Back when I was a kid, I used to remember family friends playing mah jongg. I certainly remember the clacking of the tiles being moved about rather hastily before each round. Unfortunately, I never gained enough of an interest to pick up the game myself but over the years, I've seen friends playing it in various settings.
As I mentioned earlier, I've found a couple of Hokkaido-based anime to peruse: "Snack Basue"（スナックバス江）and "Dosanko Gyaru wa Namaramenkoi"（道産子ギャルはなまらめんこい...Hokkaido Gals Are Super Adorable!）with their own infectiously fun theme songs. Well, I'm on the fence about this next anime "Pon no Michi"（ぽんのみち...The Way of Pon） although being a slice-of-life show, it might draw me in. Hinting at the game in the first paragraph, it's indeed about a bunch of friends coming together for mah jongg although the trailer shows that they're all up for other stuff as well.
The trailer also has the opening theme which is also very catchy. "Ponpopopon" had me by the ears immediately thanks to the onomatopoeia being liberally delivered by Pon-no-Michi All-Stars（ぽんのみちオールスターズ）, which is basically the main seiyuu cast that I mostly don't know aside from Hibiku Yamamura（山村響）. The main singer though is Kana Nakada（中田花奈）who not only was a member of aidoru group Nogizaka 46（乃木坂46）but is currently a tarento and a professional mah jongg player herself. She even runs her own mah jongg salon.
"Ponpopopon" will serve as Nakada's first solo single and it will be coming out at the end of February 2024, so please wait out the month to get your copy. Koichi Ikekubo（池窪浩一）handled the lyrics while Masahiro Tobinai（飛内将大）took care of the melody and arrangement.
Another anime I didn't know about. Music has a bit of an 80's flare some how?
ReplyDeleteMaybe it's the synthesizers.
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