Kenji Kondo -- Shirokuma Cafe Music Playlist Follow-Up （しろくまカフェミュージックプレイリスト）

Hump Day....actually, it was supposed to have been something else today. Unfortunately, my old friend informed me that he wouldn't be able to meet up due to sudden work obligations. And to compound things, it's rather too late to inform my powers-that-be that I'm available for work due to time sensitivity. However, I was able to make some lemonade out of lemons since I decided to cook for dinner on my own tonight. I'll be making my own Pepperoncino Pasta for the first time since my Japan days so I picked up the ingredients an hour ago.

Now, one of my wishes when I get to Tokyo next time is to visit the actual Shirokuma Café in Takadanobaba. It's been open for a few years now and looking at YouTube, it looks like it's gotten its fair share of overseas customers since the anime has garnered a lot of non-Japanese fans, including yours truly. Let us hope that it continues to do so before I get there, so I'm appealing to anyone working at the café who may read this article: make a welcome for J-Canuck!

Well, I've decided to do a follow-up of sorts to the lovely anime soundtrack of "Shirokuma Cafe" that I first wrote about a little over a year ago. The one trigger for the follow-up was actually a statement at the end of the first article about my wish to find some hint of the glorious and hilarious music surrounding Penguin's supposedly successful attempts to court Penko-san.

I did find a video with the actual track which features "Romance Kumikyoku"（ロマンス組曲...The Romance Suite） in the video above. The track truly is a sweet suite as composer Kenji Kondo（近藤研二）goes melodically through the highs and lows of love...the full track is indeed marvelous. The old-style jazz violin swoops and soars like a virtuoso Stephane Grappelli around the love struck yet ineffectual Penguin. In a way, it reflects the character's creation of a mountain out of a molehill in terms of a simple confession of love to Penko-san (buyer's remorse though much later); mind you, having been in a similar situation when I was a lad, I don't think I have any right to make fun of the bird.

Going through the comments for Hiroshi Kamiya's（神谷浩史）portrayal of Penguin, I still come across a lot of amazement about how the seiyuu for a kickass character in "Code Geass" could master what comes across as the Barney Fife (Google or YouTube him) of "Shirokuma Cafe".

I'm kinda surprised that I hadn't included this track in the original article but I guess since I had already included a couple of wistful tracks there, it was just as well. Anyways, this is "Onaji Hoshi wo Miteita"（同じ星を見ていた...We Were Watching The Same Star）which popped up in a number of the more introspective scenes of the show.

The other one is another funny tongue-in-cheek musical jab. Just like Kondo decided to take a poke at Arashi（嵐）and other male aidoru groups through "Yama Arashi Tonight!"（ヤマアラシ☆トゥナイト!）, he also took on the tokusatsu theme genre with "Nankyoku Sentai Penguingers"（南極戦隊ペンギンジャー...South Pole Squad Penguin Rangers）. There was a running gag during the later episodes of the show in which some of the minor penguin characters decided that they had to make a name for themselves in show business so why not become the first Antarctica-based superheroes? Cue the heroic synth-horns!

Allow me once more to end things with another post-credits routine by the main characters.

Kenji Kondo -- Shirokuma Cafe Music Playlist (しろくまカフェミュージックプレイリスト)

For one of my articles on the many theme songs in the anime "Shirokuma Cafe"（しろくまカフェ...Polar Bear Cafe）, I started to write half-jokingly that the way things were going, I would end up making the show its own category on the blog. Well, it's no joke anymore. I've actually upgraded one of my favourite shows to Labels status. Considering the three opening themes and the myriad of ending themes during its year (2012-2013), I figured it was going to happen. And the last straw was when I purchased the actual soundtrack for the show by Fukuoka-born composer Kenji Kondo（近藤研二）.

Compared to the tons of regular pop CDs I've bought over the years, soundtracks have been more in the minority and anime soundtracks are even fewer on my shelves. So "Shirokuma Cafe Music Playlist" is pretty special to me. I thought the background music accompanying the overall slice-of-life mellowness was just perfect with its mix of whimsical pop and light jazz...perhaps something along the lines of that clarinet jazz which got interspersed between scenes of "Cheers", the classic US sitcom that I associate "Shirokuma Cafe" most with.

The 53-track disc starts with the TV cuts of the first two opening themes "Boku ni Invitation"（ボクにインビテーション）by JP and "Rough & Laugh" by Clammbon. Then comes the overall instrumental theme for the show, appropriately named "Shirokuma Cafe Eigyochuu"（しろくまカフェ営業中...Shirokuma Cafe Open For Business）. It's not an epic welcome on the order of "Be Our Guest" on "Beauty & The Beast" but a cute little old-style jazz number illustrating the usual day in the life of the place where every animal and human know your name. Shirokuma is your congenial host with Sasako kindly guiding you to your table and taking your order. Meanwhile, Panda, Penguin, Llama and the rest of the gang banter on while trying not to fall into Shirokuma's pun trap.

Of course, if you are looking for the harder stuff, then a trip to The Grizzly is in order. "Grizzly's Bar" has so much of a Southern Comfort sort of feeling that the track ought to be served in a tumbler on the rocks. I can even imagine gruff Grizzly smoothly narrating the lines of a Dodge Ram commercial while this song is playing.

But as fellow fans of "Shirokuma Café" already know, the music wasn't always in the comical jazz category. There were also some wistful pieces such as "Oyasumi, Arigato"（おやすみ、ありがとう...Good Night, Thank You）which was used during some of the quieter and more introspective scenes including the above montage of Shirokuma and Grizzly getting to know each other as cubs. It was one of my favourite numbers.

"Panda wa Yawaraka ni Sasa wo Hami"（パンダはやわらかに笹を食み...Panda Chews The Bamboo Softly）was the very sad song played on THAT episode. The fans know....Episode 44 when Panda went into a major downward spiral on the news that his friend and zoomate, Jougin Panda（常勤パンダ...Full-Time Panda）, was suddenly transferred to Singapore. This was truly the one dramatic episode on the series that had folks grabbing for the Kleenex or a nearby bamboo leaf. If there had been a promotion for this episode on prime time American TV, it would have had a basso profundo announcer's voice going "And on a very special episode of Shirokuma Cafe....". I have gone through the show twice now but have only seen Episode 44 once....just not ready to see it again....excuse me, I've got something in my eye...

I tried to search for any information about the making of 44 but the only tidbit that I could find was that the episode was something made solely for the anime and was never in the original manga. I got the information from the "TV Tropes" entry for "Shirokuma Cafe" under the heading of "Pragmatic Adaptation".

I read one YouTube commenter stating that he couldn't find the slightly jazzier version of "Shirokuma Cafe Eigyochuu". Well, here it is..."Shirokuma Cafe Junbichuu"（しろくまカフェ準備中）. As with any other real-life cafe sign, I would have translated it as Shirokuma Cafe Getting Ready but considering that the piece was always used during the post-credits "Next Episode" sequence, I would probably say that Shirokuma Cafe Stay Tuned is the more appropriate way to title it. In any case, I always looked forward to this part of the show since the main characters enjoyed throwing around the shtick while on location somewhere in Japan. I rather wonder whether the anime producers and directors had watched early American variety shows for research.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find any video containing the track of Penguin falling in love which has these soaring jazzy violins at the climax but perhaps someday. In any case, there are a couple of vocal tracks from the album that I will have to cover at a future date. But for those folks who continue to enjoy "Shirokuma Cafe" on sites like Crunchyroll or on their own DVDs, I can recommend "Shirokuma Cafe Music Playlist".

July 19th 2017: I've got a follow-up here.