Ahomushi -- Koko wa Doko（ココハドコ）/Kiyono Yasuno -- Ikiru（生きる）

We're just finishing Day 4 of the annual Toronto International Film Festival. On Thursday, a few of us went down to King St. where the main venue is just to soak in the atmosphere. There has already been a side story generated by the TIFF festivities.

Of course, the lineup of stars coming up to TIFF is set up and announced way in advance and one of the celebs was Tom Hanks who came to town to promote the biopic "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood". Well, a local coffeehouse called Grinder Coffee, which had Ryan Gosling come by last year for a cuppa jo, decided to extend the invitation to Hanks, and nice guy that he is, the former Bosom Buddy and Forrest Gump actually showed up just after the place had closed up on Friday night. And yep, he did get his coffee.

Let us now eventually segue. Remember that Tom Hanks flick, "Cast Away" where he played a fellow who got stranded on an island for a few years, fended for himself, and created a friend from a basketball?

Now, just imagine an anime where in place of Hanks and Wilson, it's actually four high school girls as the only survivors of a plane crash on a deserted island. That is the premise of "Sounan desu ka?"（ソウナンですか？...Are You Lost?）, one of the summer shows that my buddy and I have been watching. It's one of the shorter shows (about 10 minutes) but it's been packing some interesting educational stuff along the lines of "Danberu Nan-Kiro Moteru?"（ダンベル何キロ持てる?）, but instead of staying healthy and muscular, the lessons in "Sounan desu ka?" are staying healthy and alive. In other words, survival is the key here, and some of the lessons can be pretty harsh but necessary. Fortunately, de facto leader and survival expert Homare Onishima（鬼島ほまれ）was stranded along with her three classmates to keep everyone intact and cheerful with the stoicism and smarts of Mr. Spock and the can-do nature of Chief Engineer Scott.

Seemingly to reassure the viewers that "Sounan desu ka?" will not turn out to be a horror survival anime, the opening credits are absolutely high on good cheer with the four girls even singing the theme song as if it were a musical.

"Koko wa Doko" (Where is This?) is by the four seiyuu: very busy M・A・O  as Homare, Hiyori Kano（河野ひより）as the athletic Asuka Suzumori（鈴森明日香）, Kiyono Yasuno（安野希世乃）as the bespectacled Mutsu Amatani（天谷睦）, and Azumi Waki（和氣あず未）as the slightly spoiled Shion Kujo（九条紫音）under the group name of Ahomushi（あほむし...Dumb Bugs）. Written by Shoko Fujibayashi（藤林聖子）and composed by Sairenji!（サイレンジ！）, it didn't have quite the same impact that the opening themes for "Joshi Kōsei no Mudazukai"（女子高生の無駄づかい）, in which M・A・O has a smaller role, and aforementioned "Danberu Nan-Kiro Moteru?" had on me when they first debuted, but the happy-happy-joy-joy feeling of "Koko wa Doko" has finally won me over.

I have been able to find a full version of the ending theme "Ikiru" (To Live) solely by Yasuno, and it's also another happy tune that I thought was worth mentioning. Naoki Nishi（西直紀）and Tomoya Kawasaki（川崎智哉）were responsible for this semi-march. Noelle has already written about one anison that she has also contributed to.

Salty Sugar -- Hashire Koutarou（走れコウタロー）

Time for another slightly more adventurous article at "Kayo Kyoku Plus". I first heard this hoedown-friendly tune as an opening theme song for the 1990s anime "Midori no Makibao"（みどりのマキバオー...Midori's Makibao）, about a mule who looks slightly like a svelte hippo but with the beating heart of a champion thoroughbred as he wins race after race. It apparently was performed by three Fuji-TV announcers under the name of F-MAP, one of whom was Kenji Fukui（福井謙二）, the play-by-play man on the legendary "Ryori no Tetsujin"（料理の鉄人...Iron Chefs） cooking contest show.

"Hashire Makibao"（走れマキバオー...Run, Makibao） is a song that I had just treated as an especially jaunty anison for years. But then one day, I discovered that it was a cover of an original folk tune from 1970.

Salty Sugar（ソルティー・シュガー）was a folk group with a comical touch that had its origins in the late 1960s at Hibiya High School in Tokyo under an initial name. One of the members, Toshio Sato（佐藤敏夫）, needed to focus on getting into university, so he pulled out of the band, but his name was left with the remainder of the group who decided to twist it around and then translate it to form the new band name of Salty Sugar.

Guitarist Koutarou Yamamoto（山本厚太郎）, contrabassist Michio Tezuka（手塚通夫）, guitarist Takashi Takahashi（高橋隆）and Kanekichi/Kenkichi Ikeda (池田謙吉...instrument not specified) debuted in December 1969 with "Aa, Daigaku-sei"（ああ大学生...Ah, University Students） which only sold 3000 records, according to the J-Wiki article.

However, then came their second single in July 1970, "Hashire Koutarou" (Run, Koutarou) which had been written and composed by Ikeda with Nobuo Maeda（前田伸夫）as co-composer. Sadly, though, soon after the announcement of the release of the single in May of that year, Ikeda suddenly and tragically passed away at the age of 21. However, banjo player Sato, who had promised to come back to the band in a year, did so and together they did their departed bandmate proud by scoring a massive hit that reminded me a bit of the theme song from "The Beverly Hillbillies".

The song was originally created in tribute to an actual winning racehorse from the 1960s with the same name as Yamamoto but it also soon became a humourous poke (I hope) at the guitarist who had a penchant for always running late for practice. Regardless, "Hashire Koutarou" became a No. 1 hit on Oricon, selling close to a million records, and ended up as the 26th-ranked single for 1970. The next year, it rose even higher by finishing up at No. 20. It also won Salty Sugar the Best New Artist prize at the Japan Record Awards for 1970. Strangely enough, though, the band never got invited to the Kohaku Utagassen.

It looks like anime wanted to give the song another look since "Hashire Koutarou" was adapted once more as a song for a game version of the anime "Uma Musume Pretty Derby"（ウマ娘 プリティーダービー...Horse Girls Pretty Derby） which had come out earlier this year. Eight of the many seiyuu in that cast sang the high-flying "Hashire Uma Musume"（走れウマ娘）including Azumi Waki（和氣あず未）and Naomi Ozora（大空直美）who have their own entries in the Labels. Ikeda's legacy lives on.

Miyu Tomita, Yu Shinohara, Lynn, Azumi Waki -- HAPPY!! Strange Friends（HAPPY!!ストレンジフレンズ）

Yes, indeed, the bewitching holiday is once again upon us. Although the above picture was taken back in October 2014, I'm fairly sure that McDonalds Japan is once again serving its annual squid-ink burgers. Happy Halloween, everybody!

We got our first meteorological scare last night after I finished my chat with JTM. I looked out the window to see a clean layer of snow outside; it's about the earliest I've seen of the white stuff in many a year, but it was all gone by this morning. I also took a look at YouTube's live stream camera onto the main intersection of Shibuya. There was a Halloween presence including a couple in corny prison uniforms and another couple that I can only describe as "Stripper Precure". However, maybe it was the timing but my impression was that the celebrations seemed a little more subdued this time. Then again, we still have a few more nights before the 31st.

Happenstance perhaps, but this season's crop of anime includes at least a couple of Halloween-friendly shows that my buddy and I have started watching. There is one that I would like to label as "Gochuumon wa Kyuuketsuki desu ka?" or "Is The Order A Vampire?", but its actual title is "Tonari no Kyuuketsuki-san"（となりの吸血鬼さん...Ms. Vampire who lives in my neighborhood.）.

It's another cute slice-of-life anime starring Miyu Tomita（富田美憂）as the 360+-year-old vampire Sophie Twilight who is far more grounded than a lot of humans. Tomita is no stranger to supernatural and horror since she was in last year's just-as-goofy "Gabriel Dropout"（ガヴリールドロップアウト）and later in the beautiful if oft-horrifying "Made In Abyss".

And as was the case with the theme songs for those shows, Tomita jumps in with the rest of the main cast to perform them. In this case, I want to feature the ending "HAPPY!! Strange Friends" as sung by Tomita, Yu Shinohara（篠原侑）as the vampire-obsessed Akari who becomes her BFF (or tries to, anyways), Lynn as Akari's human BFF from school, and Azumi Waki（和氣あず未）as fellow vampire Erie who I will probably see for the first time next week.

I did mention that shoutout to "Gochuumon wa Usagi desu ka"（ご注文はうさぎですか?）at the top there. Well, "HAPPY!! Strange Friends" is rather reminiscent of the theme songs used for that popular series, and I gotta say that I enjoy how Tomita draws out those first few lines in the verses. Junko Miyajima（宮嶋淳子）took care of the lyrics while Yu handled music and arrangement.