Masayoshi Oishi -- Shinda!（死んだ!）

 

Yesterday, I was informed that the latest holiday craze is Summerween which is basically celebrating Halloween a couple of months or so earlier than scheduled. The Japanese would probably react by saying "Well, it's about time!". Although the big cities and its young populations have fully embraced Halloween in recent years, the dog days of summer have been the traditional time for the spooky in Japan. After all, telling those ghost stories and leaving a chill up and down listeners' backbones has been one way to stave off the torrid heat and humidity. Or so the theory goes...

I've never seen the anime "Yuusha ga Shinda!"（勇者が死んだ!...The Legendary Hero is Dead!）which had been broadcast early last year on Tokyo MX and it's not really a Halloween-themed show. I'd say that it was more of a comedic isekai program with at least one major supernatural element. 

But what got me to bring Summerween in here was the opening theme song for "Yuusha ga Shinda!", "Shinda!" (Dead!) as written, composed and performed by Masayoshi Oishi（大石昌良）. The official music video and the arrangement of the song certainly hints at something more Halloween (and of course, Oishi himself still enjoys being the song-and-dance man). I actually wrote about Oishi's most recent anison outing earlier this year, "Namaramenkoi Gyaru"（なまらめんこいギャル）for the heartwarming Hokkaido-based show "Dosanko Gyaru wa Namaramenkoi"（道産子ギャルはなまらめんこい...Hokkaido Gals Are Super Adorable!）. That one is quite a bit more funk but "Shinda!" brings in more of the synthpop spookiness and the usual Oishi catchiness. Perhaps Danny Elfman might be a tad jealous. In any case, the singer's 10th single from May 2023 peaked at No. 28 on Oricon.