Prince of Tennis Songs

I am so glad that I stuck through and decided to watch "Prince of Tennis" and all of their OVAs even though I already read the manga and know what will happen. Not only did I get to see the little chibi episode (which was funny as hell), I also got to listen to all the amazing music they use for openings and endings. After a little research, I found out that the voice actors of the anime worked together to create different bands to sing songs for the anime. In one of the fan DVDs, they did a marathon of 100 songs by the characters and bands they created. I absolutely love their voices! Especially, Kikumaru Eiji (Hiroki Takahashi has an amazing voice range! Look him up on youtube and you'll understand what I mean!) and Shiraishi Kuranosuke's (that Osaka dialect is just pure sexy in my opinion) voice. Anyways, I'll stop my rambling and get on with the few songs that I found awesome:

Wonderful Days (7th ending)- Pulltab to Can (Band formed by characters: Atobe Keigo, Kirihara Ayaka, Sengoku Kiyosumi, Sanada Genichirou, Kamio Akira, Ibu Shinji, and Ooshitari Yuushi)


Little Sky (8th ending)- Kentaro Fukushi


Hello& Goodbye (Nationals Arc OVA 1st Ending)- Kondou Kaoru


These next two are songs that the characters did and is not from the anime. Both of them are a play on the old and famous Japanese fishermen song "Soran Bushi". I think the lyrics are funny. Especially Shitenhouji which had many interesting characters lol.

Kiku-chan no Soran Bushi- Kikumaru Eiji


Naniwa no Soran Bushi- Everyone from Shitenhouji

Prince of Tennis

Summary:

"Prince of Tennis" is a story of growth and competition revolving around the students of Seigaku Middle School and their rookie star player, Echizen Ryoma. Seigaku is famous for their tennis team which had made it to the nationals many times in the past. Ryoma is a first year that just entered the tennis team. Within the first day of entering, he managed to piss off all the upperclassmen with his nonchalant attitude and his superior skills in tennis. Beating all of his upperclassmen during the placement matches, he becomes their rookie star player and join Seigaku's fight to win first in the nationals.

Review:

I've loved "Prince of Tennis" since it first came out in 2001! I read it every time a new chapter was translated and, like many people in Asia, became interested in the sport and joined the tennis team. After I joined the team I became so busy with practice and school that I stopped reading the manga (I played 1st for doubles btw)! Since I was in the midst of my sports manga and anime phase, I decided to check out "Prince of Tennis" again. It turns out that the first manga series ended a while ago and now Konomi sensei is working on the second series which revolves around all the middle school team banding together to fight the high school teams at tennis camp.

After finishing the manga series, I found that after so long, it is still an awesome series! Konomi sensei's art became very awesome! It's so amazing that he could come up with so many different characters for the series and each of them so unique! Also, Konomi sensei also did an awesome job on all the different tennis styles and techniques for each tennis player. Even though most of the techniques became sort of physically impossible after the middle of the series, it was still very creative and it gave me a good laugh!

I realized after reading up to the latest update for the new manga series, I still want more of Tenipuri! I started looking up fanbooks and am watching the anime series right now. From the fanbooks I was able to learn many interesting facts about the characters lol. For fan service, Konomi sensei also put out a couple of baby pictures of the characters. Here are the ones I have managed to find:

Hyotei's Atobe Keigo


St. Rudolph's Mizuki Hajime


Rikkaidai's Yagyuu Hiroshi


Higa's Tanishi Kei


Shitenhouji's Oshitari Kenya


and finally, our Seigaku star, Echizen Ryoma


I've been looking all over to collect these "Premium photos". If anyone of you come across these pictures of other characters or of better quality please send me the link!!!

Well, I hope I've said enough about "Prince of Tennis" to strike your interest! As usual, I'll end this post with some Tenipuri anime openings!

Future- HIRO-X


Driving Myself- HIRO-X


Make You Free- Kimeru


Long Way- Ikuo


Fly High, Sky High- Toshihiko Matsunaga


Shining- Yuki Shirai


I LOVE THIS ONE!!!!
Dream Beliver- Osami Masaki

Plumeria: Hana Uta

I was finishing up Gokusen the movie when I heard this catchy ending song by Aqua Timez. Hope you guys will enjoy it as much as I did!

Aqua Timez- Plumeria: Hana Uta


Btw, I will be starting my finals week (tomorrow is my lab final >.<)! Posting will be slow again. Sorryz... WISH ME LUCK! Fight...O!!! (learned this from Yankumi of Gokusen. Good drama btw! Go watch it!)

Seigi no Mikata

Trailer (Not very informative but it's the only one I could find...):


Cast:
* Shida Mirai as Nakata Yoko
- Konno Moeka (紺野萌花) as young Yoko
* Yamada Yu as Nakata Makiko
- Natsui Runa as young Makiko
* Mukai Osamu as Yoshikawa Naoki
* Hongo Kanata as Okamoto Riku
* Takizawa Saori as Yamashita Midori
* Irie Jingi as Komori Taichi (Jumbo)
* Nishiuchi Mariya (西内まりや) as Moriyama Chika
* Nakamura Shizuka (中村静香) as Komatsu Kyoko
* Shimura Rena (志村玲那) as Shimazaki Mai
* Ishii Mieko (石井美絵子) as Horita Arisa
* Sano Shiro as Nakata Goro
* Tanaka Yoshiko as Nakata Haruko
* Tokui Yuu as Nogami Koichiro
* Hiraizumi Sei as Yoshikawa Katsuo
* Yamaguchi Izumi (山口いづみ) as Yoshikawa Satomi

Summary:

Nakata Yoko is a first year high schooler whose life is a living hell ruled by her older sister Nakata Makiko. For as long as Yoko can remember, her sister had always used her as a slave, bullied her, and used her as a scapegoat for everything in life. However, due to some incredible luck, no matter how awful her sister is, no one seems to notice it except for Yoko. Infact, everything her sister does turns into a good deed for everyone around her, earning her the respectable title of "Seigi no mikata", an Ally of Justice.

Review:

I just finished "Seigi no Mikata" yesterday and it left me wanting more. Although the drama is a repetition of day to day events revolving around the absurd things that Makiko demands from Yoko, it kept me wanting more because it was very funny to see the things Makiko do lol. She was absolutely ridiculous and funny. As a big sister myself, I know I've done my share of bullying and blackmailing to my own brother (it was all harmless little jokes). But Makiko is like the master of bullying. I think if I was her sister I would've ran away from home long ago lol.

I've seen Yamada Yu play other roles before but this is the first time I've seen her play a selfish bitch who doesn't even know she's selfish. She does a very good job! Props to her lol. As for Shida Mirai, she is just absolutely adorable! She a tiny actress bursting with talent! I've seen her act in "Hammer Session" but didn't really take notice of her because her role, although she was one of the main cast, didn't require very much. But seeing her in this drama put her in a new light in my eyes. I definitely look forward to seeing more of her work.

This drama is absolutely comical and it's great for people who don't have time to finish the whole series at once because they always finish one plot before the episode ends (with the exception of the last two). I hope you all will enjoy it as much as I did.

Theme song:
Okumura Hatsune - Honto wa ne

Tumbling

Official Trailer:


This is a fan made trailer but I thought it was really good and the only one with English subtitles. So here it is!


Cast:
* Yamamoto Yusuke as Azuma Wataru
* Seto Koji as Takenaka Yuta
* Miura Shohei as Tsukimori Ryosuke
* Daito Shunsuke as Kiyama Ryuichiro
* Nishijima Takahiro as Hino Tetsuya
* Tomiura Satoshi as Tsuchiya Satoshi
* Yanagishita Tomo as Mizusawa Taku
* Kaku Kento as Nippori Keiji
* Tamoto Soran as Kaneko Atsushi
* Okamoto Azusa as Satonaka Mari
* Okamoto Rei as Asakura Aoi
* Isaka Tatsuya as Akabane Reiji
* Nakadoi Hiroki as Tsurumi Akihiko
* Sato Jiro as Tashiro Shigeo
* Kuninaka Ryoko as Ezaki Shoko
* AKIRA as Kashiwagi Yutaka
* Otsuka Nene as Azuma Natsuko
* Ise Mihato as Sasaki Noriko
* Okihara Issei as Konno Toru
* Iriki Mari as Nakao Haruka
* Kawashima Kenta as Shiramine Kazuhiko

Summary:

Tumbling is a Japanese drama about these high school boys forming a male gymnastics team and striving for their dreams of winning the high school competition. 3rd year high school student Takenaka Yuta is the captain of the male rhythmic sports gymnastics club. It has been his dream to enter the high school competitions and get to the finals since middle school. However that dream was never achieved because they never had enough people to perform in the competitions (they need at least 6 people).

3rd year Azuma Wataru is a infamous delinquent who had spent all his high school years fighting and laying off his studies. In order to graduate, he has to either take extra lessons or join club activities. In order to impress the girl he like (who was in the female gymnastics club), he decided to join the male rhythmic sports gymnastics club.

With Wataru's entrance to the club, the delinquents of the high school began to join the club one by one. Before they knew it, the boys were able to enter competitions. However, because of the history of these delinquents, the club is in constant danger of being closed down. The drama, follows the progress of this club as they enter competitions and overcome all difficulties.

Review:

I really liked this drama. It has a serious plot of athletes overcoming difficulties to pursue their dreams and it contains tons of humor and lessons about life and friends. It was also very amazing to see all the routines they performed! I'm not exactly sure but it looked like the routines were actually done by the actors, who are not gymnasts. Every time they perform new routines I would drop everything I was doing just to focus on their performance. It made me hold my breath and clap like crazy when they were done. It was also this drama that restarted my interest of watching and reading sports related dramas and manga. There are also many eye candy actors in this drama! I give this drama 5/5 stars! You should all watch it if you have time!

In addition to good plot, this drama also has a very nice theme song:
Honey L Days- Manazashi

Tegami Bachi 1 and 2

The first thing about Tegami Bachi that caught my eye was the beautiful art style of this manga. I've been wanting to read the manga since last year but I've been so busy with everything that it was forgotten.Since I'm out of school right now, I've had a lot of time to watch anime! So recently I finished Tegami Bachi season 1. After watching the first season of the anime though, I was a bit disappointed.

Tegami Bachi is a story revolving around a young boy, Lag Seeing, who strives to be the best Letter Bee. Letter Bees are mail delivery people who risk their lives fighting monsters called Gaichuus and traveling endlessly to make sure the hearts within the letters can be delivered to their destination. During the course of the story, Lag finds out many secrets of the government, why his mother was taken from him, and possibly what he really is.

First Season OP:



The beginning of the anime was very much like the manga and had a very captivating story that makes the readers want more. But in most of the season was filled with fillers and I almost gave up watching. Luckily, during the last few episodes, the story picked up it's speed again and leaves a cliffhanger for the second season, Tegami Bachi: Reverse.

Second Season OP:


The second season was a lot more exciting than the first season in that it revealed many secrets regarding the anti government organization Reverse and the birth of Niche, Lag's Dingo. Currently, the second season is still on-going on a weekly basis.

Tegami Bachi is full of all kinds of emotions. I found myself crying with Lag (who is a giant crybaby) in more than one occasion. Since most of the main characters are children (12-14) they are fill with silly moments. In one recent episode, Lag finally meets the famous Jiggy Pepper, a letter bee who makes express delivery on a motorcycle. Lag and the other boys idolized him so much that they imitated him in a very silly way! XD

Jiggy saying good bye to Lag:


The boys reenacting the scene (Lag pretends to be Jiggy while Conner plays the role of the motorcycle):




Besides all the emotion this anime was able to evoke from me, I was also captivated by all the songs they used for the opening and endings. They were all very soft and lovely and definitely reflected the mood of the anime (plus I've always had a likeing for Suga Shikao's music). All in all, I would reccomend browsing through the first season of the anime, watching the second season, and then reading the manga in addition to get the missing info and the latest bits of the plot. I hope you all will enjoy this series as much as I did! :D

Kina Grannis

On Wednesday my college invited Kina Grannis to come to our campus to perform for us. I was so excited to see her!!! Kina Grannis started off as a youtube singer who writes and composes all her songs by herself. She became popular after she won a music video concert and had her song "Message from your Heart" played on the big screen at the Super Bowl!

I didn't know about her until my friend, who is like her number 1 stalker, played her songs repeatedly in her car. Before I knew it, I became obsessed with her songs too! I saw Kina performed for the first time in September. My friends and I made 4 signs that said "Bum" on it and we waved it when she performed her song "Message from Your Heart" when she sing "bum bum bum bum". It was so cute, and Kina acknowledged us during her performance and we were even on the live video online! At the end of that concert, Kina signed our sign and thanked us for being her first "bums."

On Wednesday we brought the same signs that she signed and sat literally 3 feet from the stage. When she announced that she was singing that song we waved our signs and Kina immediately recognized us from her last concert in San Diego! We were so happy! At the end of this concert we had her sign and date the banners again so we can collect her signatures every time she comes to play in San Diego!

I'll put up some of her videos for you guys to enjoy!

Message from Your Heart


Coolio's Gangster's Paradise performed by Kina (From Wednesday's performance)


If you guys wanna know more about Kina or see more of her videos, go check out her youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/kinagrannis

Tohoshinki: Doushite kimi o suki ni natte shimattan darou?

I was just browsing around and found that Tohoshinki had come out with a new song. I wouldn't really say I'm like a crazy fan or something, but I like to listen to all kinds of music. So here is Tohoshinki's new song: Doushite kimi o suki ni natte shimattan darou. It's a beautiful song about a guy who had loved this girl all along and now she's getting married so he can't be with her anymore. However, all he wishes is that she be happy.