Oh great, more shows to look out for because of their seiyuu. (Feel free to skip the tl;dr seiyuu rant at the end if you just want to read about the 2 shows blatantly referenced in the title.)

Blade of The Immortal: If you had really wanted to get me to check Blade of the Immortal out, you didn’t have to mention the snazzy artwork, the gratuitously bloody action sequences, or that it’s being handled by BEE TRAIN (uh oh…?) The only thing you had to say to me was: “Seki Tomokazu” and my superficial fan will instantly gravitate me to the show. Sure he uses his gruff “I have to smoke to achieve this(?)” voice but it works, so between this and Telepathy Shoujo Ran, there’s enough of him to last me till the new season of Nodame Cantabile… Assuming I continue any of the two shows.

Well as for the episode itself (which I watched raw, and understood horseshit - literally. you’ll understand in the episode), some people loved it, some people hated it (and the manga fans seem rather disappointed), but as for this peace loving panda? Actually didn’t find it bad at all, though it’s definitely not my cup of tea. Besides the o.O OP, the rest of the soundtrack did suit the “ooo swordfights!” atmosphere, and I did like the art setting (I spent quite some time thinking in my head “I CAN’T BELIEVE IT’S BEE TRAIN!”. Turns out P.A. Works and Production I.G. gave some help in the credits). And if you’re a fan of badass bloodthirsty characters, Manji doesn’t disappoint, though he kinda lacks a signature sinister bloodlust look in the eye…

Oh and it was fun listening to Sakamoto Maaya as a crazy for as long as she lasted :P

OH RLY

Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu: So what is the secret of Nogizaka Haruka? That she’s a close otaku? That she’s a closet non-fujoshi otaku? Or that she’s a closet non-fujoshi otaku voiced by Noto Mamiko?

(i.e. that she’s just a walking ‘otaku wet-dream’ come true -_-”?)

So I gather people want to watch this show because of the (minimal) fanservice, because Haruka is cute/moe, because of Noto Mamiko, because of the possible romance, because of the issue of being an otaku = shameful. Oddly enough, only that last one interests me, though it seems to be the one that’s least likely to be given the right focus in this series. Well, the first impression I get is that it’ll be light and fluffy and just barely passably almost funny (I’m cutting the show a lot of slack here since I’m fresh off finishing Maid Guy), and… yea, I dunno if I want to watch more of this.

Now question is, if you removed Seki Tomokazu and Noto Mamiko from these respective shows, how would impressions changee, if at all? Oddly enough, though I greatly prefer the former seiyuu (Noto’s great too, but I guess I’m not as fanatical about her as the next person), had they found someone else badass enough to voice Manji, I’ll probably still be as okay with Blade of The Immortal as I am. But take Noto Mamiko out of Nogizaka Haruka and suddenly a lot of people may find the show dropping further into blandsville.

But if you don’t give two horse droppings about seiyuus and just want something dripping with blood/moe/otaku references, then I guess you could check these shows out.

Seiyuu rant: Of course, houkoholic is right in saying that seiyuus should only factor in when checking out the show at first, but shouldn’t be an excuse to follow it further than you would. Best recent example being DragoBoobnaut. If I was making these crappy “shows to watch for their seiyuu” posts back then, I’d probably suckered into watching the show voluntarily. Of course I totally avoided it then… Only to have a fellow otaku friend here show it to me. Fortunately (or rather not) it was the last few episodes and I had to watch the stupid ending Spoiler: show

(Anyways, since I watched at most 2 episodes, don’t take my word for it that the show sucks, watch it if you want, I know I won’t)

About Boobnaut’s ‘all-star’ cast, totally didn’t realize Daisuke Ono and Minorin were playing the *urgh*some main characters until we hit the end credits (actually part of the reason I was shown the show was so that my friend could say: “You’ll never guess who this is!“) But I did snigger at Hirano Aya as the (one of) poster Boobwoman of the series, smacked my forehead when I heard Sawashiro Miyuki and Gotou Yuko, sighed then smacked my forehead when I watched Mizuki Nana’s character, and to top it off, Sugita Tomokazu played a dragon/guy named HowlingStar…

Anyways, as incredibly off tangent those 2 paragraphs were, I’ll just take this chance to cement myself as a lousy wannabe seiyuu fan who rattles off popular seiyuu names as if I knew everything about them, when really I just tie them up with the characters I know they voiced and I liked/hated/found memorable because of said performance (usually). (In other news, Kagamin is a suspected communist, WTF??) I don’t really bother about their actual RL activities like what studios they’re signed up to/who they may or may not be dating, but it does give a me a good laugh sometimes to read about all that elsewhere XD

(And I think I’ve lost the ability to name a single RL Hollywood actor/actress as of late. Okay, Johnny Depp. I can forgive myself now :P )