A bit of a follow-up from an article I did on Puffy's debut single, "Asia no Junshin"（アジアの純真）all the way back in 2012. Ami and Yumi really pulled off quite a splash when they started their singing career with this zanily-worded travelogue that was reminiscent of good ol' Electric Light Orchestra.
Then I found out a couple of covers of the song on YouTube. The above was done by seiyuu Kana Hanazawa（花澤香菜）who's been all around the anime universe for the past several years, although for me, I know her best as the hyperactive Mei-Mei, the little sister of main character Panda from "Shirokuma Cafe"（しろくまカフェ）. She did her own version of "Asia no Junshin" back in 2010 for the anime "Seikimatsu Occult Gakuin"（世紀末オカルト学院...Occult Academy）, and I found out that it wasn't even made into either the opening or closing theme. It was actually used as the song backing the announcement for the next episode. Kinda too bad since Hanazawa does a pretty good job here. The arrangement is fairly close to the original Puffy version and I actually like it when Hanazawa breathes out some of the lyrics.
Earlier than that...much earlier...the songwriters for "Asia no Junshin" themselves, Yosui Inoue and Tamio Okuda（井上陽水・奥田民生）performed a cover of the song for the duo's first album together, "Shopping" which was released in March 1997. This album version has a slightly footloose-and-fancy free 70s vibe to it. I wonder if the two were imagining driving an old yellow Volkswagen van in the countryside while they were singing to it. The above video has more of a honky-tonk feel. "Shopping", by the way, peaked at No. 4 on the charts.
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| A cute strawberry milk at the maid café Maidreaming |
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