ALL AROUND TYPE-MOON

Saturday morning (while typing this I may add ^_~) – there’s no day and time of the week I treasure as much as that. Enjoying a lie-in, longsome breakfast and approaching things unhasty for a change and while you’d think there certainly are better ways for me to spend (part of) such precious and rare time I was already assiduously working on getting some stuff done for this silly little blog of mine. Before moving on to the main focus of today’s entry let me get things started by pointing out some of the update work done on N-Field recently. No fancy features or stuff like that (speaking of which I really *do* work/consider on getting back the comment feature sooner or later, but first I should figure out how to prevent the loads of spam I got back when I ~had~ the commenting option active ^_~) but aside of updating and adding industry related links I ~finally~ also got around (read: got off my lazy ass ^_^”) and updated the non-industry links or more precisely put links to blogs, sites, forums and (fan)sites have been added at last – all sites I use to drop by on an (almost) daily base and which I appreciate *a lot* and hence like to get my highest recommendations expressed, especially in case you haven’t already bookmarked or checked out these (or one of them), you really should do so! ^_~ With that said, I shall now move on to the focus of today’s entry…

Certainly antyhing else but news probably applies to this update in various ways but in the most fitting context probably goes to TYPE-MOON’s upcoming projects. As already revealed a while ago and gladly against initial fears I had back then, this highly regarded Softbrand really decided that it would be about time to present us fans some new works at last. “New” might be not throgoutly applying to the three projects in total that TYPE-MOON announced, but I doubt *any* fan of this brand negatively minds the re-release/renewal of TM’s Debut work to be amongst the upcoming titles. On the more actual “news” site of things let me get the coverage of upcoming TYPE-MOON works started by noting that their Official site *finally* had another update through which “The Next worlds of TYPE-MOON” received their confirmation announcement via the brand behind itself. Because I missed out on doing a coverage of the projects themself past the afore-linked-to entry and out of completion’s sake let me catch up with the upcoming TYPE-MOON galore now.

• 魔法使いの夜 Witch on the Holy Night
Mahou Tsukai no Yoru
Scenario: Nasu Kinoko
Character Design: Koyama Hirokazu
Release: 2009
Rating: All Ages

• ガールズワーク
Girls’ Work
Scenario: Hoshizora Meteo & Kimura Kou
Release: yet to be decided
Rating: All Ages

• 月姫
Tsukihime
Scenario: Nasu Kinoko
Character Design: Takeuchi Takashi
Release: yet to be decided
Rating: yet to be decided

Mahou Tsukai no Yoru being the first one announced before TYPE-MOON revealed that they’re not only working on one but three new projects I’m glad we got confirmation that this won’t be “just” a novel project in the vines of how âge does release Total Eclipse (which I somewhat “feared” due to the initial announcement that details are going to follow through TECH GIAN). Moreover it’s interesting to see that Koyama Hirokazu has been chosen as artist in charge of this project. I’m perfectly fine with his art as it doesn’t stand too far behind Takeuchi-sensei’s style itself yet includes unique / artist significal elements as well (especially comparing the illustrations of Aoko and Alice from the Mahou Tsukai no Yoru section of the site with the illustration done by Takeuchi for the Comiket70 TYPE-MOON Character material make that quite obvious IMO). To be honest though the announced project I’m (and I guess this applies to a lot of fellow TYPE-MOON fans out there as well) anticipating the most is the re-relase and redone Tsukihime. Here I always wanted to go for the original, but seeing the prices the Tsukibako release is sold these days always managed to let me hesitate / restrain from doing so (that said I highly doubt that prices of this release will be dropping down despite the “remake” coming up…you add “Tsukihime Doujin-ban” and fans are still willing to drop 35,000 Yen for it…to be honest for completion and also for future comparisson sake I’d be tempted to do so as well ^_~).
Out of the actual new part of TYPE-MOON’s upcoming projects Girls’ Work represents the probably most surprising one, mainly because (as written above) the scenario won’t be handled by TYPE-MOON staff (or more precisely Kinoko Nasu) themself but instead two writers that gained fame among the industry for their work on the scenario of Liar-soft titles like Forest and CANNON BALL will be in charge of this job for Girls’ Work. Aside of release itself another element left to be revealed when it comes to this TYPE-MOON project is the artist. Here I’d say if TM’s popular Takeuchi Takashi would handle art for Girls’ Work they (meaning TYPE-MOON) would have stated so back during the initial announcement of this project already. Unfortunately the site TYPE-MOON launched for their upcoming works doesn’t reveal any new details in these regards as well. In fact that site doesn’t even confirm what has been dropped through the various Bishoujo/Ero-Soft magazines such as TECH GIAN before, as in charge of background art / town design for Girls’ Work apparently Teicoku Syounen / Imperialboy and Iuro will be involved. Both which are perfect choices as artist for impressive background artworks. Moreover according to first “plot details” (as far as you can call them so) the town itself that Girls’ Work is set at, is supposed to take an important role in the scenario itself – so it’ll be interesting to see how this will have influence on the story. However the question who’s going to be in charge of artworks is at the moment still left to be answered. Personally I really hope that Girls’ Work may mark the debut of either TYPE-MOON’s highly talented BLACK-sensei (whom I literaly *adore* after having published art such as for the recent Megami Magazine Nanoha focus) or simo(shi) who’d be a perfect choice as well, especially given the supposable high detail background art this project is going to feature. Or maybe the Liar-soft involvement is sort of an indicator and Girls’ Work will enhance the contribution/collaboration between both Softbrand in regards of art as well – with *maybe* people like Ooishi Ryuuko or Koume Keito (who’s also did the Neko Arc -THE MOVIE bamphlet illustration back 2005 summer Comiket) in charge? We certainly can’t know for sure by now..so time (and TYPE-MOON) will tell I guess ^_~
Release wise I seem to remember reading (though I’m not sure wether this info originated from either the TYPE-MOON Ace or the scoop feature as published in TECH GIAN) that all three works are slated for a 2009 release with the release order planned as TYPE-MOON put them up on the newly launched site (meaning Mahou Tsukai no Yoru as first, Girl’s Work as follow-up and Tsukihime to be the conclusion…considering the setting of Mahou Tsukai no Yoru it ~would~ make sense they aim to put this one out before Tsukihime). At least the added release date to the Mahou Tsukai no Yoru section of the TYPE-MOON page seems to support that idea. Rating-wise I’d say it’s also quite surprising to see that TYPE-MOON is aiming to publish some “all ages” works now – which they haven’t done so up until now (not counting Melty Blood as project they were responsible on their very own and neither the consumer ver. of Fate). I’m curious wether which route they’re going to chose on for the Tsukihime remake, but personally with other brands and such rating issues (Little Busters! and LB-EX instantly comes to mind) I’d rather hope for an 18+ release for at least Tsukihime as I certainly want to avoid a double-dipping madness with all three of them in the aftermath.
Of course while it lended itself as perfect reason, the TYPE-MOON project goodness coverage was not the sole motivation for me to come up with today’s entry and so I shall move on to the item in focus this time around. Actually people following this blog, may remember  that I made mention within previous updates I’d be working (writting) on getting a thoughts/impressions entry regarding this particular release posted “shortly”. Now it took me a little while longer then I had originally planned, but after repeated listening to the Drama CD I’m going to rant about within the upcoming few lines, I finally managed to complete this long overdue entry. Especially with the anticipation on the arrival of the ltd. edition of Kara no Kyoukai – Fukan Fuukei (expect some coverage of that release soon..hopefully *depending on wether Tora no Ana is once for a change fast enough to ship my order within this weekend ^_^”*) being very high and representing the crucial motivator for this latest entry by yours truthfully. Enough idle talk at this point let’s head onwards to the release in focus this time around.

• Ahnenerbe no Ichinichi ~ Drama CD ALL AROUND TYPE-MOON
Catalogue Number: AATM-001
Release: 2007/08/17 | Price: 3,500 Yen

-Content sample shot No.1 (booklet)
-Content sample shot (aka look inside the booklet)

+ Staff:
Scenario: Nasu Kinoko
Illustration: Takeuchi Takashi / BLACK
Graphics / Coloring: Hashimoto Takashi / simoshi
Music: KATE / James Harris, NUMBER 201
Production Assistant: Lip on Hip
Produced by: TYPE-MOON

+ Cast:
Arcueid Brunestud / Neko Arc (CV: Yuzuki Ryouka)
Saber (CV: Kawasumi Ayako)
Ryogi Shiki (CV: Sakamoto Maaya)
Tohsaka Rin (CV: Ueda Kana)
Matou Sakura (CV: Shitaya Noriko)
Rider / Stheno / Euryale (CV: Asakawa Yuu)
Nanaya Shiki / Tohno Shiki (CV: Nojima Kenji)
White Len (CV: Mizuhashi Kaori)
Kotomine Kirei / Nrvnosr Chaos / Araya Soren / Neko Chaos / Narrator (CV: Nakata George)
Tohno Akiha (CV: Hitomi)
Ciel (CV: Sakuma Kumi)
Hisui (CV: Matsuki Miyu)
Kohaku (CV: Takano Naoko)
Saegusa Yukika (CV: Nakao Eri)
Himuro Kane (CV: Nakagawa Rie)
Makidera Kaede (CV: Yuimoto Michiru)
Caren Hortensia (CV: Koshimizu Ami)

DISC 1
+ Track 1 – “9:30 Kaeten mae” (Before the opening – 4:12 min)
+ Track 2 – “9:30 Butaiura sono 1: Kaeten mae no Satsujin” (Backstage 1: The murder before the opening – 9:36 min)
+ Track 3 – “10:00 Baby Talk (I)” (24:07 min.)
+ Track 4 – “10:50 Butaiura sono 2: Chuubou no Satsujin” (Backstage 2: The murder of the kitchen – 5:47 min)
+ Track 5 – “11:00 Baby Talk (II)” (21:44 min.)
+ Track 6 – “11:45 Butaiura sono 3: Kissaten no Satsujin” (Backstage 3: The murder of the café – 4:44 min)

DISC 2
+ Track 7 – “12:00 – Lunch time” (8:31 min.)
+ Track 8 – “12:30 – Butaiura sono 4: Lunch time” (10:25 min)
+ Track 9 – “13:30 – Baby talk (III)” (25:53 min)
+ Track 10 – “14:30 – Butaiura sono 5: Jigokuga Hara no Satsujin” (Backstage 5: The murder at the hell’s field – 6:02 min)

DISC 3
+ Track 11 – “15:30 – Baby talk (IV)” (21:58 min)
+ Track 12 – “18:00 – Baby talk (V)” (9:40 min)
+ Bonus Track – “Curtain Call” (2:43 min)

“Reality can destroy the dream: why shouldn’t the dream destroy reality?” – not only a good question with which TYPE-MOON labeled their 2007 summer Comiket T-shirts with but moreover this line definitely suits the description, scenario and most importantly the events from the ALL AROUND TYPE-MOON Drama CD perfectly.
It all starts with a mysterious visitor who arrived little too early (before the opening) at cafe Ahnenerbe – a place said to lead to extraordinary events/encounters. While intentions and motives of this man are left to be revealed, he appears to be just a normal guest that intends to spent the day at a café to experience what will happen. What the guy did not know is that right before the opening a cruel murder already occured as the manager of cafe Ahnenerbe has been killed! Imagine pretty much all the heroines and partwise heros of TYPE-MOON’s works from Tsukihime to Fate/Stay night over Fate/Zero and even Kara no Kyoukai are going to gather at one place – you’re definitely wright assuming this meeting would lead to total cool and hilarious crazyness that only people like TM’s Kinoko Nasu could come up with. Stage after stage more characters from TYPE-MOON works drop by the weird but lovely café leading to utterly wonderful talk and events – ranging from raving over Kinoko Nasu’s works and their brilliance (as well as characters such as Arcueid, Saber and Shiki discussing the charm of each of their respective work ^_~) to TYPE-MOON characters “interacting” with the poor visitor (i.e. Rider facing her chances and starts to flirt with him during one of the early stages/chapters and as it turns out orders loads of stuff on his account in the meantime ^_^”).
Going one step further – imagine Neko Arc & Co. staging a conspiracy to take over the position of lead heroines of the TYPE-MOON world (more precisley the sought-after positions would be Arcueid, Saber and Shiki Ryougi)! That’s right – this would enhance the crazyness of such a scenario and mix in a “subtle” but steady slaughter! Let’s just say that it doesn’t stay by just “the murder before the opening”…in fact as the Drama progresses more and more such “misbehaving” by the various TYPE-MOON characters lead to a quite high death pole that also affects on the “crew change” at café Ahnenerbe (more particular the manager position becomes a rather “unstable” one).
Events like that are supposed to be the “magic encounters and happenings” that café Ahnenerbe is famed for and which the poor visitor and the fan is “exposed” to during the three CD’s of Ahnenerbe no Ichinichi (A day at Ahnenerbe). Speaking of the visitor his identity is revelead within though much later on (read: before the end) but at this point I won’t downright spoil you who’s behind this mysterious guy (I’d rather stick to give some hints for those curious to know: before leaving café Ahnenerbe he ask to arrange it that the costs of his visit should be addressed to the Akihabara branch of the Magus Association, when asked for his name, the visitor indicates being known under more then one and in fact he appeared under his real name in Fate/Zero and time-wise later under a different name in Fate/hollow ataraxia. Enough hints? Guessed who’s our “mysterious visitor of café Ahnenerbe” and has the ~wave~ of joy and wisdom occured to you know? ^_~).
Mentioned already in the beginning of today’s entry and also alongside previous ones done for this blog, typing up an entry focused on the audio part of the Comiket72 ALL AROUND TYPE-MOON crazyness certainly took me long, even longer then I expected it to take in the first place. Here I had purchased this Drama CD shortly after it was limited available through Tora no Ana (for a fair price instead of the financial killing ones this CD has been and now again sells second hand / auction-wise) more due to fanboyish motives rather then because I’m much into Drama CDs (I guess people following audio related entries posted here may have noticed that yours truthfully is anything else but very keen on collecting such CDs in general) and honestly speaking I haven’t opened the case and started listening to this CD up until recently when I had enough motivation to do so (admitted mainly due to the announcement of TYPE-MOON’s next big and upcoming projects for next year(s)).
Now that I’m through the three CD set (on multiple times!) it becomes clear to me that my bias towards Drama CDs definitely was misguiding when it comes to Ahnenerbe no Ichinichi. The scenario and the staging of the “plot” is througoutly hilarious yet brilliant and even gripping (especially if you have a thing for TYPE-MOON) that this audio drama comes across as genius work – an overall impression that I end up with even trying to steam down the fanboyish approach regarding this particular Softbrand and its projects.
At first I was aiming to include chapter/stage-wise plot summaries to accompany this entry, yet the aformentioned crazy element of the scenario as presented ultimately made me fail to to do without giving away / spoiling much of the fun and moreover given my non-existant abilities to summarize plot in order that it still makes sense when reading through the summary I stopped doing that after “Baby talk (II)” on Disc 1. Roughly one could say that the main or better said most eventfull / longest parts of Ahnenerbe no Ichinichi are the so-labeled “Baby talk” stages, which for the major half of the drama involve / introduce more TYPE-MOON characters as they’re dropping by to pay café Ahnenerbe a visit and join the crazyness going on inside the café.
Aside of the plot and highly enjoyable scenario / setting another highlight that shines through with the presentation of the ALL AROUND TYPE-MOON Drama CD are the characters and more particularly speaking the people that “typfiy” them – the VA cast. I’m not the biggest Seiyuu fanboy out there but even for ignorant little me it was clear given such a highly talented range of actors and actresses involved on this Drama CD production, that listening to it will be a feast for the ears – and that definitely brings my thoughts in these terms to the point as well: a highly talented cast that suit each of the portrayed character perfectly adding a lot to the overall enjoyment of this CD set. It’s a pure pleasure to listen to the voices of Yuzuki Ryouka (as Arcueid and even moreso Neko Arc), Sakuma Kumi (as Ciel-senpai -  btw. yeah for AATM TYPE-MOON decided to stick with the Melty Blood cast for Tsukihime related characters it seems ^_~), Asakawa Yuu (Rider among others) and especially the inclusion of Kara no Kyoukai characters such as heroine Ryogi Shiki voiced by infamous Sakamoto Maaya presented a special treat to this overall decent cast assembled for this project.
In terms of music there’s not much to note here as this element is very subtle througout the Drama with not even an Ending or Opening song included, but I’d say the music itself isn’t the main focus nor should it really be in case of such a CD releases to begin with.
Packaging wise this release strikes quite positively as well. Inside the case housing the three CDs this set consits of, a nice little booklet is included which consists of roughly 15 pages in total. Starting with a tracklist the lion’s share of this booklet though are the character introduction pages. These stretch over 11 pages in total and (as it’s not hard to guess) are supposed to inform / introduce to the various characters from TYPE-MOON’s world that make their appearance within Ahnenerbe no Ichinichi. Each of the character intros consist of an utterly cute colored sort-of SD illustration of the respective character with information such as name, CV, height/weight/sizes, short info on the character plus from which TM project he/she comes from added. Great way especially for people new to the works of this Softbrand and even to fans a helpful “reminder” (given how many characters make their appearance it can get partwise a bit confusing). The final two pages of the booklet present Liner Notes by Kinoko Nasu within he (of course) talks about this project (the I’m inclined to say typical talk / notes / comments like “this year’s summer it’s all around” as this being TYPE-MOON’s first real crossover project and moreover first Drama CD release, etc.) plus production credits for the set.
Even at the risk of repeating myself within the impression/thoughts entries as posted on this blog’s pages, reaching the resumé part of today’s update I must note that Ahnenerbe no Ichinichi througoutly lives up to the what is promised by this package: a TYPE-MOON character feast that’s presented in hilarious and often non-serious way one can’t help (and while this doesn’t limitate on fans of this Softbrand it certainly adds even more to the enjoyment and appreciation if you *are* a TYPE-MOON fanatic ^_~) but fall in love with and consider a work of brilliancy. Even chewing my thoughts over on this release I’m incapable to come up with any reason to nitpick or where I had hoped for something else when it comes to this Drama CD (aside of maybe Bazett not being part of the included charas) – well maybe I’d enjoy the whole on a different level (I restrain to use “more” because I’m not sure it would really fit in this context) if Ahnenerbe no Ichinichi would have been presented in animated format or media. Especially the neat character illustrations by TYPE-MOON’s infamous Takeuchi Takashi and BLACK-sensei as included within the booklet the CD set comes along with somewhat encouraged this wish for some crossmedia goodness of the TYPE-MOON galore (but given that this Softbrand certainly ranks among those that come up with the most unexpected ideas for their Comiket participation and therewith published goods I wouldn’t be surprised if something like an ALL AROUND TYPE-MOON animated special would come up in the future anyways ^_~). This positive impression receives even more endorsement taking into consideration that this really *is* TYPE-MOON’s very first (own) take on releasing a Drama CD and given that, I’d say Ahnenerbe no Ichinichi represents the very best result of TYPE-MOON’s first steps into a new media territory (which moreover makes me warm up to the idea of going for the upcoming Fate/Zero Drama CD as well ^_^). Also in cost-performance ratio the only proper description here that springs my mind is “kudos to TYPE-MOON” for such greatness - as you can see by the tracklist indicated running time for each track this CD set is ~extensive~ and for 3,500 Yen as originally priced not only worth it but quite a steal (even at the higher prices this set sells “these days” I would say it’s definitely worth every single Yen). Highly recommended to TYPE-MOON as well as people enjoying fun Drama CDs in general as Ahnenerbe no Ichinichi is ~really~ good stuff (and hopefully does not reamin to be an “one and only” project)!