Dancing in the velvet moon is one of the songs on Nana Mizuki’s new mini album STARCAMP EP, and it also happens to be the ED theme to Rosario + Vampire‘s unbearably fanservicy anime adaptation, which, I shall once again take the opportunity to remind everyone, is a travesty to the awesome page-turner that is the original manga.

Lyrics translation and more fanboying after the break.

Kanji | Printable

This song suits Moka really well. It’s so awesome. I hadn’t loved a Nana song this much since her 2002 single suddenly ~meguriaete~, which if you think about it is already more than half a decade old. Time passes fast. (Yeah I said it: I didn’t like those Nanoha songs! So there.)

According to houkoholic, who is the undisputed authority on seiyuu stalking appreciation, STARCAMP EP suffers from really terrible clipping. I didn’t really think it was a technical issue; I thought the clipping effect was what the producers were going for. I guess I’m just too used to overly-amplified synthesized music.

I should really find real stuff to blog about.

As usual, you can get the CD for this song from Amazon JP.

I would like to introduce you to Rosario + Vampire, a very enjoyable manga series which seems to fall under the radars of most people for some reason. It’s about a guy called Tsukune Aono who accidentally enrols in a school for monsters and demons and end up with a harem of supernatural beings. The heroine is Moka Akashiya, a vampire, who falls in love with Tsukune(‘s blood) at first sight. Then there’s the succubus, the witch girls and the ice girl.

Anyway, the latest issue of Shounen Jump comes with an announcement that Rosario will be made into an anime series soon! There was a drama CD that was released some time ago so I guess this doesn’t really comes as a surprised. Now assuming the cast remains the same (which is highly likely), this is what it should be:

Tsukune Aono: Daisuke Kishio
Moka Akashiya: Nana Mizuki
Kurumu Kuruno: Misato Fukuen
Yukari Sendou: Kimiko Koyama
Mizore Shirayuki: Rie Kugimiya
Shizuka Nekonome: Kikuko Inoue
Gin’ei Morioka: Tomokazu Seki

The manga is at around volume 9 now, I think. The story gets really…emo towards the later parts, but the plot is pretty interesting and surprisingly it doesn’t revolve around Tsukune’s harem. If nothing goes wrong, the anime should be worth a try.

Yet another new girl in the latest volume of Rosario + Vampire. Damn, is the mangaka going to do this for every book or something? D:

The cliffhanger from last volume ends so fast that it barely hits one quarter of the book. Rubi doesn’t die! Wo0t! I guess that’s kind of expected… but you never know when a mangaka feels a streak of sadism and kills off a perfectly good character *cough* Black Cat *cough*

And in case the GIGANTIC boldface words on the cover don’t clue you in (or you don’t read Japanese), the new girl is an ice demon… thing. Well more accurately she’s a 雪女 yuki onna from traditional Japanese mythology (well, more like fariy tales I guess). And you know how it always goes it those stories…

Frankly I wish the mangaka just stops introducing new characters and start an actual storyline that doesn’t end within one and a half volumes. Preferably something about Moka. <3

As usual with each volume of Vampire, I now have to wait another four months for the next volume. Draw faster you lazy artists! It’s just a few hundred frames!

P.S. Mai-Otome episode 20 has finally crossed the line of no return. I’m also continuing to keep up with REC, Fate/stay night and the occasional Zipang. Dropped Kashimashi just in time to save myself from a boredom-induced death.

P.S.S. Death Note Vol.10 is good too. Needs more Misa though.