Despite my anime buddy's gift of "Magic Knight Rayearth"（魔法騎士レイアース）episodes some years ago, I never really cottoned onto the series for some reason. Not sure what it was but it never clicked with me. Mind you, the opening theme for Season 1, Naomi Tamura's（田村直美）"Yuzurenai Onegai"（ゆずれないお願い）, was so catchy that I ended up buying the CD single even before I realized that it had been used for the "Rayearth" franchise. A lot of my anime-watching friends even got really excited about her appearance on NHK's annual Kohaku Utagassen that year.
Well, recently, I discovered a song that had been used as the second ending theme for Season 2. Titled "Itsuka Kagayaku" (Shining Someday), this was sung by aidoru Keiko Yoshinari（吉成圭子）as her 3rd and final single from October 1995. Written by Neko Oikawa（及川眠子）and composed by Touben Yukawa（湯川トーベン）, it's a mid-tempo pop tune with some interesting chord progressions that kinda hint at something urban contemporary.
Yoshinari made her debut in 1991 and in the following year, she became the first leader of the aidoru group Seifuku Kojo Iinkai（制服向上委員会...Uniform Improvement Committee） for the first two years of its initial fourteen-year existence. Along with those three solo singles and a 1991 single under the name Keiko Yoshinari & Ripples, she had two studio albums in 1995 and 1997. She then retired from show business in 1997.
I heard that a remake of "Magic Knight Rayearth" is in the works, maybe second time is the charm.
ReplyDelete