Great news to begin the day: Mizuki Nana just announced her 19th single, to be released next year on a very very special day January 21st.. her 29th birthday!

No extra info given, but I’m guessing it’s Nanoha the movie OP? Or White Album’s? Like it matters? LOL xD

Smart marketing from King Records, I’m sure many Nana fans will want to spend some money for her birthday, and they just provided the means to do that.. expect many many copies from fans!

Tomatsu Haruka. motto☆hade ni ne!
1. motto☆派手にね! (motto☆hade ni ne!)
2. シアワセサガシ (Shiawase Sagashi)

I’d say it again: The ero-oyaji inside me I love the PV. And the songs, actually. It has catchy tunes that anisong retards like me will love in the first try. And for a split second she resembles Inoue Marina (only in glasses).. maybe the cheek and the :O mouth.. no?

Scans

Mizuki Nana. Rosario+Vampire Capu2 Character Song Vol. 1 Akashiya Moka
1. あなたにカプッchu! (Anata ni Kapuchu!)
2. DESIRE -情熱-

Apparently I’m not that biased towards Nana because I honestly don’t like this CD. :-/ Well, I knew I shouldn’t expect much seeing the first song’s title, but indeed it’s stupid. Akai Jounetsu on the previous CD was silly too, but better.
I was more intrigued with the second track. Like before, it’s a cover of an old song. I liked the idea of Nana singing a Nakamori Akina song, both has powerful vocal. But Nana’s ‘good cover’ matches the original song too well.. and since I hate the song (get up get up burning love #!$!@#) I can’t come to like her version too.

Scans

Okui Masami. Melted Snow
1. Melted Snow
2. Shape of myself

It’s a ballad! Makkun rarely produces slow songs, especially for singles (can’t remember the last time she did.. dare yori mo zutto? That was like when I was five), which is why I think people are missing a lot if they don’t get her albums. I really like Nemurenai Yoru ga Kureta Mono (眠れない夜がくれたもの) from crossroad, Sanctuary (サンクチュアリ) from angel’s voice, and Wasuregusa (ワスレグサ) almost made me cry when I first heard it on Masami Life. Have no idea on the game tie-in, but I really like the song.. Second track is her usual rock-ish, pretty good too.

Scans

Chihara Minori. Paradise Lost
1. Paradise Lost
2. 勇気の鼓動 (Yuuki no Kodou)

First time I heard Paradise Lost last month, I thought Voyager Train is better. I’m swallowing my own words now, orz. Paradise Lost is my song of this month! Being a fast-paced, Minorin-ish song, I better be off to work without coffee than not listening to it.. And Yuuki no Kodou, while being completely opposite to Paradise Lost, is damn good too, it might as well replace Yume no Ashioto ga Kikoeru as Ga-rei ED, lol.
Can’t wait for Parade album too.. CD release means many good things to come, this month Seigura already has her in the front cover (for the first time!) or better: Pick-up Voice 13!! XD expect scans 3 days after it gets out, lol, how I wish Japan-Australia shipping is overnight.

Scans

Oricon Ranks
-LMAO Tomatsu Haruka (#29) finally outranked Sakamoto Maaya (#31). So I guess j1m0ne was right on anime tie-in factor, lol.
-Kapuchu made it to top 30 as well in the first days (now sinking to wherever) thanks to the Nana factor, blind buyers ftw?
-Totally forgot to check Paradise Lost Oricon rank on the release day, but the weekly rank has come out. It sold 10754 copies in its first week and charting at #15. Pretty good actually, and GJ for beating CHEMISTRY (I hate them).
-Melted Snow is nowhere to be seen, lol. I wonder how many people (esp outside Japan) are still faithfully following Makkun’s career.. I believe she still has many fans in Japan, with her solo concert every year, and I saw some wearing her live shirts to Animelo.
-Argh, the boyband hype is killing me. I choked when I saw Arashi latest single has sold 351860. Just how many do their fangirls buy?? God.

Nana wrote quite a long entry here, and didn’t put any pic, something she rarely does in the blog. It seems that the late Kondou-san collapsed from stroke 10 years ago, and have been fighting against the illness since. Nana also told us more about her dad, like how he liked to sing and was the great guy behind Nana’s fondness of enka. And how from now on she will continue on singing..

Lastly, she said that her blog updates will be irregular for a while. Gosh I’m freakin’ speechless. After all these times I’ve been reading her blog daily, the post today made me really teary-eyed. Nana sure kept her privacy well.. not even a mention about this on Fukuen Misato or Suara’s blog, who I think are quite close to Nana in terms of work/friendship. But her staffs are really nice people who often throw surprise parties on each other, so I’m sure they are now giving her mental support that we mere fans couldn’t do.

Also nothing has changed in her schedule up until now, even worse that she will be a guest on this NHK program on November 15. I haven’t taken a look properly what the program is, but hopefully it’s not a live run.

And I’m expressing my sympathy by sending a wreath of white flowers to Sigma Seven tomorrow (many world florist service online, if you also want to).. I believe many fans have done so, too, and let’s hope it could cheer her up even the slightest bit.. ):

Sigh.

A friend just told me about this news.. I checked 2ch and such threads do exist (with many insensitive comments.. screw those losers), but I couldn’t believe it until I saw gillsa’s post (in Chinese) which had a newspapers/magazine scrap on the sad news, this:

It says Kondou Nobumitsu passed away at the age of 75 (never knew he was that old), on Wednesday October 29 8:40 pm, because of some internal organ failure. So this is why she didn’t update her blog since two days ago? I still hope she’ll confirm this news though.. I can’t bear thinking that she’s crying at the very moment.

Deep condolences to Mizuki Nana and family.

Edit:
It’s up on real news website now.. Still nothing from Nana (or Fukuen or Suara, just in case they know anything they are useless) yet.. I don’t know how long I can stand keeping my eyes on 2ch. So many dumbfucks there who started to make fun of the late dad’s age (or accusing Nana is faking hers), and I shouldn’t really look up what メシウマ means.

So much for hoping for an epic game, huh? Can’t honestly say I’m impressed with this.. Hopefully someone uploads the other songs soon.. there’s still hope. OK I suck. Should have re-checked in the last minutes. Here’s the links to the four Nana songs:

1. 世には花・夢に星 Yo ni wa Hana, Yume ni Hoshi [watch]
2. ブランニューハート BRAND NEW HEART [watch]
3. スカイハイ！ SKY HIGH! [watch]
4. シューティング☆スター SHOOTING STAR [watch]

.. is it only my ears or they did put some effects on Nana’s voice? :-/ Or maybe it’s just really bad recording from Wii? I don’t think I’ll get the game, but I’m hoping there will be a CD with better mastering than this, or a full version whatever.. track 2 is not too bad.

Rather than this, I’d love to see her latest event in Shinjuku Koma on DVD. I mean..

DISCOTHEQUE live with the costume (and the dance!).

Punk Nana singing Trickster.

And the stage drama?

Hell yeah.

Umm, I got seven items in total.. cheapest was Makkun’s Do-Can, most pricey was Live Rocket book, and most overpriced was the (supposedly free) Seiyuu Datafile. On to the full list and details~ (in random order)

(Book) Nana Mizuki Live Rocket 2005 ~summer~ Pamphlet

Only a peek for now. Oh how I’m addicted to collect these. I’m planning to eventually scan all Nana’s live books I have. And since I started with Fighter, I will go backwards (may take forever seeing my future workload). So yeah, expect to see more of this is on the fourth batch or so.

(Book) Seiyuu Datafile 2008

It contains sets of questionnaires answered by 80 of your favorite seiyuu.. hand-written! With autographs! My kanji recognition is already bad and most of their handwriting are worse than my 4-year-old nephew’s, so it will take forever (literally) to translate them. The two pics above are the most amusing kinds.

Maybe I’d assemble an in-depth (lol) research on how seiyuu’s handwriting reflects their personality.. or just list pointless facts like:

- Tomatsu Haruka’s favorite body part is her own navel (LEGS, dammit)
- ..while Itou Shizuka answered “Liver (thank you always)” ^^;;
- If Horie Yui is not a seiyuu, she’d like to be a detective
- Yukarin just writes にゃ (nya~) on questions she doesn’t feel like answering

Hum.

(CD) Tamura Yukari - MELOOOOON mon cheri (unopened)

The minute I saw this godly performance on Chelsea Girl DVD.. I know I MUST have this and go mero~n every 5 minutes for the rest of my life. BUT this damn thing was only sold in that Budokan live. THIS is the item I’m blaming for all the Yahoo! Auction nightmare (explained later).

(CD) Natsuiro no Sunadokei Sound Collection (unopened)

Track 1 - Drive Away Dream by Serizawa Kaho (CV: Mizuki Nana) in lossless format, ’nuff said. UNDER17’s Hajimete no Natsu is pretty good too, but I already have it in their BEST 3. The rest of the CD suck.

(CD) Masami Okui. Do-Can (unopened)

Very important, because now I can proudly say I own every single Makkun CD album recordings (sadly, about 10% are second-hand, oh well).

(DVD) Masami Okui. B-Day (used)

Makkun’s PV collection, contains 5 PV and 2 making-of. Not really what I want to have (anyone know where I can get Kujikenaikara PV?) More like I bought it just for collection purposes, but the more interesting item is ..

(DVD) Masami Okui. V-mode ~10th Anniversary~ (used)

I’ve been looking for this EVERYWHERE, every time I entered a used-CD/DVD shop in Japan. Jewel case is not in top notch condition anymore, but there is no scratch at all in the discs, so it’s cool. Transmigration live is just WOW. xD

..

That’s all. Most (I dare to say all) of them can’t be bought in normal manners anymore, so I’m happy with these purchases.

On a separate note, I want to share my um, experience, on Yahoo! Auction. Skip this if you’re not interested, since it’s more like an incoherent rant.

After desperately wanting Yukarin’s melonpan, I bought a Y!A premium account via Yamato Touch, a deputy service that gives you an individual account for your convenience in bidding wars. Their job is to pay the sellers and ship the goods to your door. Commission rate is heck cheap, compared to the likes of Rinkya etc.

So, I decided to try them out with my so-called masterplan “get one item first” (which failed impressively since I end up winning seven in two weeks). Updates were quick.. (here comes the drama) THEN it starts to slow down.. 2-3 weeks without any reply.. I kinda started panicking.

To make matters worse, a member mass-mailed everyone in frightened tone, asking if any of us ever get our things (he won a somewhat-rare PS game for 45,000yen) and mentioned about the empty forum, regardless of hundreds number of threads/posts written there. He kept me informed of what other members said, like “no news for 2 months” or “they are teh sux0rs”. I was like, .. fuck. I got pwned.

I think I’ve spammed their mailbox or what, because then YT finally mailed me, reasoned that they lost a member blabla, hence the delay. They quickly got back to me on my item progress and promised to ship everything once they got all goods. Up until now I still don’t understand the forum issues, but what matters is everything came safe and sound. I probably use them again in the future. Maybe.

As for the ++ thing.. it’s Mizuki Nana Shinjuku Koma event official goods~~!

I only can afford this B2-sized poster and (totally useless) sticker set. Tempted for the curry beans, but meh. Quickly framed it just now~ then couldn’t take proper shot because it now reflects lights.. This was not via auction, btw.

lol I wish, but I meant these, are already open for pre-orders.

Mizuki Nana Live Fighter -Blue Side- (DVD) @CDJapan | @HMV | @Amazon
Mizuki Nana Live Fighter -Red Side- (DVD) @CDJapan | @HMV | @Amazon
Mizuki Nana Live Fighter -Blue x Red Side- (Blu-ray) @CDJapan | @HMV | @Amazon

I’ve secured a copy each from CDJapan. Oh God, so I’m not only buying my own bufday presents, but also for Christmas’ (and I don’t even celebrate it). Pathetic huh? T_T But serious, isn’t it nice to see Nana all over Oricon chart on Christmas? Hehe.

Anyway, just fyi HMV has the cheapest offer with its multi-buy discount (3 DVDs at 23% off) and relatively cheap EMS shipping too (be careful of folded posters tho). Amazon doesn’t have them yet already got them up for pre-orders, but even with their usual discount, still can’t cover the handling charges. Alternatively please click the CDJapan links if you feel sorry to me want to give me some Christmas presents too *shameless plug*

PS. Notice the catalog number for Fighter Blu-ray set is KIXM-1, does that mean Nana pwns King Records’ first Blu-ray? Kya~ >_<

A friend of mine mentioned about the striking first-glance similarities just a while ago.. and I have to agree with him. See the Paradise Lost PV he uploaded:

..and I’m sure most of you know how Massive Wonders PV looks like. Otherwise kill yourself watch this.

Compiled few more pics of what I think looks similar (..except that Minorin wears slightly too many layers of clothes) *runs*

Wind.

Gloves (..or in Minorin’s case, fingers covers).

What do you think?

I know I’m the laziest person on earth, as you can see I finally did something to my site.. after six months blogging. But after reading houkoholic’s comment in j1m0ne’s blog (and partly motivated by Trickster’s godly a capella), I finally did what I’ve planned to do since long time ago: rip Nana’s acoustic sessions from the live DVDs..

..and I’m sharing it here. I sorta gave up and accepted the fact that a lot of ‘fans’ don’t really support their idols.. so here I am, for the first (and last?) time, hosting an illegal d/l lol. Hopefully this will encourage them to buy the DVD (if they haven’t)..

So yeah, simply right-click and save here (109 MB).

TrackList are in order of time of performance, starting from Nana’s first acoustic session in Live Rainbow 2005 until the latest Live Formula 2008, with the exception of track 5 and 6 (studio lives from The Museum DVD).

1. Independent Love Song
2. Brilliant Star
3. Orgol to Piano to (オルゴールとピアノと)
4. Takaramono (宝物)
5. Tears’ Night
6. Ano Hi Yumemita Negai (あの日夢見た願い)
7. Hikari (光)
8. Suichuu no Aozora (水中の青空)
9. Last Scene (ラストシーン)
10. Crystal Letter

Notes:
- My favorite tracks are Takaramono, Tears’ Night, and Crystal Letter. I love how she put all her emotions to singing.. I’d be moved to tears if I were there.
- If you note something is weird, here’s why: track 1 and 2 are originally Dolby Digital (AC3). Good thing that the rest are LPCM.
- Songs are encoded in MP3 VBR (256kbps). Do tell me if the quality sucks –I’m having a cold now so my ears aren’t working as usual. I think some songs crackles on the high notes, maybe because I increased the standard volume while ripping, otherwise it’d be really low. Anyone experienced pls suggest me a good ripper..

Anyway, enjoy the album!

PS. Will pay more attention to layout.. sometime soon. Uploaded a new avatar batch~ ron’s moe avatars don’t suit the sort of rubbish I’m talking about here ^^; Also added an ‘about‘ page because people start to mistake me as a guy.. which is understandable (?) LOL ^^;

As promised, I scanned the book for whoever wants them to warm up before the Bluray/DVD comes out on Christmas~

A bit late coz I played with the scanner’s settings hundred times –my scanner is the most inconsistent thing after Tomatsu Haruka’s face and Hirano Aya’s song quality.. but I think this time I got the pics quite right.

The book’s concept is interesting, Champion (Red-side) vs. Challenger (Blue-side), with each team having three Nana cosplay~ xD also pics of them fighting each other. My favorite is, of course, the Hitler-like cosplay. Lol yes sorry I’m ignorant.

Well, then..

VS

Enjoy the fight~

Champion 01

Champion 02 (I go !$#!! no matter how many times I’ve seen this~ xD)

Champion 03

Challenger 01

Challenger 02 (Chun-Li? LOL)

Challenger 03

Fight 01

Fight 02

Fight 03

..too bad the challenger-side are printed in black-and-white.. which is why I also included these (full-colored) postcard set too as a bonus.

LOL the ninja postcard is actually the first Nana pic I’ve seen with (barely-there) cleavage~ xD *runs*

edit: I just realized I damaged the ninja postcard around Nana’s hair.. orz. Gomen.