Creepy Nuts -- Bling-Bang-Bang-Born

 

To be honest, I hadn't heard of this anime adaptation of the manga titled "Mashle"（マッシュル）until yesterday. The original manga had its run in "Shonen Jump" between 2020 and 2023 and the first season of the anime lasted from April to July 2023. So far, I've been having a giggle or two at this mix of "One Punch Man" and the "Harry Potter" franchise with the main character of cream puff-loving Mash Burnedead, a Muggle on a magical Earth, who intends to be the best of the best at Easton Magic Academy regardless of his low non-magical status and the abuse hurled at him and his allies by using his Superman-level brawn and Vulcan-stoic face.

Now, how I found out about "Mashle" was actually through my daily scrolling of "Know Your Meme" which featured an article about the opening theme for the second season which began back in January. Apparently, it's become quite the cat's meow all over the Internet. "Bling-Bang-Bang-Born" was recorded by hip-hop duo Creepy Nuts for release as their January 7th 14th digital single. And if that band name sounds familiar to any of you anime fans, maybe you watched "Yofukashi no Uta"（よふかしのうた）a couple of years ago since MC R-Shitei（R-指定）and DJ Matsunaga （DJ 松永）were behind both the snazzy opening and ending themes there.

"Bling-Bang-Bang-Born" certainly is catchy with that delivery of that title and especially with Mash dancing away. J-Wiki has described the melody as a hip-hop anison but Wikipedia has given it the genre tag of Jersey Club which I had never heard of before. It's a particularly aggressive and bouncy form of electronic dance music. Mind you, I think I can pick up on some salsa or rumba in there, too.

The song isn't even three minutes long but does it pack a lot of energy and friendly rapid-fire onomatopoeia to emulate in the bedrooms and karaoke boxes of the world. And yep, people are listening since it went to No. 1 on Billboard Japan and Oricon with its residency at the former going on for four to five weeks. 

Mash's twisty moves for those ten seconds in the credits haven't been lost on the Tik Tok crowd either. They've embraced them and I was scrolling down a whole ton of these "Bling-Bang-Bang-Born" dance challenges. Heck, even the stars of another famous anime have been getting into the act.

Creepy Nuts -- Daten（堕天）/Yofukashi no Uta（よふかしのうた）

 

It was a year ago in Summer 2021 that the long-anticipated second season of "Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid Dragon"（小林さんちのメイドラゴン...Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid） finally hit our TV screens to the joy of all fans. And personally, just like with the first season all the way back in 2017, I fell in love with the opening theme for Season 2, "Ai no Supreme"（愛のシュプリーム！）, right then and there even before catching the first episode.

Well, the same thing might be happening to me in Summer 2022. I don't know anything about this anime adaptation of the 2019 manga "Yofukashi no Uta" (Call of the Night), but it was created by Kotoyama（コトヤマ）, the same manga artist behind "Dagashi Kashi"（だがしかし）which had its own successful anime adaptation beginning in 2016 including some catchy theme songs. I can see the similarities in the drawing style between Kotoyama's two properties, except for the fact that the femme fatale in "Yofukashi no Uta" isn't out for candy...more for blood, actually...literal blood.

But getting back to the topic at hand, though...as I stated above, I have yet to catch the first episode but man, that opening credit sequence and theme song are simply amazing. Creepy Nuts is the champion hip-hop duo consisting of MC R-Shitei（R-指定）, aka Kyohei Nogami（野上恭平）, and DJ Matsunaga （DJ 松永）, aka Kunihiko Matsunaga（松永邦彦）, and they are behind the words and music for "Daten" (Fallen Angel) which also serves as their 12.5th digital download single released about a week ago (the CD version will be released in September). It's a flying paint-the-town-blood-red song which incorporates the groovy and jazzy into something that celebrates the night life. Tripping the light fantastic is another phrase that I could use here. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!😎

Unfortunately, I can't be 100% sure but for me, "Yofukashi no Uta" might be the first anime in a long while in which the same artist responsible for both the opening and ending themes have come up with hits at both ends. The ending theme is titled "Yofukashi no Uta" and it's a fun and percussive rap banger that was first released as a single all the way back in December 2018. In fact, mangaka Kotoyama was inspired enough by the song that he named the manga after it!

Creepy Nuts also released their first major mini-album with the same title in August 2019, and it hit No. 12 on Oricon. At this point, the duo has released one CD single, thirteen digital singles, one cassette tape, two full albums (with a third due out in September), a couple of mini-albums, two EPs and a BEST compilation.