fhana -- divine intervention

Realizing that it's quite late to put this one into "Kayo Kyoku Plus", I still have to pipe up in my defense that when an anime has such an earworm ending theme such as "Witchcraft Activity"（ウィッチ☆アクティビティ）, any opening theme would have a difficult time standing out.

For those who don't know what I'm talking about, I'm referring to the anime "Witchcraft Works"（ウィッチクラフトワークス）which aired in early 2014. The series itself frankly went over my head without subtitles but it was all about these different covens of witches jockeying for position within the usually mundane environment of a suburban Japanese neighbourhood. I have to say that a lot of it was very gorgeously animated, though.

Anyways, the opening theme was fhana's "divine intervention" and I think it's only been within the last little while that I've finally started to appreciate it. Ending theme "Witchcraft Activity" simply burrowed itself into my head so much that it had been the only song that I associated the anime with. But after enjoying the band's first single, the lovely and fitting ending theme for the first season of "Uchoten Kazoku"（有頂天家族）, "Que Sera Sera"（ケセラセラ）, and then last year's so-happy-that-it-kills "Aozora no Rhapsody"（青空のラプソディ）, I got to hear "divine intervention" again through my anime buddy's anison hour.

The song was fhana's 3rd single released in January 2014. Written by Hideki Hayashi（林英樹）and composed by fhana keyboardist Junichi Sato（佐藤純一）, "divine intervention" flies in like a witch on the warpath with the keyboards and the rock but then also has these quieter passages that almost takes things into a humming disco ballad thanks to the addition of those strings. Well, being someone who likes the ancient music, I appreciated the disco of it.

"divine intervention" got as high as No. 52 on Oricon. It also became a track on fhana's debut album "Outside of Melancholy" released in February 2015 which peaked at No. 8. This song will still be a fairly distant third behind "Aozora no Rhapsody" and "Que Sera Sera" for me but from now on it will not be forgotten.