Eri Kitamura -- Birth of Love

Didn't particularly intend to write a third article tonight but about 15 minutes ago, I found out that Artzie Music had put up the latest of his music video creations and sometimes he puts in a remix of a Japanese tune.

I hit paydirt tonight with this one titled "Future Girlfriend - Ongaku & Mikazuki Bigwave -_- Dreaming Yume" (well, his name is Artzie after all) and noticing how revved up it was for the purposes of the video, I decided to track down who was behind the original song and what the title was.

I had to do a fair bit of cross-referencing between YouTube and Google but I did find out it was performed by seiyuu-singer Eri Kitamura（喜多村英梨）early in her career and the title is "Birth of Love". It is actually a character song for her role of Seira（星羅）on the 2003-2004 anime "Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch Pure"（マーメイドメロディ ぴちぴちピッチ ピュア）. In fact, Seira was just her second gig in the anime industry, and now 14 years later, she's obviously quite the veteran having played everyone from a PreCure warrior to one of the witches on the internationally famous "Puella Magi Madoka Magica"（魔法少女まどか☆マギカ）. Certainly I've come to know Kitamura a lot better since my paltry description of her on the only other song I've written connected to her, "Holy Night".

"Birth of Love" is quite the whimsical tune with a hopeful and breathy delivery by Kitamura. I do like the music by Masaki Tsurugi（鶴来正基）with Yukiko Mitsui（三井ゆきこ）providing the lyrics. It's got that airy feeling to it but I can pick up on that guitar and keyboard giving the song a contemporary rhythm still anchoring it down to Earth.

Amazing what I can encounter near the end of a broadcast day.

Rie Kugimiya & Eri Kitamura -- Holy Night （ホーリーナイト）

More Christmas or Moé Christmas? That is the question.

Well, December has arrived which means the Yuletide is just around the corner. And that also means it's time to look for those Japanese Xmas songs. Mind you, it looks like I scoured the shelves for them during my first year of "Kayo Kyoku Plus", so it's been that much more difficult since then whenever the time comes.

However, I did the equivalent version of a Hail Mary pass on YouTube and entered 「日本クリスマス曲」into its search engine in the hopes that I might find something new. Of course, the two perennial chestnuts of "Christmas Eve" and "Christmas Carol no Koro ni wa"（クリスマス・キャロルの頃には）popped up, but then I came across the above video of a song called "Holy Night" which was sung by a couple of seiyuu on an anime that I have yet to watch called "ToraDora!"（とらドラ!）. From what I've read about it on YouTube and Television Tropes & Idioms, it was quite the well-regarded rom-com.

In any case, I became quite enchanted by "Holy Night", and since even at my advanced age, there's still a little part of me that gets gooshy about Christmas (I still watch "A Charlie Brown Christmas" every year), I've ended up listening to it about half a dozen times in the past 24 hours. It hits all the right notes, no pun intended, and has the cute-as-all-get-out charm of a Santa hat-wearing Snoopy.

The song was performed by Rie Kugimiya（釘宮理恵）and Eri Kitamura（喜多村英梨）for the Xmas episode of "ToraDora!" which had its run between 2008 and 2009. I have heard Kitamura's name bandied about and probably I have seen her in guest roles on some of the anime that I've seen in the past few years, but Kugimiya is a more familiar presence. I've been able to see her in shows such as "Mangaka-san to Assistant-san to"（マンガ家さんとアシスタントさんと...The Manga Artist and The Assistant）and "Witchcraft Works"（ウィッチクラフトワークス）. She seems to have cultivated quite the reputation as the go-to thespian for tsundere roles (the prime example her role in "ToraDora!" as the explosive Taiga), but I did get to see her in a hilarious non-tsundere guest appearance in "Shirokuma Cafe"（しろくまカフェ）as the poor high school girl who just had to fall in love with the florist with the major Panda fetish, RinRin.

"Holy Night" was written by Mari Okada（岡田麿里）and composed by Yukari Hashimoto（橋本由香利）, and is available on "ToraDora! Character Song Album" which came out in 2009.

A wreath in Roppongi