#kanami touno

[a-few-of-my-favorite-mangas]

LOG Horizon

by Marare Touno, art by Kazuhiro Hara

Shonen, Isekai-Otome, Romance, Adventure, Mystery

Story   ★★★☆☆   ||   ★★★☆☆   Art

Summary

Thirty thousand Japanese gamers awake one day to discover that the fantasy world of Elder Tales, an MMORPG that was formerly their collective hobby, has become their cold hard reality. Severed from their everyday lives, they confront a new horizon filled with ravenous monsters, flavorless food, and the inability to die! Amid the chaos, veteran gamer Shiroe gathers his friends, the guardian Naotsugu and the assassin Akatsuki, and together they embark on an adventure to change the world as they know it!

Volume 01 The Beginning of Another World | Part 1 | Part 2 Volume 02 The Knights of Camelot | Part 1 | Part 2 Volume 03 Game’s End | Part 1 | Part 2 Volume 04 Game’s End | Part 1 | Part 2 Volume 05 A Sunday in Ariba | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 Volume 06 Lost Child of the Dawn | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 Volume 07 The Gold of the Kunie | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 Volume 08 The Larks Take Flight | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 Volume 09 Go East, Kanami! | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 Volume 10 Homesteading the Noosphere | Part 1 | Part 2 Volume 11 Krusty, Tycoon Lord | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

[whizz-things]

Let's talk about my new interest!

I have very recently become entranced with a musical group called "Band-Maid". Yes, before you skip this essay, please hear me out. Band-Maid is a group of five women who write hard rock music...all while wearing maid outfits.

(L to R: MISA, Akane, Miku, Saiki, Kanami)

They are generally applauded by rock fans for their catchy melodies and complex arrangement.

I have found myself particularly interesting in Band-Maid's lead guitarist Kanami Tōno. She is also the main composer and arranger of Band-Maid songs.

If you see her on stage, she is very confident, full of life. She dances her fingers across the fret board with ease, creating magnificent solos. Her PRS sings out in full voice.

This is contrasted greatly with her off-stage persona. She is quiet, shy and quite meek. She doesn't speak much.

With that being said, many BM fans call her "odd," "unreadable," "strange," etc. I myself find her a mystery. Many of her actions are a little funny. For example, when she is happy or enthusiastic she will do two fist hand shake. Hard to explain, but reminiscent of this:

During an interview she started to get drawn away into her own world and act...perse a bit oddly. Constant swaying, hand movements and exaggerated emotions. (MISA and Akane are just wondering what the heck she's doing).

Some fans have noted she has a wide arsenal of emotions which are constantly changing. In one interview, you can see her express a large range of feelings in a small period of time (happiness, fear, admiration, etc)

Additionally, she seems very sensitive to people's tone of voice. For example in one interview, the interviewer makes a rather raucous joke. While everyone else is laughing, she looks very uncomfortable, distressed or fearful.

In some cases, Miku, one of their vocalist and general spokesperson, spoke loudly and it appeared as if Kanami had to take a second to reorient herself.

Others in the group have said that it seems like Kanami has multiple personalities. She is can be quiet, bold, submissive, bossy, silly, and focused. The members describe her as someone who has no idea about her surroundings or situations (affectionately known as an airhead).

Kanami is a fascinating girl. She started off as a classical pianist when she was 5 years old. I've heard some people say she was a child prodigy and started composing as well at a young age. When she started senior high school she joined the Light Music Club and picked up guitar (apparently to impress girls LOL). In college she majored in Economic and Business instead of music to satisfy her family, but the love of music still stayed with her. When Band Maid began to form in 2013 (courtesy to Miku) she was a singer-songwriter on YouTube.

After Band-Maid slowly began to gain popularity, Kanami eventually began to get the opportunity to show her composition talent. Her first work, "Alone" was released in February 2016 to a great success. Rock fans appreciate the creativity and complex layering she uses while arranging the songs, while fans from a pop background (like me) appreciate the catchiness of the hard-hitting lyrics and melodies.

Miss Tōno has fascinated me from the start of my Band-Maid appreciation career. Her quiet, sweet personality contrasted with her intense, passionate, and vibrant stage persona is such a marked difference it always leaves me shocked. She is definitely not a normal person in her actions and personality, but she is someone I still greatly look up to.

[magicons]

band-maid icons ✯ like/reblog

[skygemspeaks]

Log Horizon and KHR

Log Horizon:

My all-time favourite character:

Shiroe - Maybe I’m a bit basic, but I really do love our protag in this series. Smart protags are depressingly out of favour these days, and it’s so refreshing tbh. I love how badass he is without having any traditional strength - his class really reflects his personality very well. He’s the GL of a small guild and would otherwise not have any power, but he knows how to use his skills to his advantage and that makes him one of the most powerful people in the game. I love how caring he is about those around him, even if he doesn’t show it, and I love that he’s not all that hung up on people’s opinions of him, even if it does frustrate me to death seeing people badmouth him without knowing him.

A character I didn’t used to like but now I do:

Rundel Haus Code - I love my sparkly son and would die for him in a heartbeat. He brings a really interesting perspective to the show, as a person of the land, and I just love everything about him.

A character I used to like but now don’t:

I really genuinely cannot think of anyone rn. There aren’t very many characters I actually dislike in this show and the ones I do dislike, I’ve disliked from the beginning.

A character I’m indifferent about:

Kanami - I don’t find her the least bit interesting as a character and the episodes of the anime that focus on her are some of my least favourite. I don’t dislike her, I just find her parts dull.

A character who deserved better:

Akatsuki - okay so there is a lot to unpack here. I love the concept of her character, but the way the author treats her is unacceptable and it breaks my heart because she could have been such a great character. I love her no-nonsense attitude and I love how capable she is. That being said I hate that she’s a typical “loli” character. I hate that she has the face of a 12-year-old despite being in her twenties, and I hate that Naotsugu sexualizes her even when thinks she’s an elementary/middle-schooler. I also hate that so much of the time (especially in the latter half of season 1), she’s relegated to standing around next to Shiroe without doing anything, or otherwise she’s being pitted against Minori and Henrietta in fighting for Shiroe’s affections.

A ship I’ve never been able to get into:

Shiroe/Akatsuki - The way he treats her is basically how he treats Minori most of the time - that is to say, like a younger sister. There’s no romantic chemistry between them and I wish the author would stop trying to force it. If I honestly had to choose a girl out of Shiroe’s harem that I would like for him to end up with, Henrietta would be my first choice by far.

A ship I’ve never been able to get over:

NaoShiro - They’re in love and I won’t have anyone tell me differently. I really love their dynamic, and how they treat each other as equals. Not to mention that Naotsugu’s “pervynness” is extremely OOC in relation to the rest of his otherwise extremely respectful and chivalrous character, and I like to think it’s him overcompensating for his crush on Shiro as a result of internalized homophobia.

A cute, low-key ship:

Isuzu/Rudy - They’re cute and I like how they complement each other. The dog comparisons are pretty messed up though and Mamare Touno needs to Stop™.

An unpopular ship but I still enjoyed it:

Marielle/Henrietta - It’s been implied before that they know each other irl and I like their relationship with each other. Henrietta is quite obviously a high femme lesbian, and I think she and her disaster femme lesbian girlfriend make a very cute couple. In 2019 we let both girls move on from their comphet crushes and start dating and being happy with each other.

A ship that was totally wrong and should never have happened:

Krusty/Lenessia - I originally didn’t mind this ship very much because Lenessia looks to be in her early twenties, but after reading the light novels and finding out that she’s only 15 (as opposed to Krusty’s 26), I am completely squicked out by this. It’s obvious that she has a crush on Krusty, and it looks like the ship might become canon and I really hope it doesn’t because it is just absolutely nasty.

My favourite storyline/moment:

The Goblin King Arc - it was absolutely fascinating seeing the politics between the Round Table and Eastal’s council of Lords. I would love to see more of the interactions between the Adventurers and the People of the Land.

A storyline that should never have been written:

That one episode during the scale festival when Shiroe went out on a date with both Akatsuki and Minori, and the two girls spent the entire episode being horrible to each other and to Shiroe

My first thoughts on the show:

Amazing plot, lovable characters, can’t wait to see what happens next

My thoughts now:

All of the above, but also I can see that there are some extremely problematic aspects to it. I don’t like the way the female characters are treated, and I don’t like that so many of the young female characters have crushes on guys so much older than them (eg: Serara’s crush on Nyanta, Minori’s crush on Shiroe, Lenessia’s crush on Krusty).

Anyways nonny, this ask is getting a bit long, so I’ll leave it at just this for now, but don’t worry, there’s another ask in my inbox also about KHR, so I hope you don’t mind if I don’t answer that one quite yet.

[recentanimenews]

Log Horizon: Krusty, Tycoon Lord

By Mamare Touno and Kazuhiro Hara. Released in Japan by Enterbrain. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Taylor Engel.

It’s been a long time since the last volume of Log Horizon – almost a year. It may be even longer till the next volume as well, as there’s no sign of it in Japan. That said, this is a big volume for fans of the series, as it’s the first volume that has not actually been animated. As such, it will prove to be entirely new material. Appropriately, it focuses to a large degree on Kanami’s party, who were the subject of the 9th book (which was adapted the least by the anime), and have now reached the equivalent of Mongolia. But as you may have guessed by the title, the other major participant in this volume is Krusty, who is having memory issues but is not letting that stop him from living the easy life, as he’s essentially in the game equivalent of heaven being waited on by cute animal person servants. The book’s main thrust has a scheming villainess try to pit the two parties against each other.

The book mostly succeeds, but it is worth noting, once again, that there is a truly ridiculous amount of gaming chatter and discussion in these volumes, and that it can quickly get tedious, especially when you’re in the middle of a large battle. Classes, levels, aggro… I don’t really care. But someone cares, and that someone is Elias, who we get to know a lot more about in this book. From the last book, we know that he labors under a curse that means he never gets the last hit in – he can’t be the one to kill the monsters. Of course, since Log Horizon was a game, and he was one of the bigger NPCs, it makes sense. The players make the big kill. But here we see how this weighs heavily on him, and also how his party seems to have been broken, and possibly killed, simply by hinting at their very nature – Elias, throughout the book, seems to be shying away from thinking that he’s just an NPC in a game.

So it’s pretty easy to get him to go all out against Krusty, who’s perfectly happy to have people think he’s a villain if it gets him a good fight. We get a lot of Krusty’s own background from Earth here too, and it fits with his personality to a T. Krusty really can’t stop Elias, especially given he’s dealing with his own curse. Kanami is there to be Haruhi Suzumiya and not much else. I like her, but she’s completely at peace with everything about herself, so is terrible at this sort of thing. And Coppelia is still pretty much monotone. That leaves Leonardo, still a frog and not a turtle, to deliver the big verbal cooldown speech to Elias. I won’t spoil it, as it’s easily the best part of the book, and made me smile quite a bit. When Log Horizon isn’t pouring verbiage into its worldbuilding, it can be pretty heartwarming.

We’re almost entirely in ‘the China server’ this volume, with only one chapter back in Akiba to show us that Raynesia’s noble friends are all getting engaged, which I suspect means that an arranged marriage is in her future. Her noble friends also think she’s in a relationship with Krusty, which she’s not. In the next volume, whenever that may be, I suspect we’ll be headed back to Shiroe and company. Till then, enjoy this look at what it means to be “cursed”, and how to resolve it.

By: Sean Gaffney

[yenpress]

Log Horizon, Vol. 9 (light novel)

By Mamare Touno

When the Catastrophe hit, American Elder Tales player Leonardo was one of the many people trapped. Stuck on the Chinese server with none of his friends and surrounded by thousands of monsters, his situation is hopeless...until a headstrong girl comes to his rescue! Kanami, the former Debauchery Tea Party leader, recruits him for her party. Along with the hero Elias, the blank-faced healer Coppélia, and a strange white horse that can talk, the group resolves to travel to the Japanese server, the only place where the new expansion pack unlocked before the Catastrophe struck. The long trek eastward begins!

[loghorizonfunfacts]

Spooky! There’s no description up for Kanami, Go! East! yet, but it will be released on Halloween.

[kadomania]

Daydreaming [ BAND-MAID ]

Daydreaming [ BAND-MAID ]

BAND-MAID Official Music Video  “Daydreaming” released on 2017/05/26

Saiki ( Lead Vocal ) Miku Kobato ( Vocal & Guitar ) Kanami Touno ( Lead Guitar ) Misa ( Bass ) Akane Hirose ( Drums )

01. Daydreaming ★ 02. Before Yesterday

本日は、2010年代のYOUTUBEのPVカテゴリー。 2017年5月に公開されたBAND-MAIDの[Daydreaming]のPVをご紹介いたします。

今回はちょっと趣向を変えて、CDやDVDの紹介ではなく、プロモーションビデオ のご紹介になります。

ご紹介するBAND-MAIDは、2013年に結成されたグループで、この記…

[whizz-things]

Let's talk about my new interest!

I have very recently become entranced with a musical group called "Band-Maid". Yes, before you skip this essay, please hear me out. Band-Maid is a group of five women who write hard rock music...all while wearing maid outfits.

(L to R: MISA, Akane, Miku, Saiki, Kanami)

They are generally applauded by rock fans for their catchy melodies and complex arrangement.

I have found myself particularly interesting in Band-Maid's lead guitarist Kanami Tōno. She is also the main composer and arranger of Band-Maid songs.

If you see her on stage, she is very confident, full of life. She dances her fingers across the fret board with ease, creating magnificent solos. Her PRS sings out in full voice.

This is contrasted greatly with her off-stage persona. She is quiet, shy and quite meek. She doesn't speak much.

With that being said, many BM fans call her "odd," "unreadable," "strange," etc. I myself find her a mystery. Many of her actions are a little funny. For example, when she is happy or enthusiastic she will do two fist hand shake. Hard to explain, but reminiscent of this:

During an interview she started to get drawn away into her own world and act...perse a bit oddly. Constant swaying, hand movements and exaggerated emotions. (MISA and Akane are just wondering what the heck she's doing).

Some fans have noted she has a wide arsenal of emotions which are constantly changing. In one interview, you can see her express a large range of feelings in a small period of time (happiness, fear, admiration, etc)

Additionally, she seems very sensitive to people's tone of voice. For example in one interview, the interviewer makes a rather raucous joke. While everyone else is laughing, she looks very uncomfortable, distressed or fearful.

In some cases, Miku, one of their vocalist and general spokesperson, spoke loudly and it appeared as if Kanami had to take a second to reorient herself.

Others in the group have said that it seems like Kanami has multiple personalities. She is can be quiet, bold, submissive, bossy, silly, and focused. The members describe her as someone who has no idea about her surroundings or situations (affectionately known as an airhead).

Kanami is a fascinating girl. She started off as a classical pianist when she was 5 years old. I've heard some people say she was a child prodigy and started composing as well at a young age. When she started senior high school she joined the Light Music Club and picked up guitar (apparently to impress girls LOL). In college she majored in Economic and Business instead of music to satisfy her family, but the love of music still stayed with her. When Band Maid began to form in 2013 (courtesy to Miku) she was a singer-songwriter on YouTube.

After Band-Maid slowly began to gain popularity, Kanami eventually began to get the opportunity to show her composition talent. Her first work, "Alone" was released in February 2016 to a great success. Rock fans appreciate the creativity and complex layering she uses while arranging the songs, while fans from a pop background (like me) appreciate the catchiness of the hard-hitting lyrics and melodies.

Miss Tōno has fascinated me from the start of my Band-Maid appreciation career. Her quiet, sweet personality contrasted with her intense, passionate, and vibrant stage persona is such a marked difference it always leaves me shocked. She is definitely not a normal person in her actions and personality, but she is someone I still greatly look up to.

[a-few-of-my-favorite-mangas]

LOG Horizon

by Marare Touno, art by Kazuhiro Hara

Volume 09 Go East, Kanami!

Part 1 / 4

[a-few-of-my-favorite-mangas]

LOG Horizon

by Marare Touno, art by Kazuhiro Hara

Volume 09 Go East, Kanami!

Part 4 / 4

[a-few-of-my-favorite-mangas]

LOG Horizon

by Marare Touno, art by Kazuhiro Hara

Volume 09 Go East, Kanami!

Part 3 / 4

[a-few-of-my-favorite-mangas]

LOG Horizon

by Marare Touno, art by Kazuhiro Hara

Volume 09 Go East, Kanami!

Part 2 / 4

[whizz-things]

Ready to have something to pound through your veins? Here's BAND-MAID, Japan's hardest rocking maids with their song 輪廻 "Rinne".

Vocals: Saiki Atsumi (厚見 彩姫)

Vocals/Guitar: Miku Kobato (小鳩 ミク)

Lead Guitar: Kanami Touno (遠乃 歌波)

Drums: Akane Hirose (廣瀬 茜)

Bass: Misa (MISA)

[recentanimenews]

Log Horizon: Homesteading the Noosphere

By Mamare Touno and Kazuhiro Hara. Released in Japan by Enterbrain. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Taylor Engel.

At last, after four volumes that focused separately on various groups and their growth and development, everyone is back together and ready to deal with fresh new problems. Which is good, as there are quite a few fresh new problems. Westlande is about to go to war with Eastal, and the adventurers are caught up in the middle of things. They have to defend the young crown prince, Raynesia’s little brother, from assassination attacks. They’re being attackied by killer moths that put people into a deep sleep. Shiroe is feeling that he’s inadequate for the job (well, OK, that’s more a leitmotif for the entire series, as Akatsuki and Minori both point out). And, perhaps worst of all, due to various screwups in real life, will there ever be a Log Horizon Book 11? Yes, as it turns out, but we were wondering for a while there.

Shiroe’s inadequacies are part of a larger theme in this book of growing up and becoming an adult, and what that means to various people. For Serara, much as I might not like it, that means getting stronger so that Nyanta might notice her in a romantic way. (To Nyanta’s credit, his interest is still zero.) For Minori, it’s realizing that her feelings for Shiroe AREN’T romantic, and that they’re more a function of who she is and how she handles situations. For Isaac, it’s simply living from day to day, not really thinking deeply about things, and watching all the idiots around him. And then there’s Shiroe. He has to deal with Roe2’s letter, which goes into much greater detail about what sort of world they’re trapped in, and that it’s not just a weird “we’re caught in the actual game” thing. He has to think about how to get back home, and whether some people WANT to get back home. Nazuna describes him at one point as a “wimp”, and that’s true, but when he calms down and stops his self-loathing barrage, he can also be brilliant.

Towards the end of the book they find a sort of radio transmitter, which makes contact with Kanami and company, who are still making their way slowly to Japan, and who seem to have a surprise new member in their party. As I noted in the last book, it’s hard to focus on Kanami as a character as she’s designed to be “perfect”. As such, she instinctually comes up with the idea that Shiroe and the rest couldn’t – instead of thinking about how to get back home, think about how to connect the two worlds, so they can come and go as they please. For Kanami, this is simply because she wants to show her three-year-old daughter back on Earth the wonders of this land. For Shiroe and company, it’s a revelation – they can try to have their cake and eat it too.

There’s lots of other things that Log Horizon fans will enjoy in this book – the fights, as usual, are well-written but rely a bit too much on gaming terminology for me to really get deeply into them. At least I get some more Naotsugu/Marielle ship tease, which is nice. There are also a few appendices showing amusing and informative background on several things (Log Horizon is one of the few print-only series left from Yen On – it’s print-only in Japan too – and the appendices would certainly be a pain to convert.) As I indicated above, for various reasons (search Anime News Network for the author’s name if you’re curious), there was a huge gap between Book 10 and 11, which likely means we won’t see 11 for a while. But it’s coming out in Japan soon, and will answer a question many have been wondering: what’s Krusty been up to?

By: Sean Gaffney

[recentanimenews]

Log Horizon: Go East, Kanami!

By Mamare Touno and Kazuhiro Hara. Released in Japan by Enterbrain. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Taylor Engel.

We continue our tour of the Elder Tales universe, with this volume not even taking place on the Japanese server for the most part. Instead we take a look at a group in Central Asia (Kazakhstan, to be precise) and their attempt to move slowly east so that they can swim to Japan (which seems ludicrous, but remember, adventurers). The reason to swim to Japan is quite a clever one: the whole disaster that caused the players to get caught in this world happened before the expansion pack had actually dropped… except in Japan, where they got it by virtue of the time zone. The group is led – sort of – by Kanami, a name that has come up quite often in previous books. The former de facto leader of the Debauchery Tea Party, she’s more a force of will than a leader. That said, it makes sense that of the main cast of this book, she actually gets the least attention – she has no character arc, being basically perfect.

No, instead, the main character for this book is Leonardo, who dresses like his favorite American hero, silly as it may seem, and says “Cowabunga” during desperate attacks. And is named Leonardo. But it’s OK, because this is a frog, not a turtle. Which makes this OK! Seriously, the mind reels at how much Touno wanted to use Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles here, and the serial numbers aren’t so much filed off as covered over with see-through tape. Leonardo is actually a New Yorker, which is refreshing, and we get a passable idea of what his life was like in the real world before this (he seems to be a computer nerd). Here, he’s a very competent assassin, though he’s still not quite invested in their current situation, and has trouble seeing the People of the Earth as anything but NPCs. A lot of this book is showing him the error of his ways, including a subtle romance with Coppelia, a girl with a mysterious past.

The Log Horizon anime did a good job of steadfastly putting each book on the screen… with the exception of this book, which got short shrift, getting only one episode devoted to it. As such, if anime fans wanted to know which one they had to buy to get more details, this is definitely the one. There is the usual endless discussion of game mechanics, far more than almost any other LN in a game world bothers to do, but there are also some very cool battles. And we get more insight into what exactly is happening, and how the People of the Earth and its denizens are reacting to it. Lastly, I was very amused by the occasional mention of the series’ big bad, Indicus, the smug maid who’s using Nureha as a puppet ruler. Every time she’s mentioned, it’s in a “My friends… and Zoidberg” way, showing that almost nobody can stand her. I expect a confrontation between her and Shiroe soon.

This volume didn’t blow me away like the previous one did, but it’s a rock-solid volume of Log Horizon, and fans of the anime will absolutely have to get it. And remember, this Leonardo likes SUSHI, not pizza.

By: Sean Gaffney