Aniplex+ Akuma Homura on display at Madoka Magica exhibition

Check out @aniplex_plus's Tweet: https://twitter.com/aniplex_plus/status/467468117270990848

The fully coloured prototype of this 1/8 scale figure is now on display at the Madoka Magica exhibition in Osaka. I hope to see more photos of the details but for now, we have these photos that were tweeted by Aniplex+ themselves. Enjoy. :)

posted from Bloggeroid

Tokyo Kyoudai (Japanese film) / ost by Kajiura Yuki - listed

Ahhhh... something interesting popped up on CDJapan today.  They just listed Tokyo Kyoudai DVD for sale.  This is a 1995 film that Kajiura Yuki scored.  Hmmmm.... It's an award winning film too....I'm interested to watch it now.  Unfortunately, no English subs. :(

For those who are interested in the listing.... CLICK ME.

a-nation music live in SINGAPORE ?!? wow!!! :)

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I was about to go to bed after I take one last look at twitter to see if there was any more Kajiura Yuki and/or Kalafina news when this popped up on twitter.  BTW, this has absolutely nothing to to with Kajiura Yuki and Kalafina.  :P

It looks like a-nation will have a Taiwan and SINGAPORE leg this year!!!!  This could be very exciting for fans of Japanese music in Singapore.  a-nation is the name of a series of huge summer lives held in various cities in Japan every year for the last 13 years.  It usually features very popular Avex artists since the festival is organised by them.

While I may seem like an obsessive Kajiura Yuki, FictionJunction and Kalafina fan... I do listen to other vocalists, vocal units and bands etc from Japan. :)  This time, I'm hoping this means that I'll have the chance to see AAA live in Singapore.  I don't mind it if Shōnan no Kaze shows up too. Since this is organised by Avex and should feature some of their biggest artists, I don't think it'll be cheap to go to the live.... time to put money aside. :)

OH... and PLEASE NO Korean bands... we get enough of them here in Singapore already and I would prefer it if they use the limited time at the live for Japanese artists since we don't get many of them and certain not the really big stars. :(

Here is the link to the a-nation website.  CLICK ME.  Direct link to the page about the Singapore leg.  CLICK ME.

That's all folks... am off to bed.  Oyasumi. :)

Kalafina ~ THE BEST "Red"/"Blue" - bigger cover art & other related stuff

It's a good thing that I am on leave from work this week. :)  Although, I am still pretty busy because I have a lot of stuff that I need to do, I'm still able to squeeze time out to write about the new releases. :)  I wasn't able to read the articles about the album release properly till now... finally a really quiet moment for me to try and work through all the information. :)

First up, I managed to find bigger versions of the cover art for these albums.  So here you go. :)

 

The above are the larger versions of the cover art for the Regular Editions.

 

The above are the larger versions of the cover art for the Limited Editions.

I've also read through some of the news articles etc.

The LE of both the Red and Blue albums will ship with a 60 page deluxe booklet as well as the BD.  I'm thinking that we're looking at probably a box-set here rather than a slip case.  Perhaps something along the lines of the Kalafina 5th Anniversary Live Selection release.  CLICK ME for my un-boxing post.  That came with a 60 page deluxe booklet as well.

The LEs of both the Red and Blue album will ship with footage from different lives.

The Red LE will ship with footage from the 5th Anniversay Live from Jan 2013.  They didn't say more than that so I'm not sure if it'll be the full Live, portions of the Live with only the songs that are featured in THE BEST albums or the WOWOW special.  I'm hoping it isn't the WOWOW Special since most fans would have viewed it by now and I also thought that that wasn't particularly well mixed.  It tended to highlight one of the vocalists voice more when they should have balanced it out to accentuate the harmony but that maybe just me.  I've a feeling this won't be the full live.  If I had to guess, then I think they will be the songs featured in both the Red and Blue album that matches with what was sung at that live.

The Blue LE will ship with footage from the Lisani! Live-4.  If they give us all the songs that were sung at that live, fingers crossed, we'll get the following:

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1.misterioso
2.Kimi no Gin no Niwa
3.seventh heaven
4.sprinter
5.Ongaku
6.Alleluia

I think Lisani! tv only broadcast two of the songs and someone kindly uploaded it onto youtube.  View it soon because who knows how long this video will remain on youtube.  The clip contains only two songs, "Kimi no Gin no Niwa" and "Ongaku".  Let's hope that the BD will give us more than just these two songs.



This is the first time I've heard them sing "Kimi no Gin no Niwa" live and I must say, they did a pretty good job with it.  Lovely!!! :)  And there's Ongaku too.  To be perfectly honest, I don't think that Kalafina has ever sung this song perfectly at any of the lives I've attended or watched on video but I still love listening and watching them sing this at their lives because they seem to really enjoy performing this song and it really gets the crowd going and I love it for those reasons. :)

I've also read through the axive.jp article and there are a few points of interests.

"2014年5月30日・31日には、香港での単独ライブ2days（チケットは10分で即完）、7月2日からフランス、パリ・ノールヴィルバントで行わる ヨーロッパ最大の日本文化とエンターテイメントの祭典“JAPAN EXPO 2014”への参加も決定している（総来場者数20万人超）。パッケージリリースに関しては、アルバム、シングル、映像商品が世界14カ国で販売されてお り、配信リリースは、iTunesを中心にヨーロッパ、北米、アジアなど、世界39カ国もの国々で展開。"


It seems that Kalafina's live in Hong Kong sold REALLY well.  They are scheduled to perform in HK for two nights on the 30th & 31st.  The tickets sold out in 10 mins.  WOW!!! Even if the concert hall isn't the biggest in HK but selling out in 10 mins is quite a feat. :)  Well done Kalafina!! Well done fans who are going to this live. :)

Also, it seems that Kalafina will be making an appearance at the Japan Expo 2014 in Paris France in July.  That's really cool because the Japan Expo is a pretty big event. :)  While the Japan Expo 2014 site hasn't made an official announce yet and neither has Kalafina or SMEJ, this news is in more than just the axive.jp article, it's in a few other online articles as well, so I think the chances of this being true is pretty high.  I'm sure French fans, European fans and all fans who attend this event will be happy to have this come true.  I'm still waiting and waiting for them to come back to Singapore.... sigh.....

It seems like the albums will be sold in 14 countries round the world, in Europe, N. America and Asia but there's no mention of which countries.  The album will also be available on iTunes in 39 countries.

Also, in case some of you haven't yet realised.... there will be two yet to be released songs on these albums.  One will be the theme song for the Urobuchi Gen scripted anime Aldnoah.Zero.  That song is called "Heavenly Blue" and is the last song listed in the Blue album's track list.  I was actually expecting a singles release with probably these versions RE, LE+DVD, LE+BD and Anime LE but so far... no news.

The other is a yet to be titled or announced new song in the Red album.  That's no.1 on the track list.  I like to think it'll be one of the theme songs for the ufotable version of Fate/Stay Night. :P  They have yet to announce who will do the music for  FSN and I'm still holding out hope that it will be Kajiura Yuki and that Kalafina will provide one of the songs for this anime.  I mean, Kajiura Yuki and ufotable... so far it's been a good collaboration, right? :)  Well..... that's just my hope.... I really have no idea what this song will be. :)

Well.... that should be it for now.... I'm off to order the Rekishi Hiwa Historia OST3 and two copies of the RED and BLUE LE albums for my friend an I. :)

THE BEST "Red" Limited Edition

THE BEST "Blue" Limited Edition

THE BEST "Red" Regular Edition

THE BEST "Blue" Regular Edition

If you can afford them too, please do buy them. :)

 Maybe I'll go watch that Kalafina Pocket Message now before I go do the stuff I'm suppose to do... I haven't had time to watch it properly yet. :P Good night!! :)

Kalafina ~ THE BEST "Red" / "Blue" - Pocket Message

I'm suppose to do a quick shower and get out soon but I think I'll post this up because it's something I did find interesting and different on the website.

If you go to this page (CLICK ME) on the special Kalafina website for the release of their new THE BEST albums, you will be greeted with these instructions.

If you've never done this before, like me, and if you can't read Japanese or was too impatient to read the Japanese instructions like me, you might not know what to do and what this is about.  I was definitely confused for a while.

If you don't already have CLIP installed on your phone, go install the app.  you can search for the app using the search words provided on the page. Search for "clipcc" in the AppStore or GooglePlay

After you have installed "clip", go back to the page above or to this link:

「 Kalafina Pocket Message 」
https://clip.cc/c/534344dac3480

You must first use the app, to shoot the QR codes provided at the Kalafina page OR on the link created from Clip... using either page is fine.

When you start up CLIP, you'll see this:

The small boxy squares should be familiar to most of us but for those who don't know, that's looking for a QR code to scan.

Go to the provided QR code and place those boxy squares on the QR code and the app will do the rest for you.

The app will download something from somewhere and you will see a progress bar.  After it's downloading, you'll see this:

Well, you won't exactly see this... you won't see Madoka in the background.  That's just my deskmat. :P  You will however see a blinking picture of Kalafina.  It was here that got me confused for a bit.  What do I do next???

Turns out Clip is an AR program.  So what it's asking you to do is to point to the picture of Kalafina which matches that thumbnail picture.  So go back to the Pocket Message page.  And point it at the matching picture of Kalafina and it'll play the message from the trio. :)

You don't have to go back to that page if you don't want to.  Any photo of them that looks like that will do.

You can go to this page

「 Kalafina Pocket Message 」
https://clip.cc/c/534344dac3480

...and point it at that picture and it will work too. :)

Even pointing at this picture here should work.

The message will playback like how it looks in the screen capture of my phone's screen below. :)  This is off my Samsung S2... when I have time I'll try it on my Nexus 7 tablet.

There is a camera button at the bottom.  You can press that to shoot a still photo of the video and upload it to your favourite social media site.

It will look like this:

Don't forget... if you can afford it... buy the albums to support not just Kalafina but also Kajiura Yuki and the Japanese music industry.

THE BEST "Red" Limited Edition

THE BEST "Blue" Limited Edition

THE BEST "Red" Regular Edition

THE BEST "Blue" Regular Edition

Okay.... I really have to go... if there are any mistakes... I'll correct them later.... cheers~~~~ :)

Kalafina ~ THE BEST "Red" / "Blue" special site is now live / CDs are listed

The site special site is now live!!  CLICK ME.

Everyone can go check it out but that movie clip is still region locked. :(  To view this video on Nico Nico, CLICK ME.

CDJapan also has the albums listed.  My usual line, if you can afford it, please buy to show your support. :)

Here are the direct product page links for your convenience. :)

THE BEST "Red" Limited Edition

THE BEST "Blue" Limited Edition

THE BEST "Red" Regular Edition

THE BEST "Blue" Regular Edition

For details of what's in the editions and the cover art, track list etc... CLICK ME

I will definitely be ordering the Limited Editions for both the "Red" and "Blue" albums.  I don't think I'll get the REs because my pockets really don't run that deep, unfortunately.  Will do the un-boxing as usual.  I'll probably also order the Rekishi Hiwa Historia OST3 cd today.  Will do that un-boxing too but that'll probably be a very bare bones release.

I'm in a bit of a rush right now because I need to be somewhere soon and need to prepare for that.  I won't have time to check out the special site till later tonight... maybe I will blog about it if I find it interesting enough or if I have time. :)

For now... cheers and have a good day. :)

Kalafina ~ THE BEST "Red" / "Blue" ~ view the promo video on Nico Nico

I found it!!!!!!  I decided to make a separate post for this after all.  This is a 5 1/2 min promo video for Kalafina's upcoming THE BEST: Red and THE BEST: Blue album releases.  This clip is titled  『Kalafinaヒストリームービー』which translates into "Kalafina History Movie".

The clip uploaded by SMEJapan is region-locked to Japan only which REALLY sucks. :(

But Nico Nico has this very same clip up and is streaming it on their website.  You will need an a Nico Nico account to view it though but it's free, so take some time to sign up if you don't already have an account.  This way, you can also view the other upcoming Kalafina streams in July.

The link to view this video is here:
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm23539945

For more info about this release and the Nico Nico Kalafina programs that'll screen in July, CLICK ME. :)