Bandai Visual

Bandai Visual Co., Ltd. (バンダイビジュアル株式会社, Bandai Bijuaru Kabushiki Gaisha), is a Japanese anime, film production and distribution enterprise, established by Bandai Company, Limited and a subsidiary of Bandai Namco Holdings, Inc., which is based in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Since the reorganisation of Bandai Namco Holdings in 2006, Bandai Visual now heads the group's Visual and Music Content Strategic Business Unit. Its subsidiaries include the Emotion Music Company, Limited, (whose logos also include the Moai from Easter Island), and Lantis Company, Limited music publishing labels.

Until 2012, it was involved in the production and distribution of several anime titles, including those it has directly produced itself and anime series produced by the anime studio Sunrise, a subsidiary of Bandai.

History

Bandai Visual is currently a fully owned subsidiary of Bandai Namco Holdings. Bandai Namco announced on November 8, 2007 that it would buy the voting shares it did not own between that date and December 10, 2007 and turn the company into a wholly owned subsidiary. On December 18, 2007, Bandai Namco announced that it owned 93.63% of Bandai Visual's shares since the end of November. The remaining shares were delisted from the Tokyo Stock Exchange on February 15, 2008 after Bandai Namco acquired the remaining 10% of the shares.

Amoureuse

"Amoureuse" is a French language composition by Véronique Sanson introduced on her 1972 album of the same name. Rendered in English the song became a hit single for Kiki Dee and - as "Emotion" - for Helen Reddy.

Background and first recordings

The original song title "Amoureuse" - which does not feature in its lyrics - is the French equivalent of the English adjective amorous and is also a feminine noun meaning lover. Sanson's lyric describes the contradictory feelings of passion and fear of a woman involved in a new love affair. Sanson was inspired to write the song while driving "up the Champs-Elysées in my little Autobianchi A112" at six AM: "It was a feeling of freedom... I was constantly monitored... And I wrote this song because I knew I was going to get yelled at by my parents [upon arriving home]."

"Amoureuse" had its first major impact out of France via a cover version for the Quebec market by France Castel (fr) which reached #1 on the French-language chart for Canada in December 1972: the track was featured on Castel's 1973 album release Je le vois dans ma soupe.

Emotion (Martina McBride album)

Emotion is the sixth studio album from Martina McBride released in 1999. The song "I Love You" became McBride's biggest hit single to date after it reached #1 on the country charts and peaked at #24 on the Billboard Hot 100. The album ends with two covers, "Goodbye" by Patty Griffin and Gretchen Peters' "This Uncivil War" from Peters' 1996 debut album The Secret of Life. In the U.S. the album was certified Gold on 10/20/1999 and Platinum on 9/15/2000 by the R.I.A.A.

Track listing

Personnel

Maria (goose)

Maria is a maleToulouse Goose (Anser anser), formerly living in Echo Park, Los Angeles who became the subject of news reports in 2011 after forming an unusual association with a local resident, named Dominic Ehrler.

Maria, named by locals and assumed to be female, was familiar to users of the park for several years as a goose which preferred the company of humans to that of his own species, often pecking at homeless people or following walkers and runners around.

Ehrler, a retired salesman, first encountered Maria at Echo Park lake in the summer of 2010 when the bird began to follow him on his daily walks around the lake, readily accepting food from him and soon becoming so attached that he would wait beside the road every morning for Ehrler to arrive at the park. Maria would walk alongside and possessively 'protect' Ehrler from other park users and their dogs and would also attempt to follow him from the park, flying closely behind him as he rode away on his scooter, necessitating attempts to distract the goose, or lock him behind a fence when leaving, to avoid being followed all the way home.

Final Fantasy II

Final Fantasy II (ファイナルファンタジーII, Fainaru Fantajī Tsū) is a fantasy role-playing video game developed and published by Square (now Square Enix) in 1988 for the Family Computer as the second installment of the Final Fantasy series. The game has received numerous enhanced remakes for the WonderSwan Color, the Sony PlayStation, the Game Boy Advance, the PlayStation Portable, and multiple mobile and smartphone types. As neither this game nor Final Fantasy III were initially released outside Japan, Final Fantasy IV was originally released in North America as Final Fantasy II, so as not to confuse players. The most recent releases of the game are enhanced versions for the iOS and Android, which were released worldwide in 2010 and 2012, respectively.

The game's story centers on four youths whose parents were killed during an army invasion by the empire of Palamecia, who are using hellspawn to conquer the world. Three of the four main characters join a rebellion against the empire, embarking on missions to gain new magic and weapons, destroy enemy superweapons, and rescue leading members of the resistance. The Game Boy Advance remake adds a bonus story after the game is completed.

Maria (album)

Maria is a 1995 critically acclaimed album by Canadian singer and songwriter Jane Siberry. It was her first album not to include any musical contributions from longtime collaborators such as Ken Myhr, John Switzer and Rebecca Jenkins.

Information

The album ends with "Oh My My," a 20 minute-plus ode that gathers the themes from the entire album. Rolling Stone wrote: "[I]n this heap of Siberjazz you realize that everything that has arisen on Maria has indeed converged and that you've actually been led on an unforgettable walk in a garden facing fall with a tour guide who's sure-footed in her wobbly pace. Awesome."

Maria was her last major label album. In 1996, Siberry started her own independent record label, Sheeba Records, and has released all of her subsequent recordings on that imprint.

Reception

Rolling Stone wrote about Maria: "[H]ot damn, the girl's back in the driver's seat with Maria...This is vintage Siberry: scissor-kicking around the soul's messiest spots in search of anything hinting toward redemption... That's exactly what this album's about: the pull of life. Not specifically the good or the bad or the ugly but just the pull and the subsequent release"