Sayonara Ponytail/Houkago Tea Time -- Tenshi ni Fureta yo!（天使にふれたよ！）

 

I have covered the female group Sayonara Ponytail（さよならポニーテール）a few times in the past, including their "Shin Sekai Koukyougaku"（新世界交響楽）which was one ending theme to the truly chaotic anime "Kill La Kill"（キルラキル）.

Just by happenstance, I stumbled across another song by this mystery group whose members have apparently never appeared live in concert or through any other visual media. They may not have even seen each other...at least as a full group. But anyways, there is much to like about their "Tenshi ni Fureta yo!" (We Met An Angel!) which was written by Emi Inaba（稲葉エミ）and composed by Susumu Kawaguchi（川口進）. It's got a nice groove but also has this wistfulness which comes with being reminded of those salad days in school. Plus, I like the illustrations accompanying the video which make it look like the disparate members of SayoPony actually hung out together all those years. The song was a bonus track on the group's three-disc album "Enban Utopia"（円盤ゆ～とぴあ...Disc Utopia） which was released in November 2015.

The crazy thing is that the SayoPony song is actually a cover of an insert song from the popular anime "K-ON". I'd always heard about this show from my anime buddy but never got to see it although it's gained quite the reputation over the years since it was first shown in 2009. I was surprised by the original version that was performed by the in-universe band Houkago Tea Time（放課後ティータイム...Afterschool Tea Time） with its different pop-rock flavour as performed by Aki Toyosaki（豊崎愛生）, Yoko Hikasa（日笠陽子）, Satomi Sato（佐藤聡美）and Minako Kotobuki（寿美菜子）, seiyuu that have become very familiar to me through other roles in other anime. "Tenshi ni Fureta yo!" was placed as a track on the October 2010 album "Houkago Tea Time Second"（放課後ティータイムII）.