GANASIA -- Electrical Communication/BrandNew Way

 

Slightly annoying but earlier today just after lunch, we had a building-wide power outage. Happily, it was just for an hour but of course I'd been left wondering whether we would eventually have to throw out perishables from the fridge. Never got that bad thankfully.

I had heard of the character Rockman 8（ロックマン8）or as he's known outside of Japan, Mega Man 8, but didn't know that he was the star of a 1996 Capcom game, "Rockman 8 Metal Heroes"（ロックマン8 メタルヒーローズ）. That opening credits sequence above sure makes the game look like a full-blown anime.

The opening theme for "Rockman 8 Metal Heroes" is a real rouser to get the kids (and adults) up and at 'em for the adventures to come. "Electrical Communication" is performed breathlessly by the duo GANASIA as their December 1996 debut single, and I did mention them a little less than a month ago for their February 1997 second and final single "Grow up Potential ~ Yume ni Mukatte"（夢に向かって）. There is something so very 90s Japanese pop/rock about "Electrical Communication" and yet when I see the cover with the ladies on it, I can't help but be reminded of the duo Tomo-chan and her buddy Misuzu from the Winter 2023 anime "Tomo-chan wa Onna no Ko!"（トモちゃんは女の子！...Tomo-chan is a Girl!）.

GANASIA also sang the ending theme for the game, "BrandNew Way". Both songs were written and composed by one-half of the duo Takumi Ozawa（尾澤拓実）and I gather that she was the one who decided that the first two words were to be merged as they are. The same urgent beat is there but this time, there is a bit more of a technopop feeling along with a rap.

GANASIA -- Grow up Potential ~ Yume ni Mukatte（夢に向かって）

 

When it comes to car racing, if I'm lucky, I am able to catch the Indianapolis 500 or the odd Formula One bout.

I know that Japan has its fair share of Formula One fans and there is even one weathercaster on Japan's "Weathernews Live" who's such an F1 maniac that viewers wonder if she chose the right career and should be calling F1 races instead. For me, I'm such a casual viewer that I had to look up what the differences were between Formula One and IndyCar.

To no one's surprise, there has been at least one manga and anime adaptation on car racing in the past 30 years. "Bakusō Kyōdai Let's & Go!!"（爆走兄弟レッツ&ゴー!!...The Racing Brothers Let's & Go!!）had its manga run between 1994 and 1999 with three seasons of an anime going from 1996 to 1998 with the focus on a couple of brothers really hard into a form of miniature car racing known as Mini 4WD.

One of the ending themes for the second season of the show was the rousing and driving "Grow up Potential ~ Yume ni Mukatte" (Face Your Dreams) performed by short-lived duo GANASIA (1996-1998). This was their 2nd and final single from February 1997 as written and composed by one of the pair, Takumi Ozawa（尾澤拓実）, with the other member being Kana Takahashi（高橋佳奈）. There had been one other person, Mimi Murakami（村上ミミ）, as a part of the band although whether GANASIA had once been a trio or Murakami had been replaced by either Ozawa or Takahashi isn't known. I have to say that the CD cover for "Grow up Potential" is one of the most 90s J-Pop photos that I have ever seen.