Kanae Ito, Mai Nakahara, Kana Ueda and Mamiko Noto -- Romantic Strike （浪漫ちっくストライク。）

Well, another Sunday of anime and food. And I got to see more of the 2009 TBS anime "Taisho Yakyu Musume"（大正野球娘。...Taisho Baseball Girls）, the heartwarming tale of a group of high school girls in Taisho Era Japan trying to create their own baseball team. I did mention in the article for "Tokyo Bushi"（東京節）, the musical number that the main character of Koume sings in the first episode, that her performance was the only spot of zany humour I saw. Ah, once again I spoke too soon. Last night, I saw a couple of later episodes which were downright out in left field (pun fully intended) and then I came across the above YouTube capture of a scene that I will probably catch next time at my friend's place which covers the usual anime trope of walking through a scary forest. Much hilarity ensues.

The other observation was realizing how many well-known seiyuu were crammed into this show. Of course, back then perhaps not all of them were as famous as they are now, but still to know that a number of these ladies would end up in some of my favourite anime such as the "Fate/Stay Night" franchise, "Uchoten Kazoku"（有頂天家族）and "Gekkan Shojo Nozaki-kun"（月刊少女野崎くん）was enough to feel that with "Taisho Yakyu Musume", I was watching something even more special.

Anyways on to the topic of the article. The opening theme song "Romantic Strike" hasn't exactly become an earworm like seiyuu Kanae Ito's（伊藤かな恵）rendition of "Tokyo Bushi", and in fact, I had to refer to the video on YouTube to remember how exactly the song went, but still listening to it again with Ito and her fellow cast members Mai Nakahara（中原麻衣）, Kana Ueda（植田佳奈）and Mamiko Noto（能登麻美子）had me getting happy again. Written by rino and composed by Takayuki Hattori（服部隆之）who I just wrote about the other day for creating the dramatic soundtrack to the old PS1 game "I.Q.", the song is all sunniness and cherry blossoms that had me pining for some of the J-Pop tinged with a bit of disco or Shibuya-kei at around the turn of the century with Misia and bird among other singers. It was arranged by Kaoru Okubo（大久保薫）who would come up with an even breezier and happier anison some years later.

I love the horns in the opening credits but boy, do they turn loose in the full version of the song. Kinda wonder if Ito and company looked pleasantly surprised when the trombone and trumpet burst out in the second verse. "Romantic Strike" managed to hit a double of sorts when it reached No. 58 on Oricon.