GUMI/Ari Ozawa, Nana Mizuki, Sumire Uesaka, Nao Toyama -- Kokoro Palette (ココロ＊パレット)

It's been several months since one of my favourite anime from the Summer 2016 season, "Kono Bijutsu-bu ni wa Mondai ga aru!" (この美術部には問題がある!), finished its run, and being a fan of the comedic slice-of-life sub-genre, the show managed to fulfill a promise that any televised project wants to achieve...leave the audience wanting more. I've read that the original manga is still plowing ahead but I don't know whether there will be a second season. However, that ending scene in the final episode was good enough for me.

Of course with this blog, I've brought in the anime for the purpose of introducing anison earworms and near-earworms, and what also helped "Konobi" was the really catchy themes of Nana Mizuki's（水樹奈々）"STARTING NOW!" and Sumire Uesaka's（上坂すみれ）"Koi suru Zukei (cubic futurismo)"（恋する図形）. And of course, I already wrote about those two tunes as the series was wrapping up.

However, I neglected to talk about a cute little tune adorably sung by Ari Ozawa's（小澤亜李）main character of Mizuki Usami（宇佐美みずき）during a brief montage scene in the penultimate episode which involved prepping for the annual Culture Day festival at the school. I later found out that the song was titled "Kokoro Palette" (Heart Palette).

Then "Kokoro Palette" came out in its full rousing glory as the ending theme for that final episode with the four main female seiyuu, Ozawa, Mizuki, Uesaka and Nao Toyama（東山奈央）bringing the group effort. I was finally able to get my own copy of "Konobi" and enjoyed my second round; listening to the song once more made me realize that this was a pleasant and worthy song to talk about.

But the final trigger was when I was reading the "TV Tropes" entry on the show and I discovered this kernel of knowledge in the YMMV section. Apparently, the song wasn't a product of the anime and was actually a campaign song for the manga by Imigimuru (いみぎむる) a number of years before. I couldn't be sure of the actual year that "Kokoro Palette" was recorded but considering that the original manga came out in 2012 and the YouTube video above was uploaded in 2013, I think 2013 is a fairly safe bet.

The original recording artist was a Vocaloid by the name of GUMI with "Kokoro Palette" written and composed by musician 40mP. It was a hard choice but ultimately I went with this original version as my favourite due to that hint of Shibuya-kei in there. Plus, that video above with the manga characters being drawn in as the song is playing struck me as a true labour of love. I wouldn't have been surprised if the author got slightly misty-eyed watching it.

And perhaps some of the fans of "Konobi" even before the anime must have gotten a thrill at hearing the song performed in the show, thinking that it should have been used as either the opening or closing theme.

Nana Mizuki -- STARTING NOW!/Sumire Uesaka -- Koi suru Zukei (cubic futurismo) （恋する図形）

Looking above at one particular scene from Summer 2016 anime "Kono Bijutsu-bu ni wa Mondai ga aru"（この美術部には問題がある！...This Art Club Has a Problem!）, I do remember some of those weird vending machine drinks. Yup, I recall drinking banana au lait and peach nectar especially the latter during the scorching hot months in Tokyo (I've got no idea how the athletes are gonna cope in 2020...hope they have a lot of spare change). There was also this one drink called MAX COFFEE which supposedly was only sold east of Tokyo (not quite true...I have seen a few examples in the west end of the megalopolis) that I was greatly addicted to even more than Coke. It was basically coffee-flavoured liquid sugar that I just gulped down with my Chip Star...and so you must wonder how I actually survived past 2010. However, I must digress.

"Kono Bijutsu-bu ni wa Mondai ga aru" is one of the shows that my anime buddy and I have been watching for the past several weeks and it's been fun. Strangely enough, it's another Ari Ozawa（小澤亜李）-headed show featuring her as a high-strung high school student in love with a romantically oblivious schoolmate who is a talented artist while she is supported by at least one other high-powered seiyuu. If I had seen the script treatment before watching the show, I would have thought that a sequel to "Gekkan Shojo Nozaki-kun"（月刊少女野崎くん）was finally on the air. To be fair, though, the target of Ozawa's character's love this time is not a hulking fellow with a basso profundo voice but someone who looks a lot more twerpy.

Another similarity between "Bijutsu-bu" and "Nozaki-kun" is that both programs have earworm-y opening and ending themes.

First up is the opening "STARTING NOW!" with that high-powered seiyuu, Nana Mizuki（水樹奈々）, showing that she hasn't left her anison world behind. I'm not usually a huge rock anison fan but there is something about this one including the part where Mizuki uses the vocoder to yell out the title that really sticks in my eardrums along with the usual wax (my apologies if you were eating something when you read that just now).

Man, is she the youngest-looking 36-year-old (as of this writing) or what? In any case, "STARTING NOW!" was released in July 2016 with Mizuki coming up with the lyrics while Takuya Fujita（藤田卓也）composed the tune. Perhaps it has already peaked, but at this point it has gotten to No. 3 on Oricon. The above video is just a 2-minute short version but there is the longer take on the song via TV below. By the way, Mizuki plays the shy rookie teacher, Tachibana-sensei who supervises the art club in question.

Over the past few years, I've learned that whenever I hear a bunch of YMO-era syn-drums on an anison, it has got to be the TECHNOBOYS PULCRAFT GREEN FUND behind it. Ever since hearing that earworm the size of an anaconda by them, "Witch Activity"（ウィッチ☆アクティビティ）, which ended each episode of "Witchcraft Works"（ウィッチクラフトワークス）a couple of years ago, I've been wondering if the Technoboys could come up with something that could top that.

Well, maybe I have with the ending theme for "Bijutsu-bu". This is "Koi suru Zukei" (A Figure in Love) sung by the Russian-speaking seiyuu and singer Sumire Uesaka（上坂すみれ）. Those pulses, bleeps and synthesized percussion are back to create something that I like even more than "STARTING NOW!" I couldn't find the actual ending credits for the show with the song, but that's OK considering the music video is far more mesmerizing. As Uesaka has put up, it's encouraged to watch it on a smartphone for the best effect. However, I have never owned one of those contraptions and don't plan on getting one any time soon but even watching it on conventional YouTube is fun enough for me.

I wonder if those three guys who seem to be paying tribute to the British fellows from the old Art of Noise videos are the actual Technoboys. "Koi suru Zukei" is Uesaka's 7th single released just a couple of weeks ago on August 3rd. As for some trivia from J-Wiki, the title was simply just going to be "cubic futurismo" but since Uesaka is such a big fan of singer Jun Togawa（戸川純）, she was able to add on the Japanese title which is a twist on one of Togawa's songs from the 1980s, "Zukei no Koi"（図形の恋...Figure Love）. Uesaka also has a role in the show as the perky blonde buddy Collette who seems to be Dekomori from "Chuunibyo demo Koi ga shitai"（中二病でも恋がしたい）without the weaponized twin tails.

Now I can only wonder what would happen if I guzzled down a bottle of MAX COFFEE while listening to a TECHNOBOYS PULCRAFT GREEN FUND-created tune. The last thing I would probably hear is "Death officially listed at...."