Atarashii Gakko no Leaders -- Shiken Zenya（試験前夜）

 

Looking back at my academic career all throughout my childhood and adolescence, I can't say that I was particularly a proficient student. Of course, as was the case with many others, cramming for exams was never in my Top 10 List of things that I wanted to do, and at one point, while with my classmates at junior high getting prepped for mid-terms, my mind finally blanked out and I couldn't hack it with the studying anymore. Still, when the time came, I was able to pass those tests. However, even decades later and less than a decade away from official retirement, I don't look upon those times with any particular fondness.

I think it's for that very reason that I "get" Atarashii Gakko no Leaders'（新しい学校のリーダーズ）video for the rock fest "Shiken Zenya" (Night Before the Exam) which was on their March 2019 album "Wakage ga Itaru"（若気ガイタル...Youthful Indiscretions(?)）. That incredible one-take video of Suzuka, Mizyu, Kanon and Rin going nuts on the choreography sums up how I used to feel inside my head while the days of exams drew nearer while force-feeding my brain with phrases and other minutiae of information that I would never need again. However, Atarashii Gakko no Leaders are far more elegant in their expressions. Methinks that there are plenty of students in Japan who would love to thrash out like the ladies do in that classroom.

It's been quite the year regarding Atarashii Gakko no Leaders and KKP since I put up their first article all the way back in January and now we're on the cusp of December. Always an entertaining quartet. AGL took care of the lyrics while H ZETT M provided the music. The composer is part of H ZETTRIO, the piano trio who came up with one of the more soothing jingles ever heard for an insurance company.