I got my BEST OF HERO today, and after I found myself bouncing on the chair while listening to Dragon Kid’s song I just had to make romaji for it and learn to sing it.
BEST OF HERO is great, by the way. I really like most of the songs on it so I’ll probably make more romaji for the tracks later. ♪(´ε｀ )
Everything they planned to sample from BEST OF HERO has now been sampled. You can listen to them on Lantis’ Tiger & Bunny page. Our impressions of the first five song samples are here.
I don’t really think the sample is giving a very good impression of the song, or it’s just not really up our alley. Lyrics on the other hand sound very Origami-style. Full version might give a different impression.
Cute like a button, and peppy, but we expected something more energetic. I think there might be more in the lyrics so full version would be nice with this song too.
The song title made me expect something a bit more melancholy (and so did Twitter trolls going on about “Bunny’s feelings” – I can’t remember if it was Ozaki who tweeted that or if it was Hoshizora Sunrise). This song seems really fitting with how the series ended, and Morita sounds happy and hopeful singing it. The song also has this kind of 80s feeling, it’s hard to explain but I got pretty nostalgic listening to the sample.
We didn’t think it’d be possible for the new duet to come anywhere near “Seigi no koe ga kikoerukai”, but this does. Hirata and Morita sound really good singing together, the lyrics sound like fun, and it just gives this “feels goodman” vibe.
[Aki_the_geek] i have no words to add about the duet because I’m all
[Aki_the_geek] like that picture with a dude in front of a computer with a rainbow waterfall flowing outta his mouth
This one? Seems accurate.
I tried asking Aki about her Top 3 from the samples, but then I realized I couldn’t pick just three. I think she hit the mark with this comment, though…
[derpchan] so what’s your top 3 from the samples?
[Aki_the_geek] 1. duet 2. duet 3. duet
[Aki_the_geek] 😛
(This is the second time ever I’m looking forward to a character song CD like crazy.)
How about you?
We’re halfway there with the song samples from BEST OF HERO. Despite Mr. Ozaki’s spoilers we weren’t really sure what to expect…
Sky High’s song was pretty hyped on Twitter (Inoue and Ozaki chatted about it the week it was up for sampling on radio), but it doesn’t really hit the mark with us. It’s a good match for Inoue’s voice, and the background vocals are amusing. Maybe we expected too much, or maybe full version will be more interesting? The sample doesn’t get us very excited.
This is a huge improvement over Blue Rose’s single. The song sounds kinda European style, and Kotobuki’s voice works great with it. This is the kind of music that would be found on my playlist so I guess I’m really partial to it.
Swinging, but considering Kotetsu’s taste in music it was to be expected. Hirata is a good singer and this is fun to listen to. We both agreed that this is our favourite of the song samples so far. (I may have been affected by the MMD above, it puts a huge grin on my face.)
The first word that came to mind was “cute”. Especially Ise singing as Pao-Lin is just incredibly cute-sounding. The full version will hopefully have more Nathan, now his part was way too small and the song ends up being a bit on the forgettable side judging from the sample.
This is not a duet unless there’s actual singing from Tiger in the full version. In the sample he’s just making quips from the background and ordering more alcohol. I was trying to come up with an adjective to describe Kusunoki’s singing but I can’t think of anything but “manly”. Because it is manly. And listening to it makes us feel manly too. I guess that’s the “old man flavour” that Ozaki advertised.
We’re not going to go into how well lyrics fit the characters, I think it’s best to have the full versions for that. (And there might be a spontaneous discharge inducing surprise hiding in these songs, just like Barnaby’s part in the B.T.B. song.)
As for the samples not played yet, we’re looking forward to Barnaby’s new solo song the most, because Morita’s voice is really well-suited for ballads. We also want to hear the new duet although it will have a hard time beating “Seigi no koe ga kikoerukai”.
How about you?
I like recurring villains in a superhero setting. They make things more interesting, and give the superheroes something to fight on an even ground. However, I’m not really sure if we’d want this particular guy as a recurring villain. He was a bad villain to start with, and I know only a couple of people who actually like him.
Anyway… Maverick’s profile in Hero TV Fan vol. 2 lists his status as “missing”. The way we see it, this could mean a few things:
Option number one seems somewhat possible. Option number three is very unlikely, Lunatic sets things on fire first and doesn’t bother to ask questions – but Maverick was involved in all the faking going on in Hero TV and in what happened to Mr. Legend. Option number four is too far out, but when dealing with trolls it’s best to list all possibilities.
We’d be willing to bet our merch shopping money on the second option and Ouroboros involvement in this, even though a quick check with Official Hero Book 2 doesn’t mention Maverick being missing, it just talks about him being “judged” by Lunatic (this clearly involves torching). If we stick to the cover-up option, it would be easy since the press of Sternbild doesn’t seem very inquisitive. This could just be that the majority of the press is a part of Apollon Media – in other words under Maverick’s control. The big companies seem to direct the entire city, so for example the smaller newspapers might not survive for long before getting driven out of business or getting bought out by Apollon Media.
So if Ouroboros covered it all up, why did they do it? It was confirmed that the “certain organization” Maverick worked with was Ouroboros, and he obviously knew a lot about what was going on behind the scenes. By this point he was already a self-inflicted vegetable so he couldn’t talk and reveal their secrets – unless there was a possibility of somehow getting the memories out of his jumbled brain. Was it just a precaution to keep everything hushed and in secrecy? Maybe it’s standard Ouroboros policy to cover up every incident that might affect them? Maverick was one of the most powerful men – if not even the most powerful man – in Sternbild, and he was clearly afraid of Ouroboros and what they would do when the truth of what he’d been doing was revealed.
We don’t think it’d be worth bringing Maverick back as a character in any of the continuations. Definitely not if the intention for bringing him back would be redeeming him. He didn’t show remorse for any of his deeds before he “maveried” himself. (The Japanese fans turned the memory alteration into a verb, 「マベる」 maberu. I remember even seeing the staff&cast use it in interviews.) Redeeming someone who doesn’t see the error of his ways is pointless, and although Nishida says that Maverick wasn’t a completely wicked man we think he’s a smarter writer than that. It’s possible that whatever happened to him will be referenced or mentioned if the Ouroboros storyline continues, since it’s such an integral part of the setting.
There’s just too little information of Ouroboros to make bigger predictions or deeper speculah, so we’d love to learn more about it in the movies or even in one of the manga serializations. Right now Ouroboros speculah is kinda boring since we have already talked about every option so many times.
Hey, still feels Goodman to speculate a little bit for a change.
We leave most of the merchandise blogging to Sternbild Central Market these days, but I can’t resist this. Partially because it almost got me to do a spit-take at my screen.
There’s been that fanmade mildly NSFW hug pillow cover available at Mandarake and Toranoana, but these… These are actual, official merchandise.
They’re bedsheets, your choice if you want to sleep with Kotetsu or Barnaby. There are also matching pillow cases, Kotetsu & Barnaby versions. I wonder if these will pop up on Bandai’s shopping webcast next time…
Update: These aren’t exclusives after all, above links go to CDJapan now, but they are available at Amiami and Hobby Search, too.
This photoshopped version is making me think that just like in this photoshopped composition of the posters, the poses on the sheets are a bit too intentional. As is that strip of bare midriff Barnaby is flaunting on the sheet and the poster.
And while I’m going on about merchandise and spit-takes, the character song album that was set for December has been pushed back to February 2012. It has a title now, too, BEST OF HERO. I can only hope the delay is to ensure we have another spontaneous discharge epic experience like “sandy beach, sandy beach” waiting for us.
I also got the new official books, Hero TV Fan vol. 2 and Official Hero Book 2, in the mail today. Review coming as I have time to get acquainted with them.
This is Sternbild 