Happy New Year from Hirano Aya

Happy New Year!


Please be good to me again this year.
This year looks as if it will be interesting, too, if I do say so myself.
I'm really excited (≧▼≦)
This year could be the best year yet. Enjoy it, everyone ☆
Just like last year!!

(from Aaya's blog -- click photo to enlarge)

She says she's spending some days at her family home, surrounded by relatives, eating traditional New Year's dishes. And sleeping in.

-end post-

Yuri Seiyuu Happy New Year

Two of the best known yuri seiyuu couples have posted rather romantic New Year's photos on their blogs (all four of them): Sanpei Yuuko 三瓶由布子 and Koshimizu Ami 小清水亜美 , and Nabatame Hitomi 生天目仁美 ,and Itou Shizuka 伊藤静.

Sanpei Yuuko's pic of Amisuke (right) says : "Happy New Year 2009" and "badump" (dokki, the sound of a heartbeat). Amisuke's pic of Yuuyu (whom she alone calls "Pe"), just says "Happy New Year."



Itou Shizuka posted a pic of her wedding with Nabatame Hitomi. And Naba-sama posted a pic of Shizuka-sama waking up to 2009 (she added with unnecessary honesty that in fact it wasn't taken then). Lovely.



Thanks to NKDS for posting a complete magazine spread on the wedding, which is supposed to come out on disk -- something which makes it seem that this is mainly a publicity stunt, rather than a romance, even if the two do like each other a lot.


Click the pic to enlarge. In the group shot below, I recognize Amisuke and Shimizu Kaori behind the groom (Naba-sama), and I think that's the recently married (to a guy) Inokuchi Yuka to the groom's left, Satou Rina second from the far right, and Itou Miki second from the far left.


More of the faces look familiar, but I can't put names to them. Can anyone else?

Naba-sama (32) and Shizuka-sama (28) are the best-known seiyuu couple. They constantly make jokes about it. But I really don't know how serious this "yuri seiyuu" thing is. They all have separate outings with other seiyuu. However, I did notice that Amisuke (22) mentioned having tea with Pe (22) "late at night," and in another post was helping her redo her room.

Hirano Aya in Malaysia

Aaya is in Malaysia to shoot her third DVD, and to do a photo shoot for the February issue of Seigura magazine.

Leaving Narita, she was approached by a reporter. "Hirano-san, Hirano-san, do you have any comment?" "No comment." This happens all the time, she said in her blog. (click images to enlarge)


Arriving in Kuala Lumpur late on Monday, her staff greeted her at the entrance to the hotel.


The view from her hotel window Monday night.


"Kebaya." She wore local dress. (Aaya wrote "kubaya," but I believe it should be "kebaya.")


"The real thing." People there said she looked cute in a veil. I think so, too.


She posed with the "Malaysian mother" who sold the dresses, and was a great help to them in the shooting. Aya said she was "so nice."


Her schedule was so tight that she had no time for shopping, and just had to escape for a brief dash through a mall.


She enjoyed Vietnamese pho for dinner, followed by durian, "the king of fruit," which she said she found delicious. But what is that alien thing in the durian? She found it weird, but she ate it anyway.


I'm not sure, but I haven't heard that Aaya has ever been to any countries other than Japan and the US. EDIT: As danie~ points out, she was also in Bali for her second photo collection.

Here are a couple more photos, from Dec. 31. She went for a massage and then had to rush to get to the shoot, Five people piled into a taxi, with four people -- not Aya, I don't think -- in the small back seat:


The hotel seems to her almost like a country estate, with trees growing around it:

January Anime Daily Calendar -- with staff/cast highlights

Time to plan the week's viewing for the new season.

The season has already started, with pre-release streamed episodes (Kurokami, Akikan, Maria Holic), and some OVAs will be released at Comiket today or tomorrow. And the season gets going in earnest this coming Saturday with Marimite 4, Akikan, and White Album.

So here is my calendar-style listing of shows by day and time, with staff and cast highlights. For more details on every show, check my winter season preview.

Click here or on the image below to go to the calendar:



Times and dates are for the first broadcast of each episode. Episodes are broadcast at different dates/times in different parts of Japan. Japan standard time is 14 hours ahead of New York time (9 hours ahead of London time, one hour ahead of Beijing/Taibei/Singapore, 2 hours behind Sydney).

Info from official sites, Shoboi Calendar, MoonPhase, Anime News Network, Japanese Wikipedia, etc.