Mariya Takeuchi -- Kimi no Ibasho ~ Have a Good Time Here（君の居場所）

 

Winter officially arrives here in Toronto at 10:30 pm Eastern Standard Time. There was no snow today but it certainly felt quite bone-chilling out there. In all likelihood, the collective moaning in the wind was from millions of Torontonians rolling their eyes and grimacing that several months of the cold season are now upon them. 

That begs the question then. Wearying from the cold and snow, what do the residents in The Six do? Well, a lot of them usually head down to Florida and perhaps take that Caribbean cruise from Fort Lauderdale, and if they are "snowbirds" which is our term for retirees who go south, they decide to live half the year in the warmer Everglade State. 

OK, second question, hotshot. When Pokémon get tired and stressed out, what do they do? Naturally, they head to the Pokémon Resort! A post-battle Pikachu probably has some rather sore shoulders...hm, does Pikachu even have shoulders? In any case, Netflix will be premiering "Pokémon Concierge"（ポケモン コンシェルジュ）on December 28th which sounds like the "Fantasy Island" for the pocket monsters. Karen Fukuhara will be starring as the main character of Haru on the English-dubbed version which is definitely a change from her other series "The Boys". For one thing, I don't believe Haru as the titular concierge will have to handle any messiness such as body explosions following penile intrusions. 

From Know Your Meme

Yes, I'm sorry, Pikachu! Perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned that. Moving on, I realize that "Pokémon Concierge" is a stop-action series but considering that up to now, it's all been about the anime, I gather that we can overlook the technicalities and place the Anime label onto it.

But I realized all of the above when I discovered last night that none other than Mariya Takeuchi（竹内まりや）was going to handle the theme song. In fact, it was released as a single on December 20th, approximately a week before the show goes to air. "Kimi no Ibasho" (The Place Where You Belong) was written and composed by Takeuchi and arranged by her husband Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）. It's a nice glass of tropical punch and a very welcoming tune to the Pokémon Resort. I also have to mention the adorable music video since the powers-that-be figured that if Tats could show up as a cute CG figure in one of his videos, then so can his wife. 

The above is the Japanese trailer with Rena Nonen（能年玲奈）as Haru.