Thursday, December 30, 2021

DIVA×DIVA -- Yahho(ヤッホー)/Issey Eguchi -- Kimi ga Iru kara(君がいるから)

 

Earlier this month, I put up articles for dynamic singer Miho Morikawa(森川美穂), who has been featured on the blog since its beginnings in 2012, and Saori Saito(斉藤さおり)who got her first article on KKP back on December 4th this year. As I mentioned in the article for the latter singer, Saito did go through a couple of stage name changes so that by the year when the song in question for this particular article came about, she was then known as Akira Asakura(麻倉あきら)

From what I've heard from both Morikawa and Asakura back in the early 1990s, they were singers who liked to traverse along the borderline between pop and rock, and so I guess that it was kismet that they would both collaborate as a duo under the name DIVA X DIVA to create a rollicking theme song for the 2006 anime adaptation of the manga "Shijō Saikyō no Deshi Ken'ichi"(史上最強の弟子ケンイチ...Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple).

I've never seen the anime myself but the premise is all about a much-bullied high school student getting his game going by striving to become the best of the best at fighting. And DIVA X DIVA's "Yahho", which was their one and only single, was actually the second opening theme for the show which was released in August 2007. Despite that year, "Yahho" sounds more reminiscent of an early 1990s pop/rock tune. Written and composed by Joe Rinoie(ジョー・リノイエ), Morikawa and Saito seem to be having a great time singing out Rinoie's lyrics of tackling life and adventure head-on like a really triumphant sack of the opposing team's quarterback. Incidentally, the exclamation yahho has been translated at Jisho.org as yoo-hoo or howdy, but really I think that considering what the song is all about, perhaps it's best to translate it as "YEAAAAAH!"

The first of four official ending themes for "Shijō Saikyō no Deshi Ken'ichi" was "Kimi ga Iru kara" (Thanks to You) as sung by Issey Eguchi(江口一声)who was an anison performer but is currently a hair stylist according to his Twitter account. Speaking of those early 90s, I also get some Being rock vibes while listening to this one. Rinoie and Hiromi Uchida(内田広海)wrote the lyrics while Rinoie also composed the music.

DIVA X DIVA provided their one other song as an accompaniment to "Yahho" in the form of their own cover of "Kimi ga Iru kara". It's somewhat softer and more poignant than the Eguchi original, and maybe there's even a bit of 80s pop balladry in the arrangement, too.

1 comment:

  1. My impression was that it was a popular series so you should be able to track some of the issues down.

    ReplyDelete

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