Kana Hanazawa -- Bamboo Rendezvous（バンブー・ランデヴー♡）

I haven't seen or heard seiyuu Kana Hanazawa（花澤香菜）this year aside from her co-starring role in the Winter 2017 anime "Gabriel Dropout"（ガヴリールドロップアウト）since my anime buddy hasn't shown anything with her although considering that she's an A-lister, she probably has had another busy year.

However, I've been having some fun watching an old series of videos in which Hanazawa and one of her co-stars from another show, the irrepressible Tomokazu Sugita（杉田智和）, showed up for a cast live-action event. Basically, Sugita mercilessly teases the heck out of her including in a game of "Guess What's In The Box?"

Although I never saw that particular anime that Hanazawa and Sugita appeared on, my memories still return to my beloved "Shirokuma Café"（しろくまカフェ）in which she played the younger sister of the main character Panda-kun, Mei-Mei. Her schtick was that she was crazily in love with Mr. Handa, the chief zookeeper where Panda-kun worked. To say that she fangirled whenever she was in his presence is a gross understatement.

Hanazawa, being one of the cast members, also had her time in the sun as the singer of one of the multiple ending themes for "Shirokuma Café". So she sang a song for her beloved Handa in the form of "Bamboo Rendezvous" with her secret code of "H-A-N-D-A". This particular song came out in January 2013 going into the homestretch of the year-long anime.

To say it's cute is like saying Mt. Fuji is a nice hill. She even fangirls near the end of the song. As was the case with all of the ending themes for "Shirokuma Cafe", "Bamboo Rendezvous" was written and composed by Saki（紗希）. It's a 1980s candy pop tune that would probably be more at home for one of those Sunday morning anime. It's definitely a great fit for Mei-Mei.

Of course, everyone is going panda wild for Shang-Shang, the baby panda born at Ueno Zoo a few months ago.