Ikimonogakari/Masayuki Suzuki -- Kaeritakunatta yo（帰りたくなったよ）

Welcome, April 2019 and another Monday! There were the usual April Fool's jokes thrown out on TV today with some folks wondering if the announcement of the new Japanese reign period name "Reiwa"「令和」was part of it. It hasn't exactly been embraced by everybody, you might say. I'm not exactly overwhelmed myself but y'know, I can work with it.

A lot of folks have been going ga-ga over the opening theme for the anime "Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai ~ Tensai-tachi no Ren'ai Zunousen"（かぐや様は告らせたい〜天才たちの恋愛頭脳戦〜）, "Love Dramatic"（ラブ・ドラマティック）by Masayuki Suzuki（鈴木雅之）with Rikka Ihara（伊原六花）, and I know that the show is in its endgame. It's been fun but things have taken a fairly dramatic turn in the last couple of episodes.

The coupling song with "Love Dramatic" is "Kaeritakunatta yo" (I Want to Go Home), a sweet ballad by Martin which I hope can be sneaked into the last episode since the lyrics (and music) by Yoshiki Mizuno（水野良樹）speak of someone going through some hard times wishing to head back home where loved ones are waiting. In a way, that's how I think of Kaguya herself especially after watching Episode 11. The lass has been through a lot, no thanks to her father.

"Kaeritakunatta yo" is actually the 9th single by Mizuno's band Ikimonogakari（いきものがかり）, released in April 2008. To be honest, as much as I love Martin, I have to go with the original version as sung by Kiyoe Yoshioka（吉岡聖恵）. I'm sure that quite a few tears were shed whenever this one has been performed at the concerts. It broke into the Top 10 at No. 7 and ended up at No. 122 in the yearly rankings, going Gold and Double Platinum. The ballad was also placed in Ikimonogakari's 3rd album "My song Your song", released on Christmas Eve 2008 which hit No. 1 on the Oricon weeklies and ended up as the 14th-ranked album for 2009.