D.U.P. -- PARTY☆NIGHT

I've been away from the blog for the longest time since my last major vacation a couple of years ago since I just happened to have work plus year-end parties on consecutive nights since Thursday. The stream of get-togethers (met another old friend for lunch earlier today) reminded me of the marathon of enkai that I engaged in on the JET Programme all those years ago. In a period of 5 nights in a row, I had to join the year-end drinking parties for my two schools, the PTA, the Board of Education and the entire town hall. That's what I called the intensive course on how to drink.

In any case, the lunch today and the dinner parties at my two favourite izakaya of Zakkushi and Kingyo downtown were fine although Thursday and Friday nights were the first big snow days of the year. Ended up waiting for one bus for up to 30 minutes outside which also brought back memories of my university days commuting home in the winter. Not particularly fun but I've been weather-proofed. However, unless there is a drastic thaw, I believe we will get a White Christmas this year.

With my party season in full swing then, I figure it is time to unleash "PARTY☆NIGHT". To be honest, I thought I had already written about this earworm but apparently not so here it is. My anime buddy introduced this to me years ago while I was still living in Japan and it was basically the only anison that grabbed me during my entire time there outside of the "Sailor Moon" themes. As you may already know, it still isn't too cool to wave one's love for anime too proudly in the source country itself so I never watched the stuff unless it was the family-sanctioned programming such as "Chibi Maruko-chan" or "Sazae-san".

However, "PARTY☆NIGHT" grabbed me by the ears and never ever quite let go. In fact, I ended buying the 2002 CD single version of it. But apparently the song made its first presence all the way back in 1999 when it was presented in the 15th of 16 episodes of the anime "Di Gi Charat" which was featured as a small segment on the late-night TBS variety show "Wonderful". Sung by three of the cast in the form of D.U.P., I was surprised to find out that alongside seiyuu Asami Sanada（真田アサミ）and Kyoko Hikami（氷上恭子）, the third member was Miyuki Sawashiro（沢城みゆき）who had just started her career back then and is now basically everywhere in the anime industry.

The take above is I believe the one that did feature in that 15th episode, the Hyper Parapara version. Written by Yuki Mori（森ユキ）and composed by Yusuke Sakamoto（坂本祐介）, it's the version that I remember the most because of that synthesizer riff that sounds as if The Flash was playing it and the part which turns up in all of the versions that sounds like it came from the classic theme song from "The Magnificent Seven".

The above eyecatch to the video is of the 2002 CD that I did buy. The version has got a bit more of a rock guitar thing going there.

Plus, I have to include the adorable video for the song. It kinda looks like an otaku's dream come true.

As for the whole parapara dance craze that swept through Japan, I never got all that interested in it although I observed that the music seemed to be a mix of trance and Boney M-style disco. That's Japan for you!