Under the Scope: Everyone, let's DATE COURSE get!

It's a small interwebz, and an even smaller erogeworld after all. Earlier this year I was talking with I've Sound blog owner 愛撫 about a new fishtone (former I've member) OP tune. We both concluded that the song sucked balls and that this would be the end of that. Enter デートコース (Date Course) who actually had a decent song on the game's CD (抱きしめて欲しいよ, featured below), which I didn't bother checking out because of the totally lame fishtone OP. Shame on me, but no time like the present to catch up on past mistakes.

Although Date Course only officially started sometime in January 2009, the girls have at least a decade of experience combined. It's worth taking a look at the unique lineup behind this new band, namely: 民安ともえ the veteran, みるく the hypersexual strumpet and finally 加瀬愛奈, the regular girl who wants you to fly her "to the over the rainbow". No shit, hop in my Nissan and I'll take you there. OR WILL I?!?! They don't have a particularly explosive discography to this day, in fact this page will do a much better job at summarizing everything than I ever could. Some of their songs are pretty sappy, but the good ones are upbeat and borderline denpa. They seem to be closely related to (sponsored by?) game studio MoonStone and promotional agency Dwango (home to Akihabalove Records).

Together they make for a good balanced trio capable of producing fantastic (see above), average (see below) and mediocre stuff (see キラキラッ☆-twinkle star light- on the Princess Party album). The fact that 民安ともえ/Tami/Tammy/Tomoe/whatever you wanna call her is at the helm bodes well for Date Course's future. Here's a girl who's been working in the eroge industry for the past 5 years and shows absolutely no signs of slowing down. Certainly one of her most well-know album is 「TECHNORIDER TAMMY」 but right now I'm "looking" for 「アイドルKiss! 無敵ッス☆」, her latest split single with 織姫よぞら, whose deep booming voice always impressed me, considering how tiny she seems! (eyes excluded)

Here's a rather unique objective Date Course have set for themselves this year: they want to shake 10,000 hands. It's a bit ill-advised with the A(H1N1) scare we're going through recently, but it's still an clever promotional ploy. As it stands, they have accomplished a little over 80% of their goal. But with only two months to go before 2009 runs out, methinks they'll have to offer a little more than a handshake. Might I suggest みるく upping the ante with a more enticing incentive? Or... chances are they'll have something new for C77 and that will seal the deal. So let's keep an eye out for our new favourite maid trio!

Mandi noticed an interesting fact: the lyrics to both songs featured on this entry were penned by none other than Countess YOUNO, who usually writes for IOSYS and Albatrosicks. It's a nice coincidence, but I wouldn't come to the conclusion that IOSYS and Date Course are in cahoots just yet, as the dog-loving author actually does this for a living.

MOSAIC.WAV 「LIVE @ 秋葉原UDX」 youtube medley

So I did get up in time to watch the show, but my live stream recording plan wasn't quite up to snuff. I managed to snag decent footage from the last four songs and pretty much all of the encore. The sound quality is pretty good but the video itself, well... it's not like we're in any position to complain. Thanks to Famitsu and Enterbrain for making this possible... although I fully expect one of these two entities to request this video to go down! Save it while you can, but I could always upload the 100MB AVI file somewhere if you ask nicely. Here's what the actual setlist looked like.

1.みんなみくみくにしてあげる♪
2.電気の恋人
3.***にできたかな
4.server error
5.HATSUNEtive
6.天真爛漫にゅばばばばーん
7.妄想網 Ж Superluminal
8.We Love Akiba-Pop !!

MOSAIC.WAV 「Heartsnative」 live web broadcast

October 21st 2009 has come and gone and brought 「Heartsnative」 with it, the wonderful new MOSAIC.WAV×鶴田加茂×初音ミク crossover album. It actually ranked in seventh on the daily oricon charts, which is no small feat! Impressions should follow shortly but until then, you can check out samples from each song on the rather awesome official website. You should also look at this informative blog entry from mi~ko herself, which accurately details the limited edition's "dress-up" feature.

But here comes the big news, especially for international fans! On Saturday October 24th 2009, Famitsu will stream the MOSAIC.WAV live concert at "entamatsu" (Enterbrain Festival), straight from Akihabara. The show starts at 7PM Japan time (with a test feed going live at 6:40PM), which means 3AM West coast, 6AM East coast and 12PM for our lucky French friends. Use this time converter for your own region.

This is sort of problematic for me; not so much the time, just that I'll be on the road that morning. So here's my request, dear readers: can someone please rip/grab the stream and upload it to youtube? I'm counting on you guys, although I'm not even sure how I would go about it, myself. It seems something like Orbit Downloader could do the job. There's a slight chance that (parts of) the video will go up on the EnterbrainTV youtube channel, but I wouldn't bet the farm on it. Preload the UG Live java applet prior to the show (Java and Flash/WMP are required) to be on the safe side.

Update 10/25/09: Everything's under control.

When chiptune meets old-school hardcore punk

Pulsewave - October 2009 from NO CARRIER on Vimeo.

Chiptune and Hardcore Punk both originated in the late 70s, early 80s, so how the hell have we gone on for so long without putting 2 and 2 together? Sure, you could argue that they clashed a few times in the past. Regardless, a bunch of really cool doods are going to do just that this weekend as both The Misfits and Minor Threat (presumably others) will see their classic songs remixed with 8-bit elements. It would seem that Bit Shifter also covered The Misfits a few times in the past, gotta love this guy (feel terrible for missing him playing my backyard sometime ago). Anyway, if you're in NYC this weekend, attending this gig should be a no-brainer. Gonna have to look into ensuring my presence at Blipfest 2009, myself. Here's the superb flyer for this weekend's event.

Brandish 2: The Planet Buster (English Trailer)

Yes, I know, no new posts in 2 weeks now. Real-life deadlines aside, I've mostly invested my free time into concocting the following trailer:

Nevermind the trailer, I've actually spent the last 15 months translating this game (not on a full-time basis, of course). This project will soon come to term as indicated by the vague November 2009 release window. Not that there are any kinks to iron out, just gotta work out some logistics. Much as I enjoyed spending all this time translating Brandish 2 and coordinating the whole project, I can't wait to set this beast free and focus on other things.

Regardless, there isn't actually a whole lot happening in the world of denpa these days. Folks like me are still reeling from the devastating hurricane of quality C76 releases. M3 came and went without any significant drops, although a few records came out which I now heavily regret not having someone buy for me. We'll return to our regular denpa coverage shortly.

M3-24 and 東方紅楼夢-5 circle lists are out

Two big events are set to take place on October 11th, where hundreds (thousands??) of new records will launch. The list of circles participating in the 24th edition of M3 (Yokohama) was finally unveiled a few days ago, nearly 2 weeks past the scheduled mid-September date. A quick search for 電波 yields results such as BRAINBOX, Halozy, ぐうのねサウンズ, Birdtune and of course our beloved とろ美. Have fun randomly clicking your way through hundreds of unknown circles and let us know if you find anything interesting.

Notice any BIG omission from that M3 lineup? That's right, IOSYS have opted to support an increasingly larger Osaka-based event called 東方紅楼夢 (Touhou Kouroumu). I was hoping they would have some sort of presence at M3 so that I could get someone to pick up 「bitter」 for me, but between this new event and a rather large concert in Hokkaido the night before, I guess they're running out of staff to maintain an omnipresent status. Unlike their two M3-24 albums, they won't have anything new to sell at Kouroumu, they're probably holding out for C77. But about the event itself: exactly one thousand artists will be peddling their wares. That's incredible, considering it's only on its fifth iteration. Unfortunately, their catalog does not classify artists by genre or provide any description whatsoever, so good luck figuring out who's who short of being there in person.