I'm going to be so broke in March...

Kalafina After Eden Blu-ray and DVD announced!!

DVD and Blu-Ray of Kalafina's After Eden Special Live at Tokyo Dome City Hall, to be released on March 21. CDJapan's got them up for pre-order already (DVD and Blu-Ray). Canta-per-me.net's got the set list here and ADORE IS ON IT. I MUST HAVE THIS NOW.

Also, Kalafina's live performances for Animax Musix Studio Live and the Animax Musix 2011 concert have hit YouTube.





...Not their best performances, but still watchable. I thought Oblivious in the studio live was quite good, actually. That Sorairo Days performance, though, was doomed upon its conception. The song really doesn't suit them, and they really don't suit it. I'd normally find the idea of Kalafina doing something different refreshing but this is just too jarring. Seriously? Who came up with that? What a waste of an opportunity. There's a hundred other, better songs I'd love to have seen Kalafina cover...

That studio live was pretty easy on the eyes. Nice roving shots, and lots of gorgeous close-ups of Hikaru's super-fierce expressions, Wakana looking...like Wakana (well, she looks good), and Keiko...well, Keiko.


Super-fierce


Wakana.


And Keiko...well, Keiko








And some bonus Wakana!dansu


(This blog has 10,000 hits how the heck did that happen??)

This post has been moved to the following URL: http://audiovisualstyle.wordpress.com/2011/09/24/pv-recapreview-kalafina-symphonia/

Okay, so about 150 of those hits are probably mine, it took me a while to realize I could stop tracking my own pageviews. But still. Woohoo! I didn't think my attention span would allow me to maintain this blog till it got to this point. I'd like to thank the spambots, who have always been diligent in their visiting, those of you who accidentally ended up here while googling for Kalafina or Madoka images, the really bored people who clicked on the links I may have shoved in your faces, and, most of all, the (three?) people who visited because they really felt there was something here worth a read-through. This little milestone would literally not have been possible without you.

Right, on to the less boring stuff. It's old news, but Kalafina's upcoming After Eden album now has its own official page. Right now it's got a short making-of clip for Symphonia's PV and some comments on the individual tracks in the album.

Kawaii girl Japan has also put up the third installment of Kalafina's After Eden video campaign.



They talk, among other things, about backstage pre-show habits. It's a more sedate session compared to the one in the last video but it's still nice to learn a bit more about my favourite songstresses.

Hopefully, by the time of my next entry (not the best measure of time...) my copy of After Eden will have arrived -- I'm looking forward to reviewing it as well as dissecting the PV for Symphonia

KYAAAA~ That was a really cute one. It's sweet to see how close-knit they are. I love the kind of questions being asked; not the same old boring stuff, and they almost seemed designed to draw out entertaining responses. Not that the ladies need any help on that, really. When they're left to talk on their own like that it usually ends up looking less like an interview and more like their own little comedy show.

They even have a public service announcement:











This is how all Kalafina interviews should be conducted, IMO; no interviewers on emcees getting in the way. And it's nice to actually understand what they're saying for a change. Kawaii girl Japan, this one thanks you from the bottom of her fangirly heart.

My favourite songstresses are September's special feature on Kawaii girl Japan (the same lovely people who brought us that Magia comment). Which is awesome, particularly because it means we'll be getting (subbed!!) videos of Kalafina interviews promoting their upcoming album After Eden every Monday of the month. This is the first of them:



Their description of After Eden as having a "very real and humanly" sound (as opposed to the "fantastic, surreal and otherwordly" sound they had for the past two albums) is...interesting. Considering that Magia and Kagayaku Sora no Shijima ni wa are part of After Eden's tracklist I'm not expecting their new sound to be that much of a departure from their usual style. But they still have nine other songs to surprise us with...

I've also just realized that KgJ's store has a small but appealing selection of Kalafina merchandise...Oooh...

Done. My attempt at a Madoka AMV, using Kalafina's wonderful song adore.

There's a little bit of pixelation for about a second but I'm tired of publishing again and again and I don't care anymore. I wish I had the skills and the software to make something like those awesome MADs I've been watching but this will have to do for now. I'd like to remake it someday.



(If YouTube removes this again...sigh. I mean, come on, the full track for the song has been there for eight months and Kalafina's label hasn't complained about that)

I told myself I wouldn't do another Kalafina entry till Magia came out (if I didn't control myself this blog would be overflowing with entries of every little thing they did, and Canta-per-me.net does a far better job anyway). But when one of the lovely denizens on the aforementioned site's forums linked to this video, well...I couldn't help myself.


Courtesy of Kawaii Girl Japan, a site I wish I'd heard of earlier

One of the few subtitled video interviews/comments available of Kalafina! While I appreciate the translated transcripts of other videos that fellow fans have kindly provided, it's nice to know what they're saying as they say it.

Suffice to say this is not helping my obsession in the least. Wakana is charmingly talkative as usual, Keiko surprisingly comes across as a little subdued -- an impression broken by that silly healing spell moment at about 7:06 -- and Hikaru can be pretty eloquent when talking about their songs.

Overall, they are adorable.

They also seem pretty serious about taking care of their singing voices (then again, this isn't something I know much about).

It's clear that the subs are kind of paraphrased, but that's fine. I did catch what I thought was a rather glaring mistake though. Where Keiko says "Peter no nii-chan" (as in, Nathan Petrelli, and yes, they're talking about Heroes) the subs just say "Peter". But I can forgive the subber(s) for that, certainly.