Kana Hanazawa -- Moonlight Magic

 

I had put up the above photo of my Shiro Noir from Nagoya-based Komeda Coffee when I was writing about the Nagoya-based anime "Yatogame-chan Kansatsu Nikki"（八十亀ちゃんかんさつにっき...Yatogame-chan's Observation Diary） through Haruka Tomatsu's（戸松遥）theme song "DELUXE DELUXE HAPPY". The franchise has sprouted all over Japan now because of the Shiro Noir and any other sweets on its menu, although things didn't start booming for Komeda Coffee until I had already returned home for good.

But it does bring up the question. What if I had remained in Tokyo throughout the 2010s, and perhaps instead of a kayo kyoku blog, I whipped up a blog focusing on the the wonderful dishes of franchise restaurants such as Skylark, Cocos and Royal Host? I already had blogging experience and that Casio digital camera, so it wouldn't have been too difficult to begin.

Well, over the summer this year, TV Tokyo presented a late-night live-action drama on that very topic starring Marika Ito（伊藤万理華）, formerly of the aidoru group Nogizaka 46（乃木坂46）. Known as "O-Mimi ni Aimashitara"（お耳に合いましたら。...If You Like It）, Ito plays an introverted woman, Misono, working at a pickled vegetable factory who usually brings home takeout from her favourite restaurants. A friend of hers then suggests that Misono ought to do podcasts talking about those dishes since that is the only time when she actually gets quite animated.

I'd never thought about actually podcasting "Kayo Kyoku Plus" since I was rather discouraged by that one chapter in a guidebook to the hobby which basically said "Don't do music podcasts!" Well, judging from some of my friends from the City Pop realm, that chapter didn't scare any of them. Still, it's almost been a decade now since I first started writing about Japanese popular music of all decades, so I'm quite happy typing away although I have helped out Rocket Brown and Van Paugam at times on their own podcasts.

Earlier this afternoon, I wrote on the anime "Maiko-san Chi no Makanai-san" (舞妓さんちのまかないさん...Kiyo in Kyoto: From the Maiko House) starring veteran seiyuu Kana Hanazawa（花澤香菜）. Strangely enough, that show is also all about the food, but for "O-Mimi ni Aimashitara", though Hanazawa doesn't play any role on the show, she does sing the opening theme song "Moonlight Magic" which is a happy-go-lucky disco-touched pop song. As someone commented online, it's a "super-kawaii" tune.

To be honest, though, I can't read the lyricists' names because I think they are Chinese, but here they are just in case any of you viewers can read them and get back to me: 唐軼 and 洛松維. The composer was Katsutoshi Kitagawa（北川勝利）who has come up with one other Hanazawa song, 2014's "Summer Sunset". "Moonlight Magic" was released as a single a few weeks ago in September.

Some lunch at Vie de France!

P.S. I ought to really finish things off here with an adorable how-to-dance video with Kana.

And if I'm putting a dancing video with her, I simply must include her famous attempt at the Macarena.