blabla tl;dr.

Most likely there will be a Bluray release for the event, since the previous two festivals got theirs, also the fact that Utawarerumono was one of the first anime bluray.. thanks to the higher-ups being a Sony fanboy? Well, I couldn’t care less about the promotion talks, but may get it anyway for HD quality of the eye candies, live afureko, Suara’s concert.. and Nana in pink cowboy hat, lol.