I've been a fan of Japanese popular music for 40 years, and have managed to collect a lot of material during that time. So I decided I wanted to talk about Showa Era music with like-minded fans. My particular era is the 70s and 80s (thus the "kayo kyoku"). The plus part includes a number of songs and artists from the last 30 years and also the early kayo. So, let's talk about New Music, aidoru, City Pop and enka.
Credits
I would like to give credit where credit is due. Videos are from YouTube and other sources such as NicoNico while Oricon rankings and other information are translated from the Japanese Wikipedia unless noted.
As has been the case for the last few years, the anime buddy and I had our first Sunday meeting yesterday in the latter half of January since he's usually in East Asia past New Year's. So we saw a couple of the new shows for Winter 2020 and caught up on most of the Fall 2019 outings, including the second, and perhaps the final, season for the popular "Boku-tachi wa Benkyo ga Dekinai"（ぼくたちは勉強ができない!...We Never Learn） aka "Bokuben".
Of course, the show continued its long tradition of innuendo and misunderstandings, and Episodes 11 to 13 brought its brand of farce to the annual school culture festival. Sometimes, I think "Bokuben" has been the anime version of "Frasier". Let's see...the crisis involved mismatched costumes, an oversupply of udon, and a trap for Yuiga and Fumino set within a performance of "Sleeping Beauty".
Finally, it looks like the anime producers decided to place a very round period on the show and really jump the gun ahead of the manga producers (who are still continuing with the project) to reveal who Yuiga is most likely gonna end up with. There was a lot of consternation about that, although personally, I'm not unhappy.
The ending theme didn't quite catch on with me as did the opening theme for Season 2, "Can Now, Can Now", but it's been one of those songs that has grown on me over time, and with the supposed absolute finale for "Bokuben", I think it would be rather nice to include "Hokago no Liberty"(Afterschool Liberty).
halca is the singer with the fast delivery behind "Hokago no Liberty", her 4th single released in November 2019. She was also responsible through her 3rd single, "Sentimental Crisis"（センチメンタルクライシス）for the ending theme for "Kaguya-sama Kokurasetai"（かぐや様は告らせたい）, although I never really got into that one in the same way that I fell for its opening theme, "Love Dramatic". halca's Wikipedia page has more information than her J-Wiki bio, and you can take a look at her website right here.
Though I think the cat's out of the bag for the ultimate question in "Bokuben", I'm hoping that somehow if not a third season, perhaps an OVA or two might be in the offing.
Last season on the anime "Boku-tachi wa Benkyou ga Dekinai"（ぼくたちは勉強ができない）, the main female characters were not only struggling with their studies but also with their feelings for their friend and tutor, Nariyuki. Well, after seeing the first two episodes of the second season yesterday, they're still struggling, and the miscommunications and inadvertent innuendos continue flying out faster than the jokes on a typical episode of "Three's Company". Of course, that has to include the mandatory onsen/beach episode.
Still early days for Anime Season Fall 2019 so I didn't expect a full version of theme songs to come out, but I think I may have come across the first earworm of the season for me with the opening theme to "Bokuben", "Can now, Can now". The opening theme from the first season was performed by Study, consisting of the three main female seiyuu, Haruka Shiraishi（白石晴香）, Miyu Tomita（富田美憂）and Sayumi Suzushiro（鈴代紗弓）, but this time around, it's an expanded Study behind the opener with the additions of Lynn as uptight teacher Mafuyu Kurisu（桐須真冬）and Madoka Asahina（朝日奈丸佳）as the saucy Asumi Kominami（小美浪あすみ）.
Those opening credits have gotten a bit fancier and "Can now, Can now" is perhaps even more lighthearted than "Seishun Zeminaru" (Salad Day Seminar). In fact, I could compare it to a typical PreCure opening song. Kentaro Sonoda（園田健太郎）took care of words and music for the song.
Happy Monday! My anime buddy came back last week after nearly a month in East Asia so we've had to play quite a bit of catch-up when it has come to this season's batch of anime. A number of these are fairly short in duration and a couple of them (one being the sequel to "One Punch Man") haven't been quite up to snuff so we've left them alone for now and there's a possibility that my friend may even jettison them from the lineup.
One that is encapsulated within the regular 30-minute format is "Boku-tachi wa Benkyou ga Dekinai"（ぼくたちは勉強ができない）which has the English title of "We Never Learn" and the Japanese abbreviation of "Bokuben"（ぼく勉）. I've made the observation that this is a harem show of sorts and a slice-of-life high school comedy surrounding a tutor, Nariyuki Yuiga（唯我 成幸）, who has to help out three students: the ojosan-like Fumino Furuhashi（古橋文乃）who's a literature expert but can't do math to save her life, the stoic and logical Rizu Ogata（緒方理珠）who is a math whiz but has difficulty grasping literature, and supremely ebullient Uruka Takemoto（武元うるか）with a natural athleticism but is at a loss when it comes to academics. The site TV Tropes got it spot on when they compared the three to Kirk, Spock and McCoy respectively.
The lessons are the secondary point, though, as the show gradually displays a comedy of errors and misunderstandings when Fumino, Rizu and Uruka begin to show slightly more than platonic feelings for their tutor...and they are not the only ones.
The opening credits for "Boku-tachi wa Benkyou ga Dekinai" are adorned by Study's rendition of "Seishun Zeminaru" (Salad Day Seminar), and Study just happens to consist of the three seiyuu behind Furuhashi, Ogata and Takemoto, Haruka Shiraishi（白石晴香）, Miyu Tomita（富田美憂）and Sayumi Suzushiro（鈴代紗弓）respectively. Tomita is already gaining a fair number of songs on "Kayo Kyoku Plus", and as a seiyuu, she's becoming quite recognizable to me due to her calm and button-down roles for the most part. "Seishun Zeminaru" isn't all that different from the usual super-genki anime opening tune but considering a fairly busy week last week with the accompanying stress, I was quite welcoming in hearing this one again after almost a month. Saori Kodama（こだまさおり）and Takahiro Yamada（山田高弘）took care of words and music.
I have been able to find a full version of the ending theme. Once again the Study trio are back to perform "Never Give It Up!!" which has a mild synthpop feeling created by songwriters Mami Kawada（川田まみ）and Maiko Iuchi（井内舞子）. I actually like "Never Give It Up!!" slightly more because of that intro by Study and the credits themselves at the beginning which seem to have the rapidly singing mouths on the blackboard representing the three main characters themselves. I think the moe factor has been raised a bit more here.
At this point, I think viewers have already come up with their choices about who Taiga should ultimately be paired with, but most likely by the end of this show, he'll end up remaining friends with the three. However, in the interests of not straddling the fence, I wouldn't mind if the lad gladly accepted the affections of his junior high school buddy, Uruka. For one thing, she has that Lucille Ball appeal with me.
