SEIYUU LOUNGE EP6 - Rise and Fall of 2D Music Franchises [PART 1] 

Sorry for the late reply! Wow. Yeah, I can imagine that, with your background, it is impossible not to notice both aspects. Those fans really make the franchises they're fans of look bad. It's a pity though as, some times, that kind of "obnoxious behavior" will lead to some people want to stay clear of that franchise to avoid toxicity. Yes, Suzuken as well is an awesome composer! He can be a bit quirky at times though. Yeah, I noticed it too. He releases music with much less frequency but given how busy he is with his company and AD-LIVE, it is understandable. Toyonaga is a genius, really. His talents when it comes to music impress me a whole lot. Going through the credits in the booklet of "MUSIC OF THE ENTERTAINMENT" (my all time favorite album of his and actually, the very first batch of music from him that I heard) I noticed how his team was, in essence, himself plus a sound engineer and a mixer. Usually, male seiyuu have huge teams behind the production of their music, even those that are singer-songwriters. Toyonaga keeps it up close and personal, having full control over his creativity. And I wasn't even aware that he created music on the spot in the past! 🤯 Just how awesome can this man can get? I remember reading something along those lines back when the project kicked off - at that time I was not covering many 2D units on the website so I didn't really dive into it. I wasn't aware though that the focus shifted that much... I really feel like when companies notice that their project is getting more popular, they try to branch out more than they can - or should - and usually lose sight of what their initial aim was. Many fans won't care but those that started to follow the project because of that differential will certainly lose interest with time. I get the feeling - might be dead wrong on this - that Movic doesn't really know how long they can keep the Tsukiuta franchise alive without repeating itself or just "milking it dry". Also it has been noticeable some weird - bad - management altogether from them - just look at VAZZROCK. The groups had to wait 2 years - of radio silence - to release their follow up unit song release when those were supposed to drop close to each other. Or how ZIX only released music 2 years later. Or how the Tsukipro franchise - SQ and Alive - goes on sudden hiatuses after batches of content being announced to be released in that same year. Movic is so focused on Hana-Doll* - rightly so - and Infinit0 + TOBARI that they don't seem to know how to juggle those with the other projects. Tsukiuta is a bit extreme for myself exactly for the same reason you mentioned. I found myself only listening to Hosoyan, KENN and Kakki (even his character songs are weird as hell)'s songs while the others have styles that I really can't seem to enjoy. That is, indeed, a recommendation done right 😄 I really like how the project is aimed at everyone, no region-locks, even posts and engagement in English at times. The fandom seems to be super tight and respectful - something that is rare to come by when it comes to 2D music franchises - and the music!! That was what made me a big fan. Truth is, their music is not even remotely fresh in a general panorama. However, among male seiyuu and 2D idols? They have the most refreshing and unique music. T I've noticed that Antholics love to theorize which is interesting 😂 In my eyes, Hana-Doll* is what a 2D project should be like: unique, not feeding fujoshi bait to make up for lack of quality (be it vocals, instrumentals or even the plot), not straying away from their initial focus and truly focusing on both domestic and international fans. I do hope they stay that way and, if popularizing knocks on the project's door, that they don't go all out and scrap what made it unique: the music. The whole Argonavis franchise has a lot of great music! Loving how they also brought Visual-kei back to the spotlight! I believe that, as long as those units/franchises can take the physical activities to digital, losses will be minimal. The problem is, most franchises did not adapt well to the change or took a lot of time - which might have delt some blows in their finances - to do so. For example, the Argonavis franchise sure adapted insanely fast to the digital panorama, which was surprising! Other franchises went radio silent. There was a news article on Yahoo jp mentioning that the anime industry had incurred in losses in the millions just because of the pandemic. I can only imagine when it comes to music projects - that usually are not counted towards those statistics. Time will tell which projects survive. My comment turned as well into an essay 😂

But you came later for a comment!! Let's see the positives here! Hello 👋 It ended up being a big deal among fans of the franchise and there was a lot of backlash at Evil Line Records because of that. I confess that the initial appeal of Hypnosis Mic for me was, in fact, that male seiyuu were challenging rap and doing it by having, of course, anime "avatars" for people to connect to but... you know how things work with popularity. Evil Line Records were making a shot in the dark with Hypnosis Mic and you could tell that they didn't know they'd have the project being the massive hit it now is. As soon as it turned into a hit project, what do the executives at the music label think? "How can we make a lot of money with this?" A game - okay, because the original cast gives voice (somehow) there - and a stage play - with all characters being recasted with stage actors and even creating non-cannon crews to mess things up. The stage play was exactly why they changed the project's description from seiyuu challenging rap to a rap project with characters. Like I said, the initial appeal of Hypnosis Mic was seiyuu challenging rap - showing the talents that they have - not what we have today. It is like you say, I wanted to see how seiyuu would develop their rap skills (a 1st in the seiyuu industry) not how seiyuu rap as a character (nothing new there, been done before - i.e Toshiyuki Toyonaga as Momochi performing "Lion"). Well, nothing we can do now about that. Amasaki had a really weird 1st song with Buster Bros!!!. It was a mix of bad sampling from the DJ and weak rap - more like talking - by a still uncomfortable Amasaki. Of course, he has grown a lot and recently has been sounding really good. His new solo "Requiem" is a shocking yet mesmerizing track that really stays with you. He's character is still focusing a lot on sampled classical music so expect that as well there. Believe me, as soon as I read the synopsis of the story, I did not want to know more. Too ridiculous for me. Still love - most of - the music and that is exactly what I follow without a fail. Thanks!! Really glad it turned out the way it did! 😄 So Yumeiro is now even more restricted. 😑 Wow. R.I.P Yumecast, you did well. SEGA still keeps on pushing merchandise sales in Japan though, which is hilarious and sad at the same time. You tried to play Freezing's song? That takes some courage! I was booted off the stage time and time again just for completely failing to put a decent combo in the intro 😂 Never got the full combo on the highest difficulty, much less going past the intro on that song LOL Awesome game though as I enjoyed the challenge - and the satisfaction afterwords - of playing songs on master / expert with a full combo. Man, that was THE game for me, a pity there's nothing like it around. Geo-blocking is the worst. I agree with you, this one is a deal breaker. Although not as aggressively, it still happens sometimes with previews, music videos or even digital releases. I can understand the digital releases, but snippets of the official MVs or just highlight medleys for people to get into their music and, perhaps consider purchasing it, being geo-blocked? I do not understand how come the foreign markets are completely disregarded. Yep, something pleasing first and foremost. If you're picky or particular about voice tones, then you need to dig around a little bit to find something - which ends up being an interesting thing to do - really interesting. Oh, you're not the type that grows fond of a project with time - even if you initially don't like some voices -? I've just come to the conclusion that I don't have time to invest on getting to know the stories / lore of music projects. The only project I follow the story is really i7 and even then I am completely behind everyone else, not having kicked off the 4th chapter of the story when it already was wrapped up recently (I guess...? Seriously, I am so out of the loop) 😅 Understandable, Japanese sure is a challenge! Also age comes to hinder our natural want to be into a project. I sure have noticed that I now have little patience for ridiculous stories something that, 10 years ago, I'd be all over it, living and knowing every piece of story there was. Now... I am glad that I have, at least, time to listen to the music while commuting 😂

@@thtfhq I read that Hypmic is about a war where guys are below and can only “battle with the power of mic” or something. I can completely accept that since it’s a project with 2D characters. Then I read that the game’s story will be different from the original story; that’s when I thought they are changing the direction of the project 😩 Yeah, Amasaki’s character seems to focus on classical stuff. I personally would want him to focus on being the “small but terrible” character - like with the Division Battle Anthem where he started sweet then became aggressive 😂 But then again, I don’t know the story so I don’t know the context for their decision. I really hope they revive the Yumeiro game or at least release more music 😭 I really like rhythm games! Even if I’m not that good 😂 That’s why I’m disappointed with a lot of “rhythm” games from 2D male seiyuu music franchises because it’s just tapping game with music. The best was Banyaro but it died 😭 I tend to listen to the same thing over and over again so I don’t get to explore other stuff, unconsciously. Time is kind of limited for me so that’s why I kind of don’t want to check new stuff. I’m an “all or nothing” person which is bad because I will research a lot on one thing and if you add the limited time I have, it’s a disaster 😩 *Looks at the sky* Give me a lot free time please 🙏 In any case, I’d like to change that by researching new stuff in chunks 😂 Maybe the time it takes me to satisfy my curiousity will make me love new franchises I find.

@@pm7930 The story is pretty ludicrous by itself but seeing as hip-hop was not seen in a good light, it is understandable they'd go a supernatural route to make people get into it. The core story and the game's story being different is something that threw me off. I'd expect them to expand upon the universe they'd created not to create something new from the start. Amasaki's Saburo sounded like a little devil in the first songs. It was pretty cool how his rap game would suddenly get all aggressive LOL Although that doesn't seem to be the focus anymore, at least I can thank HypMic for making his most recent solo track a banger😃 Yumeiro needs to be picked up. Problem is, we don't know which rights to the project SEGA sold to the Chinese company - aside from the game itself. And that can doom the project forever in Japan. I get you on that. I tried SideM and Ensemble Stars MUSIC games and those were just a "tap one point on the screen" type of games... just what is that? Not a rhythm game, that I am sure of LOL The closest we have on the male seiyuu side with considerable difficulty is IDOLiSH7. It is not as brutal as Banyaro was though. You don't get kicked out of the stage for failing combos 😂 But you feel the shame of getting a C rank on master difficulty because you've messed up the last 10 seconds of the track and ruined the combo you were not blinking your eyes in order to get 😂 There are a couple of songs in i7 that on expert and master difficulties are insanely difficult to play due to already being incredibly up-tempo to begin with. But the best was really Banyaro. Miss the game and the hilarious shenanigans of those 4 bands - BLAST had me in tears from laughing at times. Man, I miss the project 😢 I understand you. It can get tricky to follow other projects with so little time available. I may join you on that pledge, please give me more free time 🙏 I was like that before kicking off THTFHQ. Now, if I listen to music over and over I end up, unconsciously, over-analyzing the music composition

@Ran Martin While I get where you come from, I approached it in a different way. In 2015, Yuma, Kaito and Umehara weren't popular seiyuu - especially when it came to 2D music projects - so yeah, while today they are considered stars and it would make the cast of Banyaro a star-studded one, when the project first came to light, they were not that popular and the cast had only as its "stars" Shouta Aoi and KISHOW. Always found it strange why the project only focused on promoting OSIRIS - they are an awesome band, don't get me wrong - but shouldn't the focus have been on all 4 main bands (at least)? I wonder if what failed was the story - I found it rather solid -, the character designs, or the fact that rock as a music genre is less appealing than pop (and its idols)? Thanks for the comment! :)

@@thtfhq Banyaro came to be around 2016, but yeah I understand where you're coming from. It also had people like Yonaga and Murase though, but I digress. Yeah I wonder if the vocalists from the other 3 bands aren't accessible or what not, but it's unfortunate that Banyaro ended that way. You're welcome! I ended up binging your content as I'm glad there's somebody who talks about the male seiyuu industry with a passion.

@@iz00axel Oops I was citing it on top of my head 😅 Yes, it was, indeed, in 2016. The cast was awesome - plenty of talent there - and even if some seiyuu were not popular back then, they were all impressive. And there was even the teasing of a new band but, in the end, we got nothing... That's something that we may never know but it's a pity because the music by the other bands was pretty cool. Would love for the project to be "revived" a bit like how aoppella right now is a revival of perabu, project that failed in the past. Thank you! Hope you're enjoying the content and thanks for the comments!

@@thtfhq Aopella's a revival of Perabu?! No wonder it has the Perabu alumni there.

@Ran Martin Yeah! And somehow it gives me hope that Banyaro can be properly picked up or revamped in the future.