Credits

I would like to give credit where credit is due. Videos are from YouTube and other sources such as NicoNico while Oricon rankings and other information are translated from the Japanese Wikipedia unless noted.

Thursday, June 12, 2014

Taeko Ohnuki -- Teddy Bear (テディ・ベア)



In the past number of months, I was able to watch an anime by the name of "Arpeggio of Blue Steel - Ars Nova" which dealt with battles among sentient warships whose mental models were represented by...of course, young pretty girls. Strangely enough, one of the breakout characters turned out to be Kirikuma who consisted of the mental model of one of the defeated warships (the Kirishima) being merged into a cute pink teddy bear called Youtaro. Apparently, the actual teddy bear has been selling like hotcakes on the Net...you can talk to my buddy since he is one of the purchasers.

Suffice it to say, whenever Kirikuma or Winnie The Pooh pops up in my head, the above song by singer-songwriter Taeko Ohnuki (大貫妙子)also appears to provide musical backup. "Teddy Bear" is one of the tracks of Ohnuki's 1983 album, "Signifie", so the song has that whimsical technopop fully infused as was the case with much of her output during that time. I also see "Teddy Bear" as the sister animal song to her more well-known tune from a year previously, "Peter Rabbit to Watashi" (Peter Rabbit and Me). Still, both tunes possess the high breathy vocals of Ohnuki, the so-cute-it-hurts arrangement by Ryuichi Sakamoto(坂本龍一)and the toy-shop techno.


And, yup, just had to include a scene from "Arpeggio of Blue Steel".

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