#kuuxkat

Since I mentioned it just now, I’ll do the status update first.

Some of y’all can probably tell from the mumbling I’ve done in my tags, but I’ve been really busy with work and other RL stuff lately. In particular, this week I’ve been helping out with re-arranging the house to accommodate two aunts and an uncle who will be visiting from Korea. They’ll be arriving next week, and will be sticking around for about two weeks. My family’s been shuffling around beds, bookshelves, and tables - it took almost four hours to move three beds and a bookshelf yesterday, and there’s a lot more work on the house that needs to be done.

I’ll likely be inactive when my relatives arrive because I want to focus on them and make sure they have a good time here. Unfortunately, this means that I will likely not make any progress on my to-do list until near the end of March. I’m still QCing and answering asks as usual, but don’t expect any long analysis posts from me until then.

Though, what is on my to-do list? At the moment, it looks something like this:

Do something to celebrate my 1,000 followers milestone - currently taking suggestions!

Answer my backlogged asks (I’ve got 2~3 I’m actively working on now, but I still have asks festering from 2016 OTL)

Analyze Rin’s SID and LLS S2E11

Get started on editing my Rin birthday scouting video

Finish a certain secret project that I started back in summer 2017 wtf

Make a compilation post for all the UchiHime/DraGene voiced lines that I’ve recorded featuring the Aqours seiyuu.

On the subject of DraGene - I also happen to have URs on my DraGene account voiced by Soramaru and Shikaco. The gacha system in DraGene is so much more generous than UchiHime’s “haha you only have a 0.01% chance to pull Shukashuu’s UR” (I’m not even exaggerating...here’s the proof)...anyway, Soramaru’s card pretty much sounds like Nico. Shikaco’s card, on the other hand, is, uh. Well. Actually, Shikaco’s character might be a lot more like Nico in some ways.

I’ve actually been posting short clips for a few of them on my Twitter since I haven’t had the time to clean them up for my blog. Feel free to check out my media tweets over there if you’re curious. In addition to yandere Shukashuu and tsundere Rikyako, the voiced lines include a Hanayo-like Anchan, a childlike Furirin (if you thought Ruby sounded like a baby...y’all haven’t heard what she can really do lol), and a stuck-up Suwawa (I’m still not used to how smug she sounds shouting “I’M A GENIUS, PRAISE ME~” every time her skill activates).

Again, I probably won’t get around to even starting on all of this until the end of March. I’ll do my best to work hard and catch up once I’m free again. :’)

All right. Now that I’ve gotten through that, here’s some 🍝 over the magazine that cost me nearly $25 to ship but was TBH worth every penny. I won’t be showing pictures of every single page from the Aqours feature, but I’ll highlight some of the major parts.

The very first thing I noticed upon opening the magazine was an ad for the HPT BD & DVD smack dab on the inside of the front cover, haha.

The magazine also features pin-up posters folded neatly inside, and each of them have a solo shot of an Aqours seiyuu with a flower. Here’s what Anchan’s looks like in full:

I was lowkey thinking, “Why didn’t Shukashuu get the sunflower? It’s her favorite, after all...” but then I saw what Shukashuu actually got:

A rose...I’m so glad my favorite girl is being honored like this... _:(´ཀ`」 ∠):_

The thing is, the posters are actually double-sided, so you get two seiyuu per page rather than them getting a poster to themselves. If you count the poster pages from the HPT ad pic above you’ll notice that there are five pages, or ten sides. That means a pin-up of each of the 9 Aqours seiyuu, plus a group shot:

The pages after that feature some combinations that I’m very, very certain were intentionally framed to mess with the hearts of all the seiyuu shippers out there:

1. AnShuka backhug - the page fold kind of ruins the shot :\

2. KyanRika laughing happily

3. If we’re talking about Aqours pairs, we gotta have NanaAinya:

4. And finally...the third-wheel club lol:

This just goes to show that at this point, everyone - meaning not just the fans, but the seiyuu themselves, and even the people who work in the industry - knows that AnShuka, KyanRika, and NanaAinya are the most popular pairs.

My favorite shot, however, is the classic Shukashuu giggle, because her cute eyesmiles and genuine laughter never fail to brighten my day:

Next up are pictures that put them in their year trios:

Look at how scrunched up Shukashuu is next to Anchan... :’) I suspect that Shukashuu is sensitive to loud noises, since she always plugs her ears right away whenever someone has to pop a balloon for a punishment game on Aqours niconamas.

FYI - they’re drinking sparkling grape juice. The first-year trio pic (which you can partially see on the left side of the photo before the one above here) has Kinchan holding the bottle, and you can clearly see the word “non-alcoholic” on the label. I have no doubt that the label was intentionally shown facing forward to prove that that the girls weren’t chugging wine during work hours, haha.

Also included are individual interviews for Aqours:

In case you didn’t notice because you were too busy staring at Shukashuu’s pretty side profile, there’s a long interview on the next page! So yes, the cost + shipping of VOICE BRODY is a bit hefty at ~$25, but at least in my opinion, it’s worth the gorgeous photos of the cast plus the additional content. This issue also happens to feature an article on Naobou’s (Touyama Nao) solo live, and a piece on i☆Ris:

Some of you might know them through Miyutan (Kubota Miyu), a member of the group and the voice of Asaka Karin in PDP! There’s a picture for Miyutan featuring her in a rather interesting arrangement with a fellow member:

I know basically nothing about i☆Ris so I can’t really comment on this photo... 👀

By the way, the magazine also features a chance to win special signed photos of the seiyuu featured in this magazine:

brb crying over the fact that I’ll never win one of these:

Finally - this is totally unrelated to LL, but since the theme of this post is “Happiness”, I’ll end things with a fun little story from earlier this week.

I was driving to work on Wednesday after a late start to my morning. As a result, I had to eat my breakfast in the car - a banana. On top of that, the main road I have to drive down to work is often congested during rush hour, so I ended up sitting in a traffic jam while angrily chomping at my banana.

Since I drive a minivan, I could see a school bus ahead of the car that was in front of me. I noticed there were a couple of kids waving from the back window. After watching them for a while and realizing that they weren’t waving to anyone in particular, I casually waved back.

It was something I myself used to do when I was younger - while waiting to get picked up after class, I would stand on the sidewalk and wave madly at passing cars. Most people ignored me, but occasionally I’d get a small thrill from getting a person to wave back at me.

It took a while for the kids to notice me. Some of them slowed down or even paused when they caught sight of me. When I continued to wave at them and it finally clicked that I was making eye contact with them, they started frantically waving back. I saw one girl nudge her friend and gesture towards me. Then, practically every kid sitting at the back of the bus started waving at me vigorously. Some of them pressed themselves against the glass of the back window in their efforts to keep me in their line of sight. I kept it up until the traffic jam cleared enough for me to make a turn on the next street, and the bus faded from sight.

And that was it. It’s not a particularly riveting tale, but small moments like these break up the monotony of work-to-home-then-back-to-work. I’m glad I got to amuse those kids, even for a little while.