Chiaki Takahashi -- Tonari ni...（隣に…）

I hear this one from time to time during my friend's anison hour, and later found out that it was part of the "Idolm@ster" collection. Specifically, this is seiyuu/singer Chiaki Takahashi（たかはし智秋）with her 2009 "Tonari ni..." (Next To You...) as her character Azusa Miura（三浦あずさ）.

A mighty epic ballad, I had first imagined that this was some showstopper song from an elaborate musical. I mean, the first time I listened to "Tonari ni...", the inspirational music had me thinking "YES!! I WILL LOSE 20 KG BY THE END OF THIS YEAR!!". But instead of Broadway, this was a song by a character from a popular game of over a decade ago.

I never lost those 20 kilos, by the way (cough, cough). "Tonari ni..." was written by Yuriko Kaita（貝田由里子）and composed by NBGI, and the song can be found in the album "THE IDOLM@STER MASTER ARTIST 07 ~ Miura Azusa".

Apparently, there was even a jazz version by Takahashi on "THE IDOLM@STER Vol.1 Vocal CD「PERFECT IDOL 01」" although I'm not sure when that disc came out.

Asami Imai, Hiromi Hirata & Chiaki Takahashi -- 9:02 p.m.

(actually for this version, it's Makoto, Azusa, Takane)

As a resident in Japan, periodically I often got visitors from the homeland including my anime buddy and a couple of his compadres. Several years ago on one of their visits, the bunch of us ended up in Ikebukuro in Tokyo, one of the enclaves for all things anime and manga in the metropolis. I kept hearing them talk about something called "The Idolm@ster", which being a total babe in the woods when it comes to the genre, I had no idea about. We went into one of the huge game centers near the Sunshine 60 Building and went to one of the higher floors and saw a whole bunch of games concerning this Idolm@ster, and it turned out to be this game about grooming computer-generated pop aidoru into superstars. And as the outsider, I just went "Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhkay..."

Cue ahead many years later and I'm at my anime buddy's house watching the various anime and listening to my host's latest round of anison. "The Idolm@aster" definitely had its 15 minutes of fame and that includes the large collection of songs as sung by the digital aidoru themselves. I've listened to a number of them over the past few years at my friend's house, and I have to admit that some of them were pretty fine.

Case in point: seiyuu Asami Imai, Hiromi Hirata and Chiaki Takahashi（今井麻美・平田宏美・たかはし智秋）in their roles as Chihaya Kisaragi, Makoto Kikuchi and Azusa Miura（如月千早・菊地真・三浦あずさ）respectively singing "9:02 p.m." It sounds like a combination of aidoru and Takarazuka Revue performers hitting the stage in Las Vegas and giving a showstopping finale. Written by yura and composed by NBGI, I was always a bit of a sucker for a soulful band arrangement although the instrumental bridge threatened to fall off the rails at one point. Still, there was something so glitzy and starry-eyed about this song that I was almost expecting an emcee to pop out at the end of the song to thank everyone for coming to The Sands and to get home safe.

"And for our last number tonight, here is the incomparable Azusa Miura!"

"9:02 p.m." is a track on the 2-CD album "THE IDOLM@STER 765PRO ALLSTARS+ GRE@TEST BEST! -COOL&BITTER!-" (OK, don't forget to breathe here) which was released in 2013, but apparently it originally came out as one of the songs featured in the arcade game from 2005....which could mean that my friends may have been playing it when we all went to the game center.