Shonan no Kaze -- Junrenka（純恋歌）

 

I was looking back at my August 2018 article for Shonan no Kaze's（湘南乃風）"Grand Blue"（ぐらんぶる）, the opening theme song for the hilarious Summer 2018 anime of the same name, and I couldn't believe that I put it up even before I got to watch a single episode. Since then, the show has become one of the funniest anime comedies ever made, and I'm happy to say that I have my own copy and whenever I'm in need of a quick laugh, I watch the reaction videos for the episodes of which there are plenty on YouTube. Personally, Episode 11 is my favourite which is saying a lot considering that virtually every episode has been amazing. I'm still waiting for Season 2, and with the return of "Hataraku Maō-sama!"（はたらく魔王さま!...The Devil is a Part-Timer!）for its second season after almost a decade following its inaugural one, there is hope out there because the "Grand Blue" manga is still chugging away with additional characters and situations.

But it is Shonan no Kaze's "Grand Blue" which sets the scene every episode with its upbeat and good-buddy fun. I did mention, though, that the band had an earlier hit called "Junrenka" (Pure Love Song) that I would have to do "soon". Well, once again I've proven that "soon" isn't soon so I'm going to have to really ditch those so-called promises of getting to a particular song soon enough.

Let me digress, though. "Junrenka" is Shonan no Kaze's 5th single from March 2006 that proved to be one of their early hits by hitting No. 2 on Oricon and ending up as the 8th-ranked single of the year, going Double Platinum. Truly a pure love song, the music video describes things perfectly as a teen grows up to be a young lady finally finding love along the way, although the central setting is the beach. Meanwhile, at the end of the video, her mother also takes a walk to the beach on a rainy day perhaps remembering her old romance leading to marriage.

If there is a second season for "Grand Blue", maybe "Junrenka" could make for an ideal ending theme since I could see certain characters from the anime actually taking the parts of some of the folks in the video. In a wonderful turn of events, according to J-Wiki, the model Mie, who plays the young lady, and the beach dude who proposes to her, pro surfer Teppei Tajima（田嶋鉄兵）, actually ended up getting married a couple of years following the release of the song.

Wouldn't it be something if Iori and Aina finally work things out and end up like Mie and Teppei? However, I would miss scenes like the one under here.