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Title:	#01 悪霊がいっぱい！？
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SYNOPSIS:

Adopted from a series of novels by Ono Fuyumi (The Twelve Kingdoms or Juuni Kokki), the story is exactly as the title suggests, a.k.a. GHOST HUNT. It begins with the heroine Taniyama Mai and her friends talking about ghosts in the AudioVisual Room. They talked about the old school building where a teacher committed suicide by hanging himself. Since then strange accidents happened whenever they wanted to do construction work on the old building. The principle then brought in a bunch of experts to get rid of what they believed to be ghosts or spirits that caused these strange accidents. The experts brought in include a ghost hunter and owner of the Shibuya Psychic Research (SPR) Shibuya Kazuya, the miko Matsuzaki Ayako, Takigawa Houshou, a bass musician who also gets rids of spirits, Hara Masako, a cute Japanese doll looking girl whose mouth can translate messages from the spirits. Finally, there’s John Brown who is a foreigner (obvious) and speaks Japanese with a Kansai accent but he’s really a good exorcist.

Mai got caught up with this bunch of weirdos when she accidentally hit a camera in the old building. The action caused the shelf behind her to fall. Luckily, Lin Koujo, Shibuya’s assistant who got injured. Since she could not pay for the expensive camera and Shibuya needed an assistant, Mai became his assistant. Shibuya’s a horribly narcissistic…to the extent that Mai called him Naru-chan. In the first episode, they set out to investigate the strange incident when the girl Kuroda kept insisting she has spiritual powers when the experts declare she has none. Now that the crucial players gathered in episode one, it’s up to the next episode to see what’s it’s ALL ABOUT.

The animation is by J.C. Staff and I find the quality to be very beautiful (that is considering the scale of the project). The characters are kinda generic … a cool handsome hero and a cheerful but strong headed-heroine. You also have your dose of loli and shota, and oneechan and oniichan. Since the story is still at the beginning, we’re pretty much just introduced to a bunch of characters. What impresses me I must say is the voice actress for Kuroda (Sawashiro Miyuki). Her sudden change in tone for Kuroda is really amazing! The rest of the cast is also quite good and the music is beautiful. Neither the opening and ending themes have vocals (quite rare these days) but it doesn’t matter to me because I feel it fits the mood of the anime, especially the opening. It’s better with no vocal than poor vocal sometimes. Unfortunately, neither the OP nor ED feature any character in the animation and I find that a bit… weird. If it were sometime innovative like Dramatic in Hachikuro, I wouldn’t mind but in this case… I must say the OP and ED animation do not quite match and could be better.

BOTTOMLINE:

I’d say above average and actually it’s quite interesting though the characters are very much PREDICTABLE. It’s definitely on my list to watch for this season!!

These vocalists are the voice actors for the five main guys.  Frankly, I was rather shocked in the beginning to know these voice actors are picked for this series.  Reason is because aside from Taniyama, the rest are not particularly good at singing (relatively compared to other voice actors).  To cast them in a music themed game is just crazy.  However, from this ending theme, it’s pretty obvious the guys have put a lot of effort chucking out a relatively decent piece.  For non-seiyuu fans, I’m not sure what your judgment will be.  For me though, I give a pretty good rating just for their efforts!

Title:	BRAND NEW BREEZE
Vocalist:	KANON
Series:	La Corda D’Oro ~primo passo~
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Kanon studied music in Queensland, Australia and she’s famous for her transparent voice. Since she’s not the “idol” type of musician but the more traditional classical performer, “Brand New Breeze” is slightly different from the average anime theme. I quite like the song itself but it doesn’t quite fit the “opening” I think because it’s a bit too soft and slow. It might be better if it were used as the ending theme instead.

Title:	#01 ありえないプレリュード
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SYNOPSIS:Konjiki no Corda is based on the game of the same title by KOEI. Later, a manga version emerged and is currently serialized in LALA/Hakuensha. The first episode is roughly based on the first two chapters of the manga though it ended in a different way. The story is rather simple. Hino Kahoko is a normal student at Seisou Gakuin, a school which is divided into music and non-music section. On her way to school, she met a cute fairy Lili. Not many people can see Lili, only the selected ones and one of the first people with the ability to see Lili was also founder of this music academy. What Lili wants is to bring happiness to people through music but sadly Lili can’t find anyone in the school who can see him, not until Hino. Owing to Hino’s ability to see Lili, she was chosen to join the music competition that would soon be held at Seishou Gakuin. The problem is that Hino can’t play any music instrument. Lili gave her a magical violin but she refused to take it. Then, she met a bunch of bitchy girls from the musical section who criticized Fuuyumi for being selected to perform at the competition when she was just a first year student. Hino was pissed, took on their challenge, and got the magical violin Lili gave her out of the case…

As a dating sim, the story of the game was so-so because in each storyline, you only focus on the main character and her “potential guy” and it did not have a solid historical background or plot as say in Harukanaru 3. However, the manga is a massive improvement over the game because it not renders a lot more interactions not only between the heroine and her potential dates, but also between the boys themselves – their friendships and their past experiences. For that reason, I like the manga a lot. The first episode is based on the first two chapters of the manga but the story takes a different spin in the end. In the manga, Hino, though reluctantly, eventually accepted the violin from Lili after she started playing. However, here, she saw Fuuyumi Shouko being bullied and started to interfere and eventually got challenged.1) I think this original development is a bit “strange” and illogical because since Hino never played the magical violin before, how come she would have the confidence to play in front of people? Okay suppose she believed her body would move on its own, it’s still a bit far fetched that she would try playing without even know how to play…

2) In this episode, as usual, they gave everyone a few seconds to minutes of airtime ^_^;; Probably because of that it seems to me this is more like an introduction seminar to the Corda world. Not a bad idea but I am quite sick of this kind of introduction in all dating SIM anime. Just why can’t they think of something more innovative? However, I guess if you don’t show all the guys in the first episode, you’ll anger some fans.

In terms of acting, I am already used to the seiyuu in the Corda world (the male ones in particular) so I don’t have particular problem with the acting. Besides, in the first episode, the guys barely says anything. However, I will like to comment on Hino in particular. No offense but Takagi-san is a bit too “green” for this role. In a way, her Hino is not as energetic and charismatic as the Hino in the manga. I hope she’ll improve along the way. As for Lili, Mizuhashi-san is cute but not quite there yet. I think someone like Kumai Motoko will be a better choice… but then I suppose once you get accustomed to the voice, things will be okay.

Probably the best part of Corda is the music (at least for a Classical music lover as myself). This series, as well as Nodame Cantabile (starting next season) will be very entertaining for me I suppose. Unlike Nodame Cantabile which is more explores classical music with a great degree of depth, Corda is more along the line of using classical music as a stepping stone to bring “happiness” to people, a.k.a. to let Hino solve the problems of the people around her (in a way). It’s too early to conclude the quality of the music at this point. Will make more judgment later on.

BOTTOMLINE:

Average. Doesn’t impress me but doesn’t disppoint me either. This is not just “a shoujo” manga but I’m not sure if I can recommend it to “guys” because it’s not “funny” like Yamato Nadesico where you can just sit through the anime laughing, or has a strong plot like Ghost Hunt. I personally will keep watching as I’m a fan of the manga. Not so sure if it can attract viewers who are neither fans of the game nor manga though.