Tenipuri 2006 Manga Calendar

Ordered a copy of this calendar from CD Japan yesterday. I didn't buy the manga calendar last year and bought both versions of the anime calendar instead. How fast time flies and it's time to buy calendars again! Actually, I don't buy Japanese calendars but Tenipuri made me break the exception last year. Well, the manga calendar is released in Oct which is slightly earlier than the anime calendars if last year's schedule is applicable this year However, the anime ended in Mar this year, I'm not sure whether there will be the anime version calendar from TV Tokyo. Anyway, the manga calendar can be hung on the wall or put on the table and is a weekly one where there are the classic lines from the various characters on each week. I think it costs much more to have it shipped by Amazon Japan and after that horrendous wait for the books last year, I'm still worried about trying their service again. As such, I decided to go back to my trusted CD Japan again for this. Besides, HMV Japan does not sell the manga calendar. It will be till Oct before I can see the calendar but I just hope that it wouldn't take as long what HMV Japan did last year where it took close to one month from the release date before I received it.

Tenipuri CDs I bought recently

The single sung by the Senbatsu team which includes Atobe, Sanada, Oshitari, Kikumaru, Sengoku, Fuji, Kirihara and Echizen. Too bad besides the cover picture, there are no more photos of the team. Anyway, the song is the ouen song for the movie and it's quite nice. Actually, I bought this because of the members so the song isn't that important to me ^__^ but I know for sure that if the song sucks, I won't probably buy it anyway.

The soundtrack for the movie but I've not finished listening to this yet. I only ran the theme songs sung by SCRIPT and Aozu & Cap to Bin to test the CD and the booklets in this 2-CD set feature some scenes of the movie.

I've more or less finished listening to this album and am kicking myself for not buying this earlier. I would have managed to get the first press gift if I bought it at the beginning of the year. Anyway, it's all thanks to Rajipuri that I actually got the motivation to buy Tezuka's album and it sounds much better than I expected. Now, should I buy his past singles too or even Atobe's album? And will Genichirou release one album since Taka-san is releasing his soon?

DVDs Vol 21 and 42

Received the DVDs last night and this time round, they didn't ask me for the declaration. Can't they just do without the declaration since I'm a regular customer? It makes my life extremely difficult to bother with that declaration process.

I'm very pleasantly surprised to get the first press for Vol 21 since it comes with the photos! When buying the past volumes, I do get some first press editions at time but Vol 21 was released way back in Oct 03 and HMV Japan still has the first press. What does this say? They sold too little units of Vol 21? However, most of the volumes have the first press sold out so this could be one of the few which didn't. This volume contains episodes of Wakato vs Kaidou and Shinjou vs Echizen so it's entirely about Jousei Shonan. I only browsed through it last night since I was more hyped up over finishing Spiral.

As for Vol 42, the cover features Rokkaku and St Rudolph. Episodes include the chibi episode in Hawaii and Christmas as well as the beginning of the school ranking matches between Taka-san vs Oishi, Momo vs Kaidou and Eiji vs Inui. Since next month's cover is Hyotei, I have a strong hunch that Vol 44 would be Rikkaidai before the final volume shows Seigaku. Hopefully, this wish would come true.

And I am seriously running out of space to store the DVDs, CDs and CDRs of the subbed episodes in the same drawer. And I still have more than 15 DVDs to buy in order to complete the collection. To make things worse, the space holding the manga is almost full so there's no way I'm going to put the stuff there. I've got to think of a way soon since the Rajipuri CDs (Sanada & Tezuka, Atobe & Tezuka) and next month's DVDs will be here in a flash...

Vol 29 of the manga and anime DVD covers

I ordered this more than 2 weeks ago and yet HMV Japan has not sent it to me. I got so frustrated that I cancelled the order so I'm probably going to get it directly from Kinokuniya Singapore. Amazon Japan is too expensive just to get one volume of manga and I'm not too interested in buying other stuff from them.

Seeing the anime DVD covers, I see that Vol 43 is Hyotei's picture so if my hunch is correct, Vol 44 should be Rikkaidai while Vol 45, the final should be Seigaku. And the whole anime DVD series will be released by Oct. I still have more than 15 volumes of DVD to buy from the earlier releases.

And I still have the Gather single to buy. Genichirou's new single will be released in Sep!!! Lots of things to buy but not enough money...

Sanada Genichirou (Kusunoki Taiten)

Name: Kusunoki Taiten (楠大典)
Date of Birth: 18 Mar 1967
Hometown: Tokyo
Blood Group: B
Height: 173 cm
Weight: 62 kg

I'll be doing a series of features on my favourite seiyuus/characters from Tenipuri.

I have to admit because of the fact that I simply adore Sanada Genichirou, I am featuring Kusunoki-san first but I will feature Okiayu-san later since Tezuka and Sanada are both important to me. ^__^

Noted some similarities between me and Kusunoki-san:
-We are both of blood type B
-We are born in the same month

According to his official website http://www.sawas.co.jp/prof_kusunoki_daiten.html, he does take on a lot of seiyuu and narration projects but I have not seen his projects before. That is why I am not familiar with his name or picture until Gen-chan came along.

And there will be a new single from Sanada i.e. Kusunoki-san on 14 Sep. I've already pre-ordered it and am looking forward to receiving this with Gen-chan's first single.

Theatrical Feature Prince of Tennis Memorial Edition

Wow, I got this premium edition yesterday and I'm simply bowled over by what I'm getting. I'm extremely satisfied with the contents even though I paid so much for it.

First of all, I was SO SUPRISED to see a Hyotei handphone strap as one of the freebies!!! This is what the fans could buy at the screening of the movie and I never thought I could own one of this. Although I would have gone delirious with joy if I had got a Rikkai strap, I'm already jumping for joy at the sight of Hyotei's strap.

Secondly, the extremely refined and beautiful packaging of the box and the cases which hold the DVD! Well, I think it's quite difficult to get the DVD out of the packaging but the box's cover is simply cool. We have the faces of the Seigaku regulars and Ryoga on the main feature while on Atobe's feature, we have him, Oshitari and Mukahi on the front while Kabaji and some of the other schools' members are on the back. Why isn't Genichirou on the cover?! And in each case is a pretty thick booklet featuring a detailed explanation of the plot with pictures. There's also another booklet separate from the cases which has info on the movie on the whole plus interviews with some of the seiyuus.

Thirdly, the reflective board on the back of the box which shows Ryoma or Ryoga depending on the direction you view it from. They look so similar that it's quite hard to get a distinct view of the two. Somehow, I think Ryoga is the Ryoma a few years later and he really looks more like it. In fact, Konomi-sensei said that he had plans to put Ryoga into the manga but the anime beat him to it but Ryoga will appear in the manga in the near future. Maybe we will get to see who he really is.

Last but not least, the additional contents in the DVD itself. Well, the making clips differ since there's the premiere party and seiyuu meeting at the cinemas which are not in the single DVD editions I posted earlier. HOWEVER, the main highlight is the commentary by the seiyuus where you turn off the main track and hear their comments. I heard the double bucchou commentary on the Atobe feature by Okiayu Ryutaro-san and Suwabe Junichi-san and they were so funny! I'm going to watch the main feature which has two sets of comments i.e. by Aozu (Echizen, Fuji, Oishi and Tezuka) and Cap to Bin (Kaidou, Momoshiro, Kawamura, Inui and Kikumaru) before I make further comments.

I'm really glad that I got this special edition. Although it's extremely expensive, it's definitely worth it. ^__^

Futari no Samurai

I'm at a loss for words. Really.

It's extremely exaggerated especially that part when Tezuka Zone was at work. I know it's a magnificient trick but to the extent of an explosion on Earth seems to be overdone. And when the ship was sinking, what on earth are Ryoma and Ryoga thinking? Playing tennis while submerged in water? And why must Ryoma's clothes disintegrate and do a smash in that state? It is good for laughs and I do enjoy it but they could have toned down with regards to this aspect.

Ryoga seems like an older version of Ryoma and in the end, I still don't get to know what is his identity. I don't think Nanjirou has another son and he seems to be like a tennis student of Nanjirou who lived with his family for a while. And according to the childhood flashbacks, it seemed that he was on good terms with Ryoma. Besides, he was picked up by Sakurabuki to join the team to play fake matches so his family background needs more probing...

In the end, I'm not sure whether Atobe was the one who initiated the rescue operation since he found out that Sakurabuki is not a rich man. He's that resourceful to know those in the same social status...Sugoii ne, Atobe!

Generally, this main feature was fine but please, if they do another movie, maybe they can do something about the exaggerated storyline. I want to see more tennis scenes and the private lives of those characters...

Atobe kara no okuri mono ~ Kimi ni sasageru Tenipuri Matsuri

It's been some time since I updated the Tenipuri blog. Well, new found motivation since I received the movie DVDs yesterday. I didn't have time to watch the longer part about Seigaku and watched the Atobe short film first. I'm still waiting for the deluxe edition which I got from CD Japan. What is taking them so long?!

All I can say that it was hillarious at various points and it's truly a fan service feature where we see all characters appearing regardless of whether they speak. It was quite obvious to see that Atobe's motive for holding the event was for Kabaji. However, I thought that the girl he was eyeing would have been the girl of his dreams but who knows it turned out to be his elder sister who is getting married soon? ^__^ And Atobe actually got Kabaji's birthday wrong since he meant to hold the event on his birthday. Well, I do remember that Kabaji's birthday is in Jan and yet everyone was in summer wear so I was trying to reconcile these two contradicting facts. Until Atobe knew he got the wrong day, it was funny to see how he reacted to save himself face. However, that plane concept was so exaggerated. Is Atobe really that rich?!

Some of the other interesting points in the short feature film:

-Atobe saving Tezuka at the end of the race when the signboard fell down. Oh my god, are they trying to provide more material for the yaoi fans? Oh please...

-Sanada and Yukimura finally standing together in a place other than the hospital ^__^ Oh my Genichirou in a singlet...

-The haunted house scene where Yanagi was hanging upside down to scare Marui while Shinji was going on and on about being arranged to play a ghost in the well. And I think Yagyuu was scared stiff but still pretended to be fine so as to maintain his image.

-The game where they had a group of guys and girls with the ladies asking questions and picking the guy they liked best. It was such a big surprise to see Shishido winning all the votes and Sengoku dissed him by saying that the outcome was due to the system's problem and the computer did crash after that. Haha! Shinjou and Hanamura-sensei...those two are ayashii...

As what Suwabe Junichi-san says, this is something which all Tenipuri fans should enjoy since we get to see so many characters at one sitting.

By the way, this version's DVD has a series of stickers which looks like a film negative plus an insert on the story's plot. Inside, we have pictures of all the characters in the anime.

Will go home and watch the long feature film of Seigaku tonight...