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Iikara Tomato Kue (Single)
Artist: Natsu Aki
Release Date: 7/18/12
Price: 1429 yen (CD+DVD Edition) or 952 yen (CD Only Edition)
Wide release of the debut single from Akiba Koubou’s Idol duo, Natsu Aki, which is composed of Natsuko & Akiko from SDN48. Includes a new B-side track, “Fallin’ Darlin’*Daruma Otoshi.” Samples can be found on Amazon Japan.
Yume no Tobira (Single)
Artist: Allover
Release Date: 7/18/12
Price: 1429 yen (CD+DVD Edition) or 952 yen (CD Only Edition)
Wide release of the debut single from Akiba Koubou’s Idol project, Allover. Includes a new song, “Otome no Negai,” that wasn’t on the limited release. There’s also a CD+DVD edition available that includes a DVD with the “Yume no Tobira” music video. You can listen to samples on Amazon Japan.
Super Ita G Beat
Release Date: 7/18/12
Price: 1905 yen
Originally released during Nico Nico Cho Kaigi, Akiba Koubou have decided to give this special collaboration a wide release. It’s now available to order on major retailers like CDJapan and Amazon Japan.
Utattemita Anison Speed
Release Date: 7/4/12
Price: 1905 yen
Okay, EMI and AKBK are just straight up trolling now. This has 12 repeats from the original Utattemita J-Pop, and 6 of those are the same BPM as before. What the hell were they thinking when they made this? It’s a shame that all of AKBK’s “Speed” release have been so lazy and disappointing, because I LOVED the Geki Atsu! Drama Euro releases and thought this was going to be a banner year for AKBK. Instead, they’ve been running their repeats into the ground.
Utattemita Anison Speed
Release Date: 7/4/12
Price: 1905 yen
Somehow I got my copy a day early. I <3 CDJapan so much.
I’ll get the extremely bad, yet entirely unsurprising news out of the way first: there are no new arrangements. The slightly good news is that at least this time AKBK showed some effort by increasing the tempo of some of the songs. The minimum BPM on this album is 160, and a lot of these songs were previously in the 150-155 range, so it’s not a huge difference. However, many songs that were already over 160 BPM, including some that were already featured on the regular Utattemita Anison, are the same tempo as before. Sigh. The return of Dancemania Speed this is not. I’m working on a quick spreadsheet that compares the BPMs, which I’ll hopefully have up in a bit.
I will say that I enjoyed the mixing a lot, and it has my two most-loved AKBK productions ever, one right after the other. Oh, actually, I was lying about there being no new tracks. “Discotheque” is technically a new resing by Shihori. I don’t get why they didn’t just use the existing Prico version since she’s an utaite and would’ve fit perfectly. Also “We Are” is a resing of a track that originally appeared on Akiba Koubou presents Utatte Mita Collection Tsukareta Otoko.
Utattemita J-Pop Speed
Release Date: 7/4/12
Price: 1905 yen
This has 11 songs in common with the original Utattemita J-Pop, so I’m thinking it’s less likely that they’ll be straight repeats. In fact, “Return to Myself” was originally done by Sumijun, but here’s it’s listed as a Beat Charger production.
Edit: Apparently it was just a typo, as AKBK’s official site still lists “Return to Myself” as a Sumijun production.
Utattemita Anison Speed
Release Date: 7/4/12
Price: 1905 yen
Final list has been released, and it’s still not clear if we’ll be getting new arrangements. “Discotheque,” one of my favorite AKBK productions, does get a resing by Shihori, but the listed artists and arrangers are same as before for everything else. There are even 3 repeats from the regular Utattemita Anison. I’m even more worried that this will be nothing but repeats yet again.
Mega Dance Climax
Release Date: 7/25/12
Price: 1886 yen
Dancemania × Dance Panic!?! Full Moon’s new series will feature dance pop hits of the 80s and 90s including lots of Dancemania and Dance Panic! classics like “Dub-I-Dub,” “Samba de Janeiro,” “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You,” “Call Me Mañana,” and more! Right now I get the feeling that they’ll just be licensing the tracks from EMI and Victor, but I would love AKBK forever if they actually did eurobeat remixes. I guess another possibility is that they’ll be licensing covers from Saifam. In any case, it’ll be interesting to see how the series develops in the future.
Utattemita Anison Speed
Release Date: 7/4/12
Price: 1905 yen
Okay, now I’m convinced that Akiba Koubou have to rearrange these tracks. “Tiger & Dragon,” for example, was originally 136 BPM on Geki Atsu! Drama Euro Kizuna Hen, so there’s no way they can just transplant it as is. Pleeaaaasseee don’t disappoint me again, AKBK.
Utattemita Anison Speed
Release Date: 7/4/12
Price: 1905 yen
Early list is out, and so far it’s all songs that have previously been covered by Akiba Koubou. If this ends up the same as J-Mach!! I’ll be extremely disappointed. I’m convinced that they’ll have to actually rearrange these, though, because many of the songs already appeared on the original Utattemita Anison, and there’s no way they’d just reuse the same arrangements again, right? Right?!
J-Mach!! -Hi-Speed Dance Mix-
Release Date: 5/23/12
Price: 1905 yen
Wow, I can’t believe how disappointing this is. My greatest fear was that Akiba Koubou would go the cheap route and just increase the tempo of the songs and call it a day. However, what they did was somehow much worse: nothing. That’s right, they didn’t bother to rearrange the songs at all, much less change the tempos. Pretty much all of the tracks are at or near their original BPMs, with most of the album ranging from 160-165 BPM. The final 7 tracks range from around 170-190, but those are all at their original BPMs as well. I would have been more forgiving if it had been marketed as a eurobeat album, but it just doesn’t work as a Speed album because it doesn’t feel very fast as a whole. The mixing isn’t particularly memorable, either, with some transitions that are downright jarring. The fact that it’s 100% repeats just makes things that much worse. That said, Team KY’s “Run ‘n’ Gun” is amazing. I wish I had just found a way to buy the single instead of this. :/
In addition to the CD version, J-Mach!! is also available digitally on iTunes Japan. Keep in mind that the digital version is also mixed.
Utattemita Anison Speed
Release Date: 7/4/12
Price: 1905 yen
The other new Utattemita release will feature high-speed versions of J-Pop classics. Unfortunately, AKBK’s similarly themed J-Mach!! -Hi-Speed Dance Mix- is almost certain to become a source of tracks for this release. Please prove me wrong, EMI.
Utattemita Anison Speed
Release Date: 7/4/12
Price: 1905 yen
Dancemania Speed…lives? This July will see the continuation of the Utattemita series with two new Akiba Koubou-produced CDs. This one will feature high-speed versions of Anison themes. You may remember that AKBK have their own Speed release coming up, J-Mach!! -Hi-Speed Dance Mix-, but that release has very few anime songs so I’m hopeful that EMI will commission lots of new remixes for this.
The first two Utattamita releases from EMI weren’t branded as Dancemania releases, but I’m hoping they retroactively add them and these two new releases to the series. It’d just be nice to say there’s a new Dancemania Speed release after 5 years.
Super Ita G Beat
Release Date: 4/28/12
Price: 1905 yen
Wow, Akiba Koubou really went all-out for the Nico Nico Cho Kaigi. This special collaboration with Ita G brings together only the most overexposed AKBK songs of the past 4 years. To be fair, there’s at least one new song: a resing of “Zankoku na Tenshi no These” by D-Angels.
I can’t help but wax nostalgic over the days when Quake used to do weird tie-ups like this.
Iikara Tomato Kue (Single)
Artist: Natsu Aki
Release Date: 4/28/12
Price: 952 yen
Limited-edition debut single from Akiba Koubou’s Idol duo, Natsu Aki, which is composed of Natsuko & Akiko from SDN48.
DanceMaster | 
07 17th, 2012| 
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