Tomori Kusunoki -- Forced Shutdown

 

I was scrolling down through the ever snake-like backlog of songs that I have been keeping for probable and eventual articles when I saw the name Tomori Kusunoki（楠木ともり）. As usual, my memory engrams had to struggle, but typing down the name into the search engines made me realize that it belongs to the seiyuu behind the adorably irritable Futaba Igarashi（五十嵐双葉）from last year's corporate rom-com anime "Senpai ga Uzai Kohai no Hanashi"（先輩がうざい後輩の話...My Senpai is Annoying）. Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing another season but the way it ended, it appears that it may be one and done.

Kusunoki took part in the grand opening theme "Annoying! San San Week!"（アノーイング！さんさんウィーク！）in character, along with her fellow seiyuu and castmates Reina Aoyama（青山玲菜）, Saori Hayami（早見沙織）and Aoi Koga（古賀葵）. But I've also learned that Kusunoki is a bona fide singer and songwriter who has released four digital download singles as well as four EPs since her debut as a major recording artist in 2020. She's also recorded a couple of singles during her indies days in 2018 and 2019.

The second of those EPs, "Forced Shutdown", hit the shelves in April 2021 and I wanted to take a look at the title track tonight. At first glance, my thoughts of the title went to one of the least favourite things that I would do regarding my computer. However, after reading the J-Wiki article for "Forced Shutdown", I discovered that this was more on Kusunoki's thoughts on how the world reacted to the COVID-19 pandemic. From a couple of interviews that the seiyuu/singer gave to "Animate Times" and "Music Voice", she created the song from her skepticism of the policy of not actually meeting face-to-face but connecting online through Skype or Zoom, and how that could lead to some unhealthy over-reliance on screen contacts at home and Net suffocation from staring at the laptop and being buried in information. In her opinion, it's not a bad thing to execute a forced shutdown from the online with the hint that some actual outside face-to-face time even if it's behind the mask is still the better option.

"Forced Shutdown" was written and composed by Kusunoki, and the introduction of the disjointed voices coming in from all angles through the headphones might express some of the communication mumbo-jumbo through the computer. Another observation is the arrangement and vocals which struck me as being quite Ringo Shiina（椎名林檎）-esque. Her voice here is not surprisingly far different from her squeaky Futaba character. The album peaked at No. 4 on Oricon.