Mikuni Shimokawa/MINMI/Nao Toyama -- Omoide ga Ippai（思い出がいっぱい）

 

I remember when I first heard "Omoide ga Ippai" (Full of Memories) by the folk-pop duo H2O on an episode of "Sounds of Japan" on CHIN-FM decades ago. Not having known about its status as the first ending theme for the 1983 anime "Miyuki"（みゆき）, I found it a splendid wistful ballad. Years later, the 3rd-year homeroom teachers of the school that I had taught during my time on the JET Programme sang the song for the soon-to-be graduates. Not a dry eye in the room. And I've learned that "Omoide ga Ippai" has been a stalwart song for Japanese graduations.

Well, commenter Brian Mitchell asked me earlier about some of the cover versions and not surprisingly, considering how beloved and sentimental "Omoide ga Ippai" has become since the early 1980s, the list of singers who have given their own versions of the ballad reads like a Santa Claus list. At Brian's request, I went over three of those covers.

The first one here is by actress and singer Mikuni Shimokawa（下川みくに）, and although she's only had one role as an anime seiyuu, she often sings her fair share of anison. But in this case, she did cover "Omoide ga Ippai" via her December 2003 "Review ~ Shimokawa Mikuni Seishun Anison Cover Album"（Review 〜下川みくに青春アニソンカバーアルバム〜）. Her take is an even breezier and languid take on the anison classic.

MINMI is a singer that I have mentioned on KKP before when she collaborated with m-flo for the dance hall-friendly "Lotta Love". However, she's regularly a reggae singer and that's the genre which is powering her cover of "Omoide ga Ippai" which is a track on her August 2011 album "The Heart Song Collection" which is filled with tunes that she enjoyed as a teenager. 

Nao Toyama（東山奈央）is a seiyuu and singer who's shown up on the blog a number of times in the past and she sings "Omoide ga Ippai" for the second in the series of anime character albums for the anime "Kami Nomi zo Shiru Sekai"（神のみぞ知るセカイ...The World God Only Knows） which was released in 2014. Under her character of Kanon Nakagawa（中川かのん）, she sings the song under a shoegaze and pop arrangement.