Rika Himenogi -- Hoshizora no Date（星空のデイト）

 

Not to say that the song of this article has anything directly to do with the anime "Kaguya-sama: Love is War", but "Hoshizora no Date" (Starry Sky Date) kinda describes the situation that Kaguya and Miyuki found themselves in when the latter got all moony over the moon and the former got all moony over Miyuki getting all moony over the moon.

(1:01:11)

As for "Hoshizora no Date", this was the first song on pop singer Rika Himenogi's（姫乃樹リカ）"Golden Best" compilation from 2006, but it was originally a track on her debut album "Fairy Tale" which was released in August 1988. I wrote about her "Glass no Kiss"（硝子のキッス）back last New Year's Eve, and that debut single actually had an anime connection, but although this one doesn't, it does have the same songwriters in lyricist Takashi Matsumoto（松本隆）and composer Tsunehiro Izumi（和泉常弘）.

I also mentioned in the article for "Glass no Kiss" that there was something fairly aidoru-ish about the song, but for "Hoshizora no Date", the arrangement has made it plainly clear that this is some stylishly fine pop on the same level as Miki Imai（今井美樹）at around the same time. Those soothing keyboards are indeed the ticket and Himenogi's vocals in the chorus are just top-notch for me. Listening to some of the other tracks on the BEST collection have also been quite pleasant as well.

Nice to see that the singer is still active in recent years. According to the information for the video, Himenogi was singing "Hoshizora no Date" at a Yokohama venue in 2019.