[♫MSP♫] Presents: Midnight Sugar, Episode TWO! "Lions and Rivals and Moe, Oh My!"

[bikki]

.....yep, we're back!



'With all that we've overcome, all that we've been through... it's amazing that we're together even now. But after everything, it's finally our time. We deserve this. Miho, Chiharu, and even myself. I won't ever forget this journey. '

When ordinary high school life seems to be a little too lacking, what's a girl to do? Con your best friend and sister into starting a pop idol group, that's what! Enter Miho, the energetic, overly enthusiastic otaku who dreams of being idolized by everyone. Add a sensible, caring older sister (by two minutes that is), an overly-moe best friend, and the backing of an ex-gang leader turned voice-actor/dj, and you get Midnight Sugar, the tale of three not-so average girls passing through the trials of life, love, and the climb to stardom.

Download or Stream Episode 2,
"Lions and Rivals and Moe, Oh My!"
at Box.net!
Episode 2, Part 1
Episode 2, Part 2

Total Running Time: 25:16

For production notes, go HERE!

STARRING....
In order of appearance..

Littlestar as Mochizuki Momoe
YingFaStar as Mochizuki Miho
Konata as Ritsuka
xXLittlexGurlXx as Sakakibara Chiharu
Akumaryu as Mochizuki Daiki
SharpCookies as Konohara Mitsuki
Suraki as the Teacher
Konata as Inoue Maiko
Bikki as the Shop Girls
Toku as Ken-Chan
InstraClassic as the Otakuzine Announcer
McTricky as the Otakuzine Staff Guy



WRITTEN, PRODUCED, AND MIXED BY MIDNIGHT SUGAR PRODUCTIONS
Bikki Director, Producer, Writer, Mixer, Original Story
Kacchama Inspiration, Original Story
Suraki Assistant Director, Editor, Emotional Support

SFX CREDIT
VAA boards
Freesound.org
Midnight Sugar Productions

MUSIC CREDIT
Opening Recap Theme
Perfume, "Zero Gravity"

Scene One
Insert BGM - Perfume, "Akihaba Love"

Scene Two
Various BGM - Newgrounds Audio Portal

Scene Three
Store BGM - Asumi Kana & Fujita Saki & Kitamura Eri, "SOMEONE ELSE"

Scene Four
"Three Green Doors" Clip - Chatmonchy, some random song
"Cherry-Z" Insert BGM - Tamura Yukari, "Oshiete A to Z"
"Midnight Sugar" Performance - Perfume, "Akihaba Love"
"Inoue Maiko-Chama" Performance - Mizuki Nana, "Trickster"

Ending Preview Theme
Perfume, "Polyrhythm"

SHAMELESS PROMOTING
Love&Sugar.net, the home of Midnight Sugar Productions (Also our blog!)
The Midnight Sugar MyPodcast.com Page
Our Youtube Page


Download it or Stream it @ Box.net!
Or at Youtube and at our MyPodcast.com page!
Running Time: 15:05

STARRING....
In order of appearance..
Littlestar as Mochizuki Momoe
InstraClassic as Random Announcer Guy
YingFaStar as Mochizuki Miho
xXLittlexGurlXx as Sakakibara Chiharu
SharpCookies as Konohara Mitsuki
Suraki as the random background noise teacher!
Akumaryu as Mochizuki Daiki
and Larka as Ritsuka!


MUSIC CREDIT FOR EPISODE ONE
Prelude - Perfume, "Take Off"
Scene One - Morning Musume, "Nanchatte Renai"
Various BGM - Newgrounds Audio Portal
Ending Theme - Perfume, "Polyrhythm"

Production for Episode 3 will begin as soon as the remaining cast list is confirmed. In the meantime, follow our blog at Love&Sugar.Net! You can also find production notes for the current episode there!

[McTricky]

SHIII- IT'S OUT! I gotta head off to college, so I'll give a listen later ^ ^.

EDIT: Or better yet, I'll listen to it on the way to college ^ ^ *puts on iPod*

[SharpCookies]

o_o I didn't expect for this to be out so soon!

I am totally going to give a listen when I get home from school.. hopefully if there's enough time before work. ^^;

[Suraki]

"With all that we've overcome, all that we've been through... IT'S FINALLY OUT! Thank you to everyone who helped us!!! Please listen and enjoy~!

[bikki]

Aha. TBH I didn't expect it to be out so soon either, but once I got started mixing, I just couldn't stop! n_n''' Even though it meant no sleep xD;

[Glastonberry]

It's out so early?! Damn, well, I'll be sure to give a critique soon!

[YingFaStar]

LittleStar/Mochizuki Momoe
HAY BIG SISTA. Your lower range is awesome |Db But, your lower voice kind of makes you sound a bit monotone - although, you told me about this earlier xD... A lot of your lines had a lot of attitude/anger, and I do think that Momoe gets pretty irritated throughout the episode |D... but I interpreted it as a more like "voice of reason" sort of anger. Like she's trying to point out a more sensible solution to Miho's craziness? Rather than just being plain angry. I see her like cool, level-headed one! you NAILEDD all of those long monologues :Db Now, stop ignoring me D<

InstraClassic/Random Announcer Guy
WOOHOO!

xXLittlexGurlXx/Sakakibara Chiharu
There weren't too many lines to comment on, but your voice sounds very cute! I think your lines were very well delivered in general, but I think you could make your character more present? That sounds kind of contradictory since she IS a shy person |D;; but as a character, she needs to be more memorable - like making her sound more flustered when she's flustered, and etc.

SharpCookies/Konohara Mitsuki
Few lines, but awesome job :D

Suraki as the random background noise teacher!
Yay walla~!

Akumaryu/Mochizuki Daiki
I think you have a very nice fatherly voice :D Hahaha, I laughed at the excitement in your voice when Miho was telling Daiki about the contest XD I really have no complaints about your performance. Nice job!

Larka as Ritsuka!
Meow~

Scripting/Mixing:
I think that you relied a lot on monologues (Momoe's), and there were places that could've been replaced by that. For one example, when Momoe is explaining about Daiki and the school nurse, perhaps you could've had them visit him at the nurse's office and have a coversation there? It would also give more interaction between characters and not just Momoe narrarating everything for us.
The mixing in general was very nice :D I like how fast you put it all together! I think there was a couple of places where the timing was awkward, like there was too long of a pause between one line to another. I also noticed a number of lines, mostly Miho's, were peaking a bit. Overall, awesome job! *round of applause*

On a slightly unrelated note, I'm surprised you used my improv lines @__@...! I was expecting them to be in the background XD... I CAN'T WAIT UNTIL EPISODE 2!

[~xXLittlexGurlXx~]

yay its out~!! ill give a full critique soon~!

[bikki]

In reply to Ying's comments~

Momoe is very much supposed to be the voice of reason to Miho's crazy, as she is supposed to be the half of the two with common sense, whereas Miho is all outgoing and does things without thinking. So her anger is very much a caring, sisterly anger!

Chiharu doesn't have a lot of presence in this episode. This is a fault on me for writing--I really should have given her more, but this episode was more focused on the two >_<'. But I'm hoping LittlexGurl will have lots of opportunities to bring out Chiharu's character more 8D Especially in season one, because it's a focus on her!

Daiki was pulled off excellently by Akumaryu. He's supposed to be that kind of doting, overly-loving father of the two. He captured that well. xD;

As for the monologues... after I listened to the episode, I was like, holy god there are a lot of monologues with nothing else. I'm going to try and _not_ do that anymore, and keep the monologues related to something. That was kind of like a filler-intro because she was just kind of sitting through class and daydreaming. In episode two, we get to see Daiki in action as Mr. Nuse, so there will be some of that there!

Also, those improv lines were perfect and amazing, so thank you so much for that! Just what we needed to end the scene. And it gave me an excuse to mix instead of doing homework! ;D xD;;

As for the peaking and awkward pauses. I'm going to try hard to watch that >_< when I mix episode two, I SHOULD be using something BESIDES audacity (because by then I plan on having adobe soundbooth set up on my mac) so I should be able to control that volume better, as well as the pauses.

Wow... that was a long reply. >>' But thank you for listening and doing such a great job at Miho!

[CKMel]

Littlestar as Mochizuki Momoe
Star! My goodness, you never fail to amaze me with your range! I absolutely love that you can use your voice so well ... I do think that you should work on your emotions down in your lower range just a bit; most of the time you have your emotions pretty down, but now and then you tend to slip out just a bit.
Otherwise, I think your voice really fit the character, and you really got her attitude down

InstraClassic as Random Announcer Guy
Hahaha, really nice job! You made a really convincing announcer

YingFaStar as Mochizuki Miho
Wow, I've only heard this type of role for you once or twice before, so this was kind of weird for me, hahaha ;P ... You did a really great job capturing the character's personality; perky and loud, haha. Make sure you keep her excitement at the level that it has to be at though! It's easy to slip out of character for people like Miho, hahaha.

xXLittlexGurlXx as Sakakibara Chiharu
You really got the shy-girl voice type down, but I think the execution could be a little better; maybe a little more timid, a little more nervous. Unfortunately, you didn't have many lines in this particular episode, so I can't say too much. I do wanna say, though, that even though you have a shy character, that doesn't mean that you can't pull off a good, strong performance.
Keep the voice going, and make sure that the audience knows that you're a main character too!

SharpCookies as Konohara Mitsuki
I think your performance could've used a little bit more emotion as well, but other than that I didn't really hear anything that bothered me in particular!

Suraki as the random background noise teacher!
|Db

Akumaryu as Mochizuki Daiki
I think you did a good job with this guy's mood and atmosphere! You really got in character!

Larka as Ritsuka
:3

Mixing: Very well done! I really liked how it was done! I didn't hear any glaring issues.

Overall, very nice job! Casting was great and everything
I look forward to the next episode! Great job guys!