Miku Ito -- Ao Hyaku Shoku（青100色）

 

Yes, I already have one article up today, but I still wanted to point out that we're in November now. Hard to believe that we're in the penultimate month. At least for the next couple of weeks, we'll be in that holding pattern between Halloween and all of the Xmas festivities, although department stores have already signified that the Holiday shopping season is once more upon us. Right by Lake Ontario, Toronto is getting its Christmas market up and ready by bringing in the traditional tall pine.

Speaking of the Yuletide, I found this one scene from the second season of "Komi-san wa, Komyu-sho desu."（古見さんは、コミュ症です。...Komi Can't Communicate） which has the gang getting together at Komi's house for a simultaneous celebration of Xmas and Komi's birthday. Yep, I've been catching up on that second season for the past several weeks. Since I've got about six past anime to go through during the week, "Komi-san" has been in the Monday slot. It's been fun as usual; despite all of the characters having their quirks, including psychotic Ren, just about everybody in that high school are decent sorts (even Ren can be nice...occasionally and just to Komi).

The opening credit sequence for the second season is as heartwarming as ever. One commenter has sagely posited that whereas the opening for Season 1 seemed to have been kindhearted if average guy Tadano's view of things with the accompaniment of Cider Girl's "Cinderella"（シンデレラ）, the sequence for Season 2 is through Komi's eyes as she slowly but assuredly gains those one hundred friends as promised at the beginning of the series.

Singer-seiyuu Miku Ito（伊藤美来）is behind the homier and poppier second season opening theme "Ao Hyaku Shoku" (Blue 100 Colours) whose melody and arrangement looks to match Komi's personality deep inside although she's still struggling at this point to make her point clear. Singer-songwriter Makoto Kawamoto（川本真琴）was responsible for the words and music with Maruko Hiyoshi（日吉円子）also helping out on the lyrics. It was a surprise seeing Kawamoto's name in there since I had always envisioned her as that rapid-fire vocalist behind the guitar all the way back in the 1990s with her big hit "1/2", but then I realized after the fact that Ito does race through a couple of the verses just like her songwriter did.

"Ao Hyaku Shoku" is Ito's 10th single from April 2022 which hit No. 12 on Oricon. Also, this is her first entry on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" but I have seen her name bandied about in various anime, a few of which I have seen over the years. One is the notorious "Mangaka-san to Ashisutanto-san to"（マンガ家さんとアシスタントさんと...The Manga Artist and His Assistants） from 2014 where she played impish younger sister Sahono Ashisu.

Getting back to the more wholesome "Komi-san", I guess that I can put in that Komi-san category in Labels, so you can also take a look at the first season ending theme "Hikare Inochi"（ヒカルイノチ）by Kitri.

Kitri -- Hikare Inochi（ヒカルイノチ）

 

Well, if I'm not mistaken, we're two-thirds of the way through "Komi-san wa, Komyu-sho desu."（古見さんは、コミュ症です。...Komi Can't Communicate） and it seems as if fans can't get enough of the title character and her evolving relationships with her friends throughout the first season (and indeed, I am also hoping that there will be a second season). 

About a month ago, I posted an article on the opening theme "Cinderella"（シンデレラ）by Cider Girl（サイダーガール）. In fulfilling an oft-repeated pattern in anime opening and ending themes, "Cinderella" is a perky and upbeat opener while the theme that started from the end of Episode 2 is more relaxing and mellow.

This would be "Hikare Inochi" which I believe means "Shine Life" and it's performed by the sister duo of Kitri from Kyoto. With lyrics by both sisters Mona and Hina while the former took care of the melody, it's a pleasant song with a bit of bossa nova talking about overcoming any hurdles and entering a happier level of life which is what "Komi-san" is all about.

The full song, which came out as Kitri's most recent single a little over a week ago, has a bit more dynamism due to some parts that didn't show up in the truncated version for the closing credits. 

According to their J-Wiki article, Mona and Hina began studying classical piano at a young age and when the two were in their teens, their piano teacher suggested that they could perform Piano Four Hands in which the sisters could play on the same piano at the same time. In 2015, they made their debut as Kitrif（キトリイフ）which was derived from the two Japanese words for "tree" and "island" and the word "leaf". A digital download album, "opus 0", under an indies label was released in November 2017 (in the same year, the duo dropped the "f" from their unit name to become Kitri), followed by a major debut in 2020. They've also released several singles. For the record, Mona handles the vocals and the bass part of the piano while Hina takes care of the treble part and the chorus. 

Cider Girl -- Cinderella（シンデレラ）

 

I've heard about the manga for some months and then came the announcement for its adaptation into anime which seemed to take forever and a day to complete. However, finally, it made its debut earlier this month. From what I've read, "Komi-san wa, Komyu-sho desu."（古見さんは、コミュ症です。...Komi Can't Communicate） has already garnered a lot of fans from the source material alone so anticipation was very high and my curiosity was also piqued.

Even though it looks like the powers-that-be are working even harder to insure that whole episodes don't show up on YouTube, various funny excerpts are popping up like mushrooms and it looks like "Komi-san" is becoming an early favourite this season. I've enjoyed the punny names, the quicksilver fluid animation sequences from time to time, the oddball characters and the fact that the seiyuu for the nearly mute Komi-san herself, Aoi Koga（古賀葵）, voices a far more verbose anime high school girl. If I recall, even Kaguya-sama had her own issues with cellphones in one episode.

The opening theme for "Komi-san" is the pop-perky "Cinderella" by the rock band Cider Girl（サイダーガール）. This is the first time that I've heard of this group which currently consists of guitarist/vocalist Yurin, guitarist Tomo（知）, and bassist Fujimura（フジムラ）. Cider Girl got their start in 2014 and during their early indies period, they released four mini-albums before going major in 2017. Since then, Cider Girl has released five CD singles and four digital singles along with three albums (No. 4 will be coming out in December). "Cinderella" is their fourth digital single written and composed by Yurin which was released just a little over two weeks ago.

Ah, I've also written up the article on the ending theme.