Sekai-ichi Hatsukoi

There's some exciting news for yaoi lovers! The anime adaptation of the Sekai-ichi Hatsukoi (The Best First Love in the World) manga has finally started airing in Japan!!!! I have been waiting for this to start since it was first announced that the anime was going to be made back in January of last year, and was starting to lose hope. :( After hearing about AIC having to drop the remake of Ai no Kusabi and the developers of Sex Pistols postponing to release date of the second OVA for nearly a year, things were looking bleak in the yaoi anime community. Thankfully it made a comeback with the quick release of both Koisuru Bouken OVAs (which are delicious), but I was still desperately checking Aarinfantasy several times a week to see if any news had been released about Sekai-ichi Hatsukoi.

Why have I been so excited about this anime? Well...the creator is Shungiku Nakamura, the amazingly talented woman behind Junjou Romantica. Junjou was a breakout and break-through anime for the yaoi genre, opening doors that had only been knocked upon by the genre in the past. With two seasons and twenty-four episodes, Junjou Romantica is the longest yaoi anime (yaoi, not slash or shounen-ai) that has ever been released. Add the fact that the show was done beautifully to that mix and it's heaven! Sure, there are shows like Gravitation, Sukisho, and Loveless that are all at thirteen episodes a piece, but...yeah... The Gravitation adaptation is just horrible, Sukisho is more silly than anything else, and Loveless, while good, is really a shouta anime. Junjou Romantica went into uncharted territories, kicking ass and taking names all the while.

Music Corner - featuring ONE OK ROCK

I FAIL!!!!!!! I said I was going to try and do at least one "Music Corner" a month, and I completely missed March. T___T Oh, well! I'm here now at the beginning of April with ONE OK ROCK!! :D

ONE OK ROCK was formed in 2005, and is made up of Taka (vocalist), Toru (guitarist), Ryota (bassist), and Tomoya (drummer). They have a distinctive musical sound. Those whose ears are trained to the sound of Japanese rock music will notice their origins immediately, but their sound could also be described as being more "American sounding" than most other Japanese rock bands. This can sometimes be a problem with other bands (as many people listen to Japanese music to escape the mediocre sound of American music), but OOR has managed to find their niche and mesh the two different sounds together in a way that is near perfection.

I'm relatively new to OOR, but the moment I heard "Jibun Rock" I became a fan. Their earlier music (which contains rapping a la Linkin Park) is interesting. I like the rapping and it adds a different flavor to their music, but at the same time, I'm quite pleased with the new direction their sound has gone in. Taka's voice is distinctive and nearly all their melodies are catchy as hell! There are many times where Taka sings in English, and it's actually English...not Engrish!

As they don't have many singles yet, this post won't be nearly as long as the one for MUCC was, but I'm going to follow the same sort of pattern. Song title, year, snippet of translated lyrics, and video. Unlike with MUCC, though, I'm not going to put asterisks beside my favorites...because I love them all!! Heheh. There aren't many, so take a listen to all of them. :D If you don't feel like listening to them all, I would recommend giving "Koi no Aibou Kokoro no Cupid," "Liar," "Jibun Rock," and "Answer is Near" a listen. :)

Happy listening!