ORESAMA -- Trip Trip Trip/TECHNOBOYS PULCRAFT GREEN-FUND feat. Bonjour Suzuki -- Round&Round&Round

It was another loaded anime-and-meal routine Sunday with my anime buddy. However, we did actually meet up with another couple of friends who were part of my movie circle for dinner at a relatively new Taiwanese restaurant called Zen-Q, just north of the Toronto border. On the way back home, my anime buddy agreed that we've been on a roll for the past several months from last year with there being at least a goodly sum of enjoyable shows from each season, this one included.

One of the shows that we've been watching is "Mahoujin Guru Guru"（魔法陣グルグル...Magical Circle Guru Guru） which has had previous iterations on TV since 1994. Although the above video doesn't have a great example of the humour, the show is pretty close to scatterbrain comedy with tsukkomi coming out of the wazoo pretty much minute-by-minute.

Perhaps it's a bit weird to proclaim, but the animation and the humour remind me of the drollery I remember from episodes of "Mr. Peabody & Sherman" that I had caught on Sunday mornings when I was a kid. Of course, the 2017 edition of "Mahoujin Guru Guru" (which is the first time that I've seen any of the franchise) is a bit naughtier at times.

Nothing better than an anime with earworms in both the opening and ending themes. And "Mahoujin Guru Guru" was the first program past the post this season whose themes grabbed my ears.

No wonder! The show has got ORESAMA and TECHNOBOYS PULCRAFT GREEN-FUND who've come up with some catchy themes and songs in general over the past few years. ORESAMA has been the newer-bie for me since I first heard about them through the anime "Alice to Zouroku"（アリスと蔵六）from earlier this year, which incidentally my buddy abandoned a little over halfway for losing focus. The duo of Pon（ぽん）and Hideya Kojima（小島英也）has come up with another uptempo and happy tune in "Trip Trip Trip", their 4th single released on July 26th, to set the mood of adventure and fun for each episode.

Not sure how long the above video will stay up but it does have the opening credits with the Mahoujin dance accompanying "Trip Trip Trip". My buddy says he's heard that there are real-life folks trying to do the dance on YouTube. 

This is where my friend and I disagree but if I had to choose between "Trip Trip Trip" and the ending theme "Round&Round&Round", I would go with the latter (although I do like both). I simply like the no-less-cool but slightly more dramatic arrangement of this song better by TECHNOBOYS PULCRAFT GREEN-FUND, who are also responsible for the music in "Mahoujin Guru Guru" in general. Plus, the music video shows the mysterious singer-songwriter Bonjour Suzuki（ボンジュール鈴木）, and even reveals her (kinda, sorta) singing the words as well. Another check on the 2017 Bucket List!

Bonjour Suzuki -- Ano Mori de Matteru （あの森で待ってる）

What a difference a week makes. Last weekend, it looked like we were finally dropping the shackles on winter but then yesterday, it felt like the cold season decided to do a reversal. We got a ton of rain which didn't help either but at least we weren't socked by snow. I can only hope that the fact that it is now May will start pushing winter back into his trunk. Admittedly this is my hometown of Toronto so that hope may be fairly forlorn.

Some time ago on that article for the opening theme for the anime "Kumamiko"（くまみこ）, I devoted a small paragraph on the lyricist and composer Bonjour Suzuki（ボンジュール鈴木）because of my introduction to her via her performance on the opening theme for another anime back in 2015. That show was "Yurikuma Arashi"（ユリ熊嵐）which was directed by the slightly eccentric Kunihiko Ikuhara（幾原邦彦）.

I had no idea that Ikuhara had directed several episodes for the original anime version of "Sailor Moon" but did see one of his other projects that garnered a lot of attention, the major mindscrew of "Mawaru Penguindrum"（輪るピングドラム）. I don't think "Yurikuma" was as weirded out as that one but I'd still say that it did enter the realm of yuri and psychological suspense. Hints of "Suspiria" and other school-based horror movies came to mind while watching this with large dollops of yuri as thick as the honey that flowed in the opening credits. The show was notable to me for all of the huge loading of famous female seiyuu in a supporting category ranging from Ami Koshimizu（小清水亜美）to Kikuko Inoue（井上喜久子）.

Speaking of which....when I first saw those credits, I just turned to my anime buddy and said "Aw, man...am I gonna have to make a citizen's arrest of both of us?!" What heightened the effect was Bonjour Suzuki actually performing the theme song "Ano Mori de Matteru" (I'll Wait For You In Those Woods). If one ever wondered what Brigitte Bardot might sound like singing an anison, well, you may have your answer right here. It's quite the sex kitten of a song with that whispery delivery of hers up along a melody that sounds holy and sultry at the same time.

Maki Hanatani -- Datte, Gyutte Shite (だって、ギュってして。)

Well, I finally got my copy of the early 2016 anison earworm "Kumamiko Dancing" from the anime "Kumamiko: Girl Meets Bear" (くまみこ). I wrote about the song almost a year ago, apparently while the show was still playing.

At the time, I mentioned that although the first episode looked very promising, the bandwagon seemed to lose a few tires as the episodes rolled along. Well, that final episode pretty much sent that 18-wheeler over a cliff (to paraphrase a description of one of the local teams here during a very bad season). In fact, from my anime buddy and some of the comments I've read online, the reaction over the fact that the main character of Machi ends up mentally broken and controlled by her best bruin friend Natsu and the rest of the village while the happy music is playing in the background left everyone, including the original author of the manga, very cold. It actually kinda reminded me of a 1960s Roman Polanski psycho-horror.

After the finale aired in front of me, I simply wondered aloud "Wait a minute...all this time she was going through this sturm und drang about having a life in the city while fighting demons internal and external, and she ended up going goo-goo and happily staying in her remote village prison?!"

Years ago, some fellow ingeniously crafted a number of scenes from Stanley Kubrick's horror "The Shining" and turned it into a parody trailer for a happy-go-lucky heartwarming flick "Shining". I will never hear Peter Gabriel's "Solsbury Hill" again without getting an urge to giggle.

I think there might be some enterprising fellow out there who could take scenes from the supposedly serene slice-of-life anime "Kumamiko" and create a psycho-horror trailer out of that.

Although not quite the earworm that "Kumamiko Dancing" is, I remember the opening theme "Datte, Gyutte Shite" (Well, Because...Hug Me) sung by Maki Hanatani（花谷麻妃）fairly fondly. It's quite the twinkly little number with the credits showing Natsu and Machi having a fine old time in places like Paris. Frankly, I would have enjoyed some of that stuff in the actual show.

The other thing that caught my attention with "Datte, Gyutte Shite" was the lyricist and composer Bonjour Suzuki (ボンジュール鈴木). She's already been mentioned in the blog through her creation of another anison for the goofy and less sinister show "Sekko Boys"（石膏ボーイズ）, the Bay City Rollers-like "Hoshizora Rendezvous"（星空ランデブー）.

But I also remember her from a couple of years earlier when she created and sang the opening theme for yet another bear-themed anime "Yurikuma Arashi" (ユリ熊嵐...LOVE BULLET YURIKUMA ARASHI) that my friend and I saw back in 2015. That was also a rather bizarre show with some "Suspiria" undertones. Her "Ano Mori de Matteru" (あの森で待ってる...I'll Be Waiting In Those Woods)...I'll have to talk about it soon...was haunting and sexy at the same time thanks to her whispery delivery with that slight French accent. According to her biography at her website, she spent some time in France at university at least.

With "Datte, Gyutte Shite", Hanatani is more straight-on cute although the French vocabulary is peppered in there. It's almost as if she is channeling a much more well-adjusted Machi having the time of her life. Well, I can only hope she has fared better in the manga.

Tomokazu Sugita, Shinnosuke Tachibana, Jun Fukuyama and Daisuke Ono -- Hoshizora Rendezvous （星空ランデブー）

For my friend and I, it's been an unsettled picture in terms of the newest anime season. We caught some of the pilot episodes of the new shows a few weeks ago but it looks like things may be a bit leaner than usual. However, the two of us have caught onto one of the more bizarre shows in recent memory and I say this as someone who has seen and enjoyed anime that involved animals in a "Cheers"-like setting and heroines who use high technology and the sound of music to battle evildoers.

Yup, I'm talking about "Sekko Boys"（石膏ボーイズ...Plaster Boys）, an 8-minute comedy series about an aidoru group composed of 4 plaster busts: St. Giorgio, Medici, Mars and Hermes, and the manager who has to take care of the....guys. And they are all voiced by some of the star male seiyuus who pull out the full ham.

We've got Tomokazu Sugita and Daisuke Ono（杉田智和・小野大輔）from "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya", Shinnosuke Tachibana（立花慎之介）from "Gundam Build Fighters" and Jun Fukuyama（福山潤）from "Shirokuma Cafe" and "Chuunibyo demo Koi ga Shitai" as the titular Sekko Boys also singing the ending theme called "Hoshizora Rendezvous" (Starry Night Rendezvous). It sounds a bit like your run-of-the-mill Johnny's Jimusho aidoru tune (the title sounds like an 80s female aidoru song) but that intro had me thinking of the Bay City Rollers' "Saturday Night" way back in the 1970s. The song was written by Bonjour Suzuki（ボンジュール鈴木）and composed by Masuda Moveman（満寿田ムーブマン）.

Not sure how "Sekko Boys" is gonna do this season but I gotta give my respects at the way-out-of-left-field idea.