Blogger Houko Kuwashima Page

 

 

くわしま ほうこ 桑島 法子
プロフィール
本名	同じ
愛称	ほーちゃん
出生地	日本　岩手県胆沢郡金ケ崎町
血液型	A型
生年月日	1975年12月12日
現年齢	34歳
所属	青二プロダクション
活動
活動時期	1995年 -
デビュー作	女生徒（『美少女戦士セーラームーンSS』）

 

 

 

 

桑島 法子（くわしま ほうこ、1975年12月12日 - ）は日本の女性声優。岩手県胆沢郡金ケ崎町出身。所属事務所は青二プロダクション。身長158cm。血液型はA型。星座はいて座。

 

Houko Kuwashima (桑島 法子 Kuwashima Hōko) is a seiyū and singer born December 12, 1975 in Kanegasaki, Isawa, Iwate Prefecture, Japan. She is capable of playing a variety of roles, ranging from young boys to feminine women. Kuwashima is currently affiliated with Aoni Production. Her given name, Houko (法子), is sometimes misread as Noriko, even in Japan. She gives off a very Japanese formal and serious feeling when with others.

 

Official Website (obsolete?)

Houko Kuwashima Flores

 

Houko Kuwashima Wikipedia (JP)

 桑島法子ウィキペディア

 

Houko Kuwashima Music Discography@Victor Entertainment

桑島法子ディスコグラフィー

 

AONI PRODUCTION profile

青二

 

Full coverage on activities (法庫reads same as法子, pun intended)
桑島法庫

 

Houko Kuwashima complete song list (update frequently)

 例の企画全曲リスト（桑島法子）

 

Houko Kuwashima Roudokuya Official Homepage

朗読夜と「桑島法子のちょこっと話　ときどき来るね」ホームページ。

 

 

Character Performance Tier:

Houko Kuwashima is certainly a very prolific seiyuu. Here is a small list of the characters she played from mostly big name shows. I have categorized them based on my personal preference via rankings.

Ranking	Show	Character	Comment
1	無限のリヴァイアス Infinite Ryvius	蓬仙あおい Aoi Housen	She portraits Aoi perfectly. Aoi appears to be a very strong girl, but inside she feels fear and insecure. Her voice is very natural in this role which makes you believe the character IS 15. Character song: ホントの笑顔で (True Smile)
2	機動戦艦ナデシコ Martian Successor Nadesico	ミスマル・ユリカ Yurika Misumaru	Her first major role. Pretty iconic as THE female captain of a space battleship. ED: 私らしく (Be Yourself)
3	ブルージェンダー Blue Gender	マリーン・エンジェル Marlene Angel	Appears to be super cold or cool at first, but later on she opens up. Her voices show a huge emotional change. OP: 解き放て！ (Set Free) ED: 愛が教えてくれた (Love Taught Me) This song appears to be never included in any of her albums, it’s only available from the Blue Gender single…
4	機動戦士ガンダムSEED Gundam Seed	フレイ・アルスター Flay Allster	The character who witnessed her father’s death. Later she uses her relationship with Kira to keep her safe. Unfortunately her role gets shafted after the 2nd season.
5	CLAYMORE	クレア Clare	Probably the best show to demonstrate her wide voice range after Blue Gender. She has no problem whether the role is little innocent girl, to cold blood soldier. Character Song: 記憶 (Memory)
6	ラーゼフォン RahXephon	如月久遠 Quon Kisaragi	Very mysterious girl. Always mumbling stuff that doesn’t make sense. Character Song: la,la maladie du sommeil

Music/Radio:

Although Houko Kuwashima can't really be considered as a professional singer, despite she was labeled as "Idol Seiyuu" in her earlier career. She certainly has sung many many songs, the complete song list above actually shows she has recorded over 160 songs to-date! She has released a few compilation albums in the past. Also she hosts her own radio shows "CLUB db" years ago. Here is a section that's dedicated to provide some of her songs and radio recordings.

 

TV/DVD Interview Screenshots:

Nadesico 06 HD Remaster/10 BD (1996) Disc 10 [Video shot in 1999]

Nadesico 06 HD Remaster/10 BD (1996) Disc 10

 

Nadesico 06 HD Remaster/10 BD (1996) Disc 10

 

Infinite Ryvius (2000) Light Fan Disc 1/2006 Sound Renew Disc 8

ちょっとうごくにょっき (2001)

 

ZOE: 2167 IDOLO/Z.O.E. Dolores,i (2001)

 

Noir (2001)

Saiunkoku Season 1 (2006) Disc 1

 

 

Saiunkoku Season 1 (2006) Disc 8

 

Dennou Coil (2007) Disc 1

Dennou Coil (2007) Disc 2

 

 

Dennou Coil (2007) Disc 7

 

Dennou Coil (2007) Disc 9

 

Xam'd US PSN exclusive (2008)

Hakuouki (2010)

Video:

Playstation 3 as a media hub - how good is it? Part I -- Official bluetooth remote control review (03-16-11 Using PS3 Bluetooth remote control on PC)

 

03-16-11 Update: Using PS3 remote control on PC

So you've seen my background on this page changed to Playstation 3 yesterday. Wondering why? 'Cause I finally took the plunge into the format war between HD-DVD and Blu-ray, got a Playstation 3 as a Blu-ray disc player and multimedia hub about 2 weeks ago... It's the $100 price cut in July and  then the get $150 credit after applying sony card combined to let me financially able to purchase one of the most expensive electronic devices in my home, plus I did some other stuff to make another $400 to compensate the remaining cost. Comes out the machine is free, provided the credit card company don't screw me up and the other $400 do come in later... (Pretty risky action, should never spend money without getting it first hand, but I can never do that since I'm rebate-addicted)... Fortunately mom didn't say too much about it this time maybe because her boss get his son the same item as his birthday gift.. So besides the machine costs $540 after tax, what else did I get to make it running? First off, I was trying to get the DVI-HDMI handshaking working on my Samsung SyncMaster 940MW LCD TV monitor, but later desperately found out it doesn't work(some guys from European playstation forum do report  success though as long as the monitor was manufactured after May, 2006), oh, well, guess I'll just accept the fate(I called Samsung once, but the technician said the monitor's native resolution is 1440*900 and list a bunch of other resolutions for me, and he's pretty sure that 720P and 1080i/P are not supported). So I went out and got an multi-AV component cable (NOTE: using the unofficial cable voids the warranty on this machine, HERE is a horror story about it...), that costs $20... After couple days using the SIXAXIS remote controller, I got sick of using it navigating across the XMB(Xross media bar), so ordered an original Bluetooth remote controller for $18. And plus earlier before bought the PS3, ordered a fifth element blu-ray movie remastered edition for $13, so that's an extra $50 spend on the accecories... Below are some pictures for my remotes, PS3+AVR+TV remote (I scaled down for better viewing, you can click to enlarge)...

 

 

 

 

The BT remote is quite thick (here is a picture I took showing a US quarter coin in front of it, it's about 1in/2.54cm thick), and the battery compartment has a very weak locking mechnism, which feels unsecure when you installed the batteries... but good thing is that the cover hasn't fell out yet... Upon first using the remote, you have to register the device, go to the XMB's settings, and follow the instructions (if I remembered it correctly, it's push select+enter at the same time), my remote control is registered as the seventh device (In the PS3 manual, it states that PS3 can take up to seven game controllers at the same time, so this remote is set as the very last game controller-like device). There are 41 buttons on it, but most of the buttons are repetitive. Sadly the remote CANNOT be used as a game controller although it has all the buttons as seen on the SIXAXIS... Good DVD/BD buttons are "eject, Top Menu, POP UP/MENU, audio, angle, subtitle, display"(these are the quick access keys, you don't have to dig thur the XBR icons to switch streams (about switching, one annoying thing is that pressing audio/subtitle/angle switches to the next available stream immediately, my personal preference would be the same behaviour as my harman kardon DVD player, pressing once to show the current stream rather than switching immediately) and call title/main(POPUP) menus. Also, one bad thing about the XMB is that the icons are white, if against a very bright white/yellowish backgound, you CANNOT see any of them), and all the transport keys(scan, previous, next, pause, stop, step back/forward). One key missing here is the GOTO key(at least I can't find it...) to enable inputing time and jump to it accurately, this is something even the 120X forward cannot do(PS3 gives 1.5X, 10X, 30X, 120X four variable speeds to fast forward to a certain place). After using this, I finally don't have to rely on the peculiar SIXAXIS (sorry, I'm a no gamer with a gaming console)... The good thing about BT technology is that the operational range is incredible, I can still operate the machine as I stand outside of my apartment building... Bad thing is that most learning remotes only has RF and IR transmitters and receivers, which means that BT is NOT compatible with those remotes, which is a deal breaker for those home theater enthusiasts. But here I can live with using 3 remotes and 1 keyboard to control my entire AV equipment since I've tried couple learning remotes, none of them satisfies my needs (and no, no Logitech harmony please, that's a pain in the as* to set up and quite "dumb" IMO). One last thing is that the remote does NOT have backlights which is no good for dark room.

03-16-11 Update:

OK, I was playing with the windows media center yesterday, and came up with the idea that I need a remote controller for it. From the information I found online, I would need to get another remote control and USB receiver. I really don’t like to spend another $20 to get this in order to only occasionally control the PC. So accidentally I came up with the idea of how about using PS3 remote control on PC. After googling, I did find out at least two solutions for this. Since the PS3 remote control is a generic BT device, I was successfully pair it to my PC. Here is the brief process:

1. "Add" a new Bluetooth Device in Bluetooth Tray.
2. Hold down START + ENTER keys for 3 sec on the PS3 remote to begin the syncing process.
3. Select device "BD Remote Control" or "Input device"
4. Select pairing option: "Pair without using a code"
5. Select "Don't use a passkey", then click "Next".
6. In the Device Manager should now be 2 new Human Interface Devices

Note they must show EXACTLY as these two devices! Sometimes the Bluetooth HID Device will get incorrectly recognized as HID-compliant device, which will cause the remote not working! You can remove the already installed drive in device manager, take out the batteries, re-insert, and do a re-pair, that would most likely work.

Also check in the Bluetooth device list to see if it has been listed:

 

After the BT remote is connected, you would have at least two choices:

1. PS3 BluMote from Ben Barron

2. Eventghost

 

PS3 BluMote is dedicated to PS3 remote only. It doesn’t give a lot of control except key configurations. But it works well for what it does. Basically these keys are emulated to keyboard keys. So they aren’t really dedicated keys, but rather having to translate to keyboard strokes. The PS button works as calling windows media center which is very nice. The only issue I had in media center is that the number keys aren’t working, a test in word reveals the number keys also combines with alphabet, kind of like a touch tone phone pad/cellphone, where you press a key, the key changes from a->b->c->2. Another minor issue is that the PS3 remote is Bluetooth only, which means it will not work with IR or RF protocols…

 

 

The experimental builds support remote hibernate, but as far as my testing goes, the function does not work. I’m also puzzled why the author asks the users to test it rather than he tests it before even releasing it…

 

 

 

Eventghost is more for hardcore people. The PS3 remote control support is from a plug-in. My initial testing is that I wasn’t able to make it working, so I have to give up after 10min. It supposedly to support the Bluetooth hibernate function by installing Broadcom’s Widcomm stack over the default MS stack. But some people are reporting problems with setting up during the pairing stage where it won’t let you pair without code… Anyways, since I got PS3 BluMote to work, I wasn’t too keen to play around with eventghost…

 

DIAMOND Xtreme Sound 7.1 USB Audio Device Review

So this Diamond Xtreme Sound 7.1 USB audio device came in yesterday. I was able to play around it for a while. First impression is positive to say the best.

This is a pretty new product, it was released at the end of last year. It’s based on c-media cm106 solution. It’s USB 1.1/2.0 powered, and capable of 16bit, 48Khz audio input/output (digital and analog).

The device is smaller than I thought. It’s about the size of a medium sized mouse. Actual dimension is 5x2.5x1”. The construction is made of plastic, it feels ok. It came with a USB cable, one English manual, one French manual, and an installation CD. There are four buttons on the device, recording, muting/un-muting (the play/pause logo is misleading), volume down, and volume up. These are perfect addition to the SONY since the multimedia keys didn’t have these keys!

Installation was easy. Although the device is drive-less, I still opted-in to install the on CD driver which provides a control panel, where you can do some bass management, channel swapping, xear 3D DSP, and equalizer. The driver is mostly stable, but sometimes the control panel will quit, which I haven’t found a way to bring it back unless rebooting… But again, the control panel isn’t really needed, I wouldn’t recommend installing it unless you are intending to use the analog 7.1 HD feature. I haven’t found a way to uninstall the drive and control panel. The driver on the CD is actually an older version (7.12.8.2140), win 7 was able to update to a newer version (7.12.8.2150).

Onto the main subject, I bought this device mainly to suppress the noise from the AC power. My initial testing is positive, while it didn’t eliminate the noise totally, it did keep them down at a reasonable level. I’m actually somewhat satisfied at this aspect. Audio quality wise, there’s no real improvement over the on-board Realtek. It’s a cheap c-media chip, what can you expect after all. And it doesn’t do crazy high resolution, high bit depth like Realtek, just simple 16bit, 48Khz.

There are lots of connectors including headphone, 7.1ch analog output, line in, mic in, digital-in/out. I have tested all the output. The 7.1ch analog output works, but I’m still not able to get good bass response, I’m starting to guess that it’s actually a problem with my AVR? The headphone provides enough amplification, I only need 30% of the volume. If I go beyond 50%, the noise starts becoming noticeable.

The digital output passes through AC3 and DTS without problem. It only supports 48Khz though while most devices I’ve tried supports at least 44.1Khz and 48Khz.

Considering I got the device cheap enough (after the $20 rebate on Amazon), I think this device is a keeper. But I’ll keep an eye on other solutions.

Subtitle Software Bundle Part II - Two subtitle software for getting subs from the original DVD or fansub Ver.2 (03072011 update)

 

(This article is strictly used for hobby and video backup purpose, it would be unethical and illegal to use the software for a profit.)

03072011 update, now includes changing vobsub path under win7 x64.

08242010 update, now includes matching audio that is of different length from original audio (mainly gaps).

06162009 update, now includes multi-angle subtitle decrypting using VOBSUB.

06152009 update, now includes updated easier tutorials on how to sync audios from different editions of DVDs, this method also gives more accurate results.

04182009 update, now includes detailed tutorials on how to sync subtitles and audios from different editions of DVDs.

 

So here are the two more subtitle software... Both of them try to get the subs from the original material, so don't use them for commercial purpose... First software is vobsub (or vsfilter), second is esrXP. Vobsub is used for decrypting subtitles from DVD, it can save as idx+sub file or save as sst/son in conjunction with a bunch of bmp/tiff pictures. idx+sub can be viewed on computer or be embeded into divx files viewed on a divx certified player; sst+scanned bmp/tiff can be used to reauthor DVD. esrXP is used for grabbing the hard-burned subtitles, particularly for Asian language.

Vobsub is designed to show subtitle on computers, but here I am using it to decrypt subtitles from DVD. (There are other software such as Subrip (has more advantage in OCR since it supports italic/bold tag which preserves the DVD typesetting as much as possible), a tool functions the same as vobsub and further more can ocr the pictures back to text or extract menu highlights; or the automation tool, but vobsub has been working fine since day 1 I started to use it, so I never bothered to find other ways to decrypt DVD subtitle. Manual decrypting is good if you want to vastly change the DVD structure such as putting several episodes onto the same disc, if you just want to add subtitle, the easy way is to use automation tools...)

Turtle Beach Audio Advantage Micro II USB Sound Card Review

 

So in my SONY VPCF13UFX/B Laptop Review, I was disappointed with the on-board Realtek chip. There are two USB audio devices I would like to try so far, and this turtle beach is one of them. The reason I choose this one is because of its small form factor which I can carry it around without any effort. Also this audio device comes with an optical digital adaptor, which I can use either on the digital output from the on-board chip or this device. So yes, aside from the analog output, this device also supports digital audio output via SPDIF. Turtle Beach has also another product with similar shape but grey color, it’s called amigo II, this one doesn’t have SPDIF out, but does have mic in. It’s just something not to be confused of. So here is my review.

Initial setup was easy enough. I choose to install the driver since I want the full control. A reboot was required after driver installation. Also without driver, there’s some issue with volume controlling.

If you change USB ports, a new installation is required, but afterwards, both ports will have the driver. The only issue I have so far is that the device has some problem on my USB 3.0 ports where the volume control malfunctioning. But on the USB 2.0 port, it works fine.

I’m not sure what chipset solution this one uses, but for the audio performance, I think this device is little “bright”, but overall it does have some slight improvement over the on-board Realtek chip.

Unfortunately when connecting this device with SONY MDR-V6 monitor, I cannot get rid of noise! This was the priority issue I would want to solve from the deficiency of the on-board audio chip, but too bad…

Onto the digital output side, this device uses the headphone/digital output sharing design. So a digital output adaptor is needed, thankfully it’s already included. I have no issue with the adapter unlike some of the reviews on Amazon said. It snapped onto the digital cable beautifully, and aligned the light correctly.

This device does output ac3/DTS bitstreaming. It supports 44.1Khz and 48Khz. But in the turtle beach’s control panel, it seems always default to 48Khz.

While as in win7’s control panel, I could enable 44.1Khz output.

 

Summary:

So basically I want something small, not so expensive audio device. I want to connect an SONY MDR-V6 to the analog port for audio monitoring without NOISE. Unfortunately this device fails at this task. I also want to be able to bitstream ac3/DTS as I won’t be replacing my legacy AVR soon. This device works beautifully for this task unlike the analog output. So I think this one is NOT a keeper for me, it’ll go back to Amazon.