Somewhere in my dusty collection of old-fashioned print photos, there is an album containing my shots from my trip to Sapporo years ago. It was a mere three days in the northern city in Hokkaido but it was a nice one especially since things were so comfortably cool and dry in June over there compared to the hot and humid conditions that were already creeping into Tokyo. I would have put one of those photos up, most likely one of the shots of the neighbourhood of Susukino, Sapporo's own equivalent of Shinjuku or Kabukicho in Tokyo, but I haven't had the wherewithal to dig into the cabinets quite yet. Instead, I've posted a YouTube video from the good people at Tokyo Walker with their own traipse through Susukino.
What's with all of the nostalgic memories of Sapporo all of a sudden? Well, although the last season of anime was fairly sparse for me in terms of what I wanted to watch, it appears that there may be a few for Winter 2024 that have popped up favourably on my could-watch radar. Two of those are actually set in Japan's northernmost prefecture
"Snack Basue"（スナックバス江）is based on the 2017 manga by Forbidden Shibukawa（フォビドゥン澁川）and the trailer has had me thinking that the nutty humour and weird characters are probably something that would get me to watch. Supposedly the tiny but stylish titular bar is located five stations away from Susukino so it's even further away from the hotel where I'd stayed during my trip there. When I do finally get to see "Snack Basue", it'll be interesting comparing this anime with the ultimate in bar sitcoms in America, "Cheers". Not sure if any of the regulars there will yell "YAMADA!" whenever Yamada steps in, though.
The opening credits for "Snack Basue" pretty much gives us the cast of characters and the tone of the show, and I recognize the first several seconds as a parody of the opening animation for one of the movie-of-the-week programs on Japanese TV. However, the opening theme is something a little different; I'd expected something folksy jovial or a Mood Kayo in the spirit of a typical Japanese watering hole, but actually it's fast-paced synthpop by otonari (Ririko) called "Uraomote Aquarium" (Two-Face Aquarium) written by Ririko and composed/arranged by Ryohei Sataka（佐高陵平）. Ririko's breathlessly delivered lyrics describe what I think is the usual rant by tipsy salarymen at places like Snack Basue about bullying bosses and terrible clients, so there is the whole tatemae and honne issue within Japanese society.
From what I've seen on the J-Wiki article for the series, the ending songs will be a series of covers of the old kayo kyoku which is refreshing to see and hear. For Episode 1, it was Anri's（杏里）debut song "Olivia wo Kikinagara" from 1978 as performed by seiyuu Rie Takahashi（高橋李依）in character as the bar's proprietress Akemi（明美）. It's pretty close to the original arrangement, too. Compare that with Takahashi's other cover of a kid's song in the anime "Tomo-chan wa Onna no Ko!"（トモちゃんは女の子！...Tomo-chan is a Girl!）last year.
Rie Takahashi is no Anri, but she is still decent in her own right.
ReplyDeleteI think all seiyuu have to be able to handle all sorts of voices in their careers, but the last few years seem to have been the ones for Takahashi.
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