Tuesday, October 10, 2023

DAOKO & Yasuyuki Okamura -- Step-Up Love(ステップアップLOVE)

 

Never actually heard or saw this anime "Kekkai Sensen"(血界戦線...Blood Blockade Battlefront) adapted from a 2009 manga which is currently into its third series. From what I've read of the premise though, it sounds like a bit like "Men In Black" with a supernatural bent.

The anime adaptation has had two seasons with the second season being called "Kekkai Sensen & BEYOND" that had its run in 2017. I decided to take a gander at how the theme songs came across and I did a full stop at the ending theme and the credits for that second season. One reason is that good ol' Yasuyuki Okamura(岡村靖幸), one of the funkiest singers to be involved in anison alongside one of the most soulful in Masayuki Suzuki(鈴木雅之), was back again to help out in a duet with singer-songwriter and rapper DAOKO. I'd written about DAOKO almost a month ago regarding her 2015 debut single "ShibuyaK".

Well, cool and funky is what I'm getting with their collaboration, "Step-Up Love". Released as DAOKO's 4th single in October 2017, both singers worked on the lyrics while Okamura took care of the music and arrangement. A song where the romantic chase seems to be more preferable than the final takedown, "Step-Up Love" has DAOKO and Okamura getting to do what they love best, the former doing her sultry rap while the latter gets to funk it up.

Looks like the song got translated into a dance-off between DAOKO and Okamura in the official music video. MIKIKO, the choreographer behind Perfume's dancing, was also responsible for creating that competition in the basketball court. DAOKO and her ELEVENPLAY group of dancers did their Voguing against Okamura's quintessential funky struts. "Step-Up Love" managed to peak at No. 8 on Oricon. It's also a track on DAOKO's 2nd album as a major act, "Thank You Blue" which came out in December 2017 and got as high as No. 13.

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