Ayako Ikeda -- Yume no Tochuu de（夢の途中で）

Well, it's wet and gloomy out there but the worst is yet to come. Ice Storm II is slated for either tonight or tomorrow.

Anyways, to let you in on my viewing habits to a small extent. Usually after dinner, it's the news at 6 for most of the hour after which I switch over to TV Japan at 6:55 before the NHK morning news comes on. For the past few years, the 6:50-7:00 pm slot has been filled with episodes of the kids' program "Nyanchu World Hosokyoku"（ニャンちゅうワールド放送局...Nyanchu's World Broadcast Station） and then "PythagoraSwitch"（ピタゴラスイッチ）for the last several months. Since a couple of weeks ago, we've now been getting a couple of songs via NHK's long-running "Minna no Uta"（みんなのうた...Everyone's Songs）series. To be frank, I'm always a bit "worried" about watching "Minna no Uta" since there have always been at least a few songs that tug at the heartstrings, and I'm not exactly one who likes to show too much in the way of emotions.

(cover by Cassandra)

Last night, one of those songs popped up. It's titled "Yume no Tochuu de" (In The Middle of a Dream) by singer-songwriter Ayako Ikeda（池田綾子）, and it was played originally between August and September 2017 before getting another run between last December into this January.

Gah...the feels! I'm playing it again right now as I write this and my throat is already starting to lump up. The video of that penguin going through life in a human city and dreaming of home doesn't help. As I was watching it for the first time, I thought that the penguin was heading for that iceberg in the sky, but he was just dreaming. If it had been that first assumption, I probably would have been rather devastated. But man, does this song work! The arrangement, the video, Ikeda's vocals, everything.

Ikeda was born in Tokyo and attended the Musashino Academia Musicae where she specialized in German lied. As a recording artist, she made her debut in 2002 with "Yasashii Uta"（ヤサシイウタ...A Gentle Song）and has thus far released 10 singles and 6 albums according to her website.