Description

In this episode of Akibatteru, Hiroko checks out a new aircraft from ANA, visits the Tokyo Toy Fair and finds out what it takes to be an anime singer.

Transcript

Akibatteru 17 - ANA's Gundam jet, Tokyo Toy Fair and an anime song singer Hiroko: Hello, this is Hiroko. Welcome to Akibatteru. In this episode we’ll be taking a look at the Tokyo Toy Show, and we’ll hear from a winner of the Anisong Grand Prix. But first, we recently went out to Haneda Airport to check out the results of a colloaboration between All Nippon Airways and Gundam: The Gundam Jet. The aircraft was unveiled with a small ceremonty at Tokyo’s Haneda airport. Male: This year is the 30th anniversary of Gundam model kits going on sale. For the memorial year, we’re making it possible for anyone to fly in a jet with a great illustration of Gundam. Hiroko: The collaboration with ANA also extends to a custom Gundam model, which features airline’s logo and will be available on board ANA international flights. Male: There’s only one aircraft like this in the entire world. It’s due to travel around Japan between now and spring next year. Hiroko: After the ceremony we went by bus to the area where the aircraft was parked. The Boeing 777 is painted with a life size Gundam on one side and an ANA Gundam logo on the other. The inaugural flight carried just under 500 people and many of them appeared to be Gundam fans. The camera-toting passengers paused to get shots of the jet, the illustrations on the side of the fuss being made by ground staff over the first flight. Gundam isn’t the first anime character to appear on the side of the an ANA jet. While we were waiting for the Gundam jet to take-off, ANA’s popular Pokemon jet appeared. The Boeing 747 is really popular, especially with children and always attracts crowds at airports. Did you enjoy that? Next we’re off to the Tokyo Toy Show. There were lots of toys on show this year and many visitors from overseas. Welcome to the 2010 Tokyo Toy Show. This year there are all sorts of toys on display. Lt’s take a look. Every year Animax runs the Anisong Grand Prix. We had the chance to attend an event where a champion of the contest was singing a song. Sayaka Sasaki won the ANisong Grand Prix in 2009, the third year it was held. She won with 6,570 votes from an Internet poll. She sang a song from the anime “Aquarion”. Sayaka: I liked anime songs since before I even started kindergarten, but as for becoming a singer, now I’m 28 and it was just after turning 20 that I thought I wanted to sing anime songs. When I was young, the anisong singer genre wasn’t so well known, I thought you first had to break into the music industry before you chose your speciality. So I really wanted to be an anisong singer after I turned 20. Anisong singers don’t create their own songs or sing how they like. The anime comes first and your job is to convey the story. This sort of person is someone who loves anime and someone who can enter the world of anime. They have to have passion and a big imagination. Right now there are many people overseas who love anime songs. If possible, sometime I would like to perform at an overseas anime convention. Hiroko: That’s it for this Akibatteru. Did you enjoy it? Next time we’ll be taking a look at something you all enjoy, computer games, and finding out how they get translated from Japanese into your language. I hope you look forward to it. Until next time…