I've been a fan of Japanese popular music for 40 years, and have managed to collect a lot of material during that time. So I decided I wanted to talk about Showa Era music with like-minded fans. My particular era is the 70s and 80s (thus the "kayo kyoku"). The plus part includes a number of songs and artists from the last 30 years and also the early kayo. So, let's talk about New Music, aidoru, City Pop and enka.
Credits
I would like to give credit where credit is due. Videos are from YouTube and other sources such as NicoNico while Oricon rankings and other information are translated from the Japanese Wikipedia unless noted.
Well, as I had indicated when I wrote up about the bass-crazy ending theme for Season 1 of the anime "Machikado Mazoku"（まちカドまぞく...The Demon Girl Next Door）, I was able to get Season 2 which had been broadcast more than a year ago in 2022. I began watching "Machikado Mazoku 2-Chome"（まちカドまぞく 2丁目）last week which continues the humourous trials and tribulations of demon girl Yuko "Shamiko" Yoshida（吉田優子）.
Of course, I was paying attention to the opening credits and the opening theme for Season 2 and it's not half-bad either. "Tokimeki Rendezvous" (Joyful Rendezvous) was created and arranged by Miho Tsujibayashi（辻林美穂）, the same songwriter and musician behind the opener for Season 1, "Machikado Tangent"（町かどタンジェント）. As with that one, "Tokimeki Rendezvous" possesses that feeling of a breezy 1960s pop tune but instead of the Bacharach vibe, it has more of a finger-snapping jazzy bent. And once again, it's the shami momo pairing of main seiyuu Konomi Kohara（小原好美）as Shamiko and Akari Kitō（鬼頭明里）as Momo in the recording booth. The full version has got a nice piano solo.
Will be looking forward to watching Episode 2 tonight. Yup, I'm going at this week-by-week instead of doing the binge watching.
About a week ago, I posted Rikako Aida's（逢田梨香子）"Ordinary Love" which was the ending theme for the 2019 anime "Senryu Shojo"（川柳少女...Short Poetry Girl）. I've been re-watching the show after having first seen it at my anime buddy's place all those years ago before the pandemic. In the same year, I also watched "Machikado Mazoku"（まちカドまぞく...The Demon Girl Next Door） for the first time, but my reaction to it was somewhat less enthusiastic for that one although both shows were filled with tsukkomi comedy. My guess is that my lack of knowledge in supernatural vocabulary got in the way and my buddy was not one who enjoyed having English subtitles on the screen, so a lot of the fast-paced banter between Shamiko and her friends went over my head.
However having said all that, I did enjoy the opening theme for that first season, "Machikado Tangent"（町かどタンジェント）by the duo shami momo consisting of the two main characters Shamiko and Momo played by Konomi Kohara（小原好美） and Akari Kitō（鬼頭明里） respectively. It has that breezy Bacharach swing arrangement which I'm always going to be a sucker for.
The ending theme hasn't been too bad although it took a while longer for it to take root within my psyche. "Yoi Machi Cantare" which I think translates into "Good Street Singing" (Japanese and Italian) was basically recorded by shami momo + two other seiyuu. Minami Takahashi（髙橋ミナミ）who plays Shamiko's flighty ancestor and mentor Lilith and Tomoyo Takayanagi（高柳知葉）who plays another magical girl Mikan as theyjoin the duo to form Coro Machikado（コーロまちカド）.
"Yoi Machi Cantare" has got quite the energy to it and my anime buddy noted that the bass player on the song should have been given hazard pay for his hard work; bleeding fingers may have been his reward. The lyrics were written by the author of the original mangaIzumo Ito（伊藤いづも）while Koichi Fujimoto（藤本功一）took care of the speedy melody. I've also got my copy of the second season so I'll be interested in hearing those theme songs as well. And yep, I appreciate the anime a whole lot more now that I can understand what is fully going on.
It's been well over a year since Season 3 of "Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai"（かぐや様は告らせたい...Kaguya-sama: Love is War）, aka "Ultra Romantic"（ウルトラロマンティック）, came and went with the most anticipated kiss in recent anime history finally happening in Episode 13. To preface my feelings on "Ultra Romantic" as a whole, I have to say that as much as I know about that sophomore jinx when it comes to everything in pop culture from a movie franchise's second entry to a professional baseball player's second year in the big leagues, I think that I may have experienced the same thing when it comes to the third seasons in anime franchises.
The third TV season of "Uchuusenkan Yamato"（宇宙戦艦ヤマト）in 1981 seemed like one too many trips to the well, and even with the third season of "Gochuumon wa Usagi desu ka?"（ご注文はうさぎですか？...Is The Order A Rabbit?）in 2020 titled "Bloom", the end result didn't quite strike me as nearly as impressive as the first two seasons although I liked it well enough. And I'm also rather torn on "Ultra Romantic". I didn't really make my feelings clear on Season 3 of "Kaguya-sama" in the articles on the main opening and ending themes when I wrote them up last year, but generally speaking, it was again the situation where I wasn't quite as satisfied with "Ultra Romantic" as I was with the first two seasons. Maybe it was the case that Miyuki and Kaguya were no longer battling each other's wits so much and were simply heading into that collision course of love. I did make my peace with Masayuki Suzuki's（鈴木雅之）"GIRI GIRI" and the ending of Airi Suzuki's（鈴木愛理）,"Heart wa Oteage"（ハートはお手上げ）was further enhanced by that amazing ending credit sequence which looked like something out of "Evangelion" and "Starship Troopers". Usually, I wasn't really a big fan of the ending themes.
My opinion on "Ultra Romantic" is probably a minority one and that's fine. Glad that most other people were very happy with the series. However, I think that we can all agree that Episode 5 where the rap battle took place will go down as one of the highlights for the entire anime franchise. And I have to admit that a lot of the characters had their personalities deepened because of it and other developments in the season. But Student Council Secretary Chika Fujiwara played by Konomi Kohara（小原好美）got launched into the stratosphere. I first saw her as the innocent representative of we viewers in Season 1 who was witnessing the machinations happening between Miyuki and Kaguya and by Season 3, she's become a political schemer who has been openly disdainful of the council president and can rap with the best of them. Her "audition" of sorts in front of Miyuki had jaws (including mine) dropping.
But then, a few minutes later, the viewers get even more slammed into the ground when Miyuki goes on his musical rap tirade against Hayasaka. The animation and the performance were just hilarious and incredible at the same time. I would have loved to have been in the recording studio when Kohara and Shin Furukawa（古川慎）, Miyuki's seiyuu, pulled this off. It was tough love intervention for Miyuki, Hayasaka and Kaguya done in a new unexpected way.
Finally, the showmanship floored viewers once more through a special end credits sequence for Episode 5 as Miyuki and Chika, and a couple of the other student council members, obviously kept up with their hip-hop studies and moves to create "My Nonfiction". Once again, jaws were crashing through the floor due to the song along with the bump-up in the animation budget. The lyrics were provided by rapper and radio personality Akkogorilla（あっこゴリラ）with music by Akkogorilla and music producer/trackmaker Parkgolf.
Last night, I wrote up an article on "Massugu"（まっすぐ）, the opening theme song for Season 3 of the warmhearted anime "Karakai Jouzu na Takagi-san"（からかい上手の高木さん...Skilled Teaser Takagi-san）, and I figured that I could also take care of a couple of songs from that franchise tonight. As has been the tradition ever since Season 1, seiyuu Rie Takahashi（高橋李依）as the titular Takagi-san has been providing the ending themes every couple of episodes which are covers of kayo kyoku and J-Pop tunes of the past.
Season 3's Episode 6 had the climax of the annual school culture festival in which Takagi-san and Nishikata-kun ended up in a performance of a variant on "Romeo and Juliet". One of the peak moments in the entire franchise occurred there, so of course, everyone involved was more than happy to be over and done with the festivities, which led to the celebratory karaoke session at the end.
Well, Takagi-san chose her song wisely since "Gakuen Tengoku" is a karaoke favourite for everyone to join in. It's also quite the chestnut from 1974 as originally done by the family singing group Finger Five（フィンガーファイブ）and then even more popularized through Kyoko Koizumi's（小泉今日子）1989 cover. Several of the cast also joined in the fun with Takahashi.
Couldn't find the ending credits for Episodes 7 and 8, but for those, Takahashi sang a cover of Ikimonogakari's（いきものがかり）"Joyful" from 2009. I've always had a nice feeling about that one since it was used as the commercial jingle for those Pocky commercials featuring a joyfully dancing Yui Aragaki（新垣結衣）.
Well, thanks to some YouTube happenstance, I was able to catch the final episode for "Murenase! Seton Gakuen"（群れなせ！シートン学園...Seton Academy: Join The Pack!）, and subtitled, too. For obvious reasons surrounding us right now, I will no longer be able to meet my anime buddy for those Sunday get-togethers for the foreseeable future, although we might be able to finagle a more virtual solution, if he's willing to accept my idea. But in any case, it was a nice heartwarming finale with the high likelihood of a second season considering what I saw at the end. Still, the ending credits scene while everyone in the Cooking Club was talking seemed a bit incomplete due to the insertion of a generic happy instrumental that I'd never heard before which made me wonder if the producing studio had been under some pressure to get something sorted out pretty quickly.
As stated in that article, my big favourite of the opening and ending themes was the latter in the form of the oh-so-adorable "Ohkami Blues"（オオカミブルース）by Hina Kino（木野日菜）. However, in recent weeks, the opening theme has started to grow on me as well, as all of the characters go gallivanting all throughout Seton Academy.
"Gakuen Soukan Zoo" (Academy Spectacle Zoo) has got a good chunk of the main cast including Kino singing a farcical circus march which sets the tone for the zaniness of each of the episodes. It not only has a didgeridoo and tribal drums at the start but everyone: Haruki Ishiya（石谷春貴）as the long-suffering Jin Kazama, Yume Miyamoto（宮本侑芽）as the other human Hitomi, Misaki Kuno（久野美咲）as the poo-loving koala Yukari, Konomi Kohara（小原好美）as the ever-dying sloth Miyubi, and Sora Tokui（徳井青空）as the cat Kurumi really got into their animal noises throughout the song.
As with "Ohkami Blues", "Gakuen Soukan Zoo" was created by Shin Furuya（古屋真）and Yosuke Yamashita（山下洋介）. It might be a little too speedy and uptempo to be the official school anthem at Seton, but heck, it makes for a good descriptor of what Season 1 has been about.
I gather that we are just past the halfway point of the Summer 2019 season of anime. And in terms of this blog, I've been enjoying the ode-to-disco theme songs for "Danberu Nan-Kiro Moteru?"（ダンベル何キロ持てる?...How Heavy Are the Dumbbells You Lift?）and the funkalicious and wacky opening theme to "Joshi Kōsei no Mudazukai"（女子高生の無駄づかい...Wasteful Days of High School Girls）. The shows themselves have been fun to watch and they've been my hits this summer.
One other show on the viewing block has been "Machikado Mazoku"（まちカドまぞく...The Demon Girl Next Door）, the tale of a supposed bad witch girl named Yuko "Shamiko" Yoshida（吉田優子）who repeatedly tries to one-up her classmate, Momo Chiyoda（千代田桃）, a magical girl heroine, so that her family which represents a long line of bad witches can get on a better financial footing. My anime buddy told me that the show has been steadily rising in his appraisal but I think it's been a bit more hit-and-miss for me. "Machikado Mazoku" is an adorable and mellow series but sometimes it's been a little too calm...to be honest, I almost fell asleep during the most recent episode.
The opening theme, "Machikado Tangent" (Street Corner Tangent) has grown on me, though. Sung by the seiyuu for the aforementioned main characters, Konomi Kohara（小原好美）as Shamiko and Akari Kitō（鬼頭明里）as Momo under the joint name of shami momo, it's got that sunny arrangement somewhat reminiscent of swinging 1960s pop a la Burt Bacharach that always manages to hook me like a trout. The same was true with the ending theme for "Koufuku Graffiti"（幸腹グラフィティ）, "Egao ni Naru"（笑顔になる）, and despite the fact that the show was broadcast all the way back in 2015, I'm still wishing that a second season will come to fruition.
"Machikado Tangent" was written, composed and arranged by Miho Tsujibayashi（辻林美穂）. The interesting thing about Kitō is that she's also starring in one of the big hits of this season, "Kimetsu no Yaiba"（鬼滅の刃）as the half-demon little sister, Nezuko.
As much as folks are getting into the groove for Masayuki Suzuki's（鈴木雅之）opening theme of "Love Dramatic"（ラブ・ドラマティック）from "Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai ~ Tensai-tachi no Ren'ai Zunousen"（かぐや様は告らせたい〜天才たちの恋愛頭脳戦〜）, I think just as many folks, if not more, have been falling for the charms of this one song from the anime that had its one-off at the end of Episode 3.
When I saw the closing credits for that episode with the cute and perky Chika Fujiwara（藤原千花）singing the cute and perky "Chikatto Chika Chika", which may be roughly translated as "Flashy Chika" (?), I told my friend, "Well, I guess I know where a lot of that week's budget must have gone!" I later read that the entire Chika dance sequence was rotoscoped instead of CGI'ed which boosted impressiveness levels.
Admittedly, perhaps, but a lot of the squeeing has not just been for the dance but also for the actual song itself, written by Maki Fukushima（福島真希）and composed by Setsu Fukushima（福島節）, both of Ongakushitsu Inc. (a company that seems to come up with commercial ads and jingles) hasn't been too much of a slouch in terms of its earworm status, either. As voiced by seiyuu Konomi Kohara（小原好美）, I'm wondering whether her star is now in the rapid ascendant after being one-third of the hilarious trio on last summer's "Asobi Asobase"（あそびあそばせ）and currently one of the newest Precure warriors.
Although Chika is relating the ballad of the student council, I think "Chikatto Chika Chika" is very much her own theme song that has drawn in complimentary tributes from various folks eager in emulating the Chika Dance. For instance, Airi Suzuki（鈴木愛理）provides her own take through the official YouTube channel for Kadokawa.
As my anime buddy was telling me last Sunday, this season especially seems to be chock-filled with some crazy comedy. Of the ones whose themes I've covered on the blog, there are "Back Street Girls" and "Grand Blue" with their catchy tunes. Then, I discovered this one that my friend has not shown to me at his place; I only found out through YouTube. But before I introduce this one, let me preface it by saying that over the years from time to time, there seems to have been this sub-genre of anime which involves high school girls getting involved in all sorts of nutty antics.
For example, there was "Love Lab"（恋愛ラボ）in 2013 centering on a group of girls who start up a club on how to handle the art of l'amour.
A bit earlier in 2011, there was "Nichijou"（日常）which kinda reached near-Kafkaesque levels of humour.
Now, in Summer 2018, I managed to come across "Asobi Asobase"（あそびあそばせ...Let Fun Have Fun）, a title that has popped up frequently on YouTube over the past several weeks. I finally gave in to my curiosity and took a gander at a few of the videos. Frankly, I had to wipe up the saliva spray off the screen since I was laughing out loud at some of the insanity. As I said in the article for the "Love Lab" ending theme, my anime buddy seems to enjoy comedy but only to a certain level; if it gets too crazy, he loses interest. The fact that I have openly threatened to dislodge several internal organs on watching scenes from "Asobi Asobase" probably means that he will never show this. His loss.
"Asobi Asobase" seems to have elements from both "Nichijou" and "Love Lab" with some fortified anarchy to boot. I did end up getting up a copy of "Love Lab" through Amazon last year, so I wouldn't mind getting "Asobi Asobase" as well in the next several months.
To be honest, I'm glad that I immediately stumbled onto the scenes rather than the opening credits since the latter has cleverly cloaked the show as a super-cute slice-of-life anime based on friendship and learning about life. The three main seiyuu playing the Japanese equivalent of The Three Stooges, Hina Kino（木野日菜）, Rika Nagae（長江里加）and Konomi Kohara（小原好美）sing the sugary-sweet opening theme "Three Piece". As one commenter pointed out, this could be one of the most misleading opening credits sequences in anime history.
Rei Tanaka（タナカ零）was responsible for words and music for "Three Piece". Man, listening to the full version makes things even catchier and calming for me. It's almost like an opening theme with trap ambitions. Yes, let's relax for 30 minutes of meaningful conversations and splendid scenery, and enj...WHAT THE HELL?!
Of course, by the time viewers reached the end of Episode 1, the joke was out so the ending credits no longer had to put up pretenses. Instead, everything ends with the same seiyuu headbanging to some death metal and some cool graphics. "Inkya Impulse" is the title with Genki Mizuno（ミズノゲンキ）and Shuhei Mutsuki（睦月周平）behind its spawning. Ikepy & KSKN also feature in the song as well although I have no idea who they are.
Now, this sounds more like what "Asobi Asobase" really is in tone. Rock on! (I'm actually providing the devil horns with my hand as I type this...not easy to do) Mosh pit not included.
I will finish off with the very first scene that I saw that had me tearing up in laughter as much as Olivia did in disgust...for far worse reasons. All I can say is that all three seiyuu must need those throat lozenges regularly considering all the screaming that they have to do from episode to episode.
P.S. Konomi Kohara who plays the relatively least crazy Kazumi is a seiyuu that I remember from last year going into this year as she portrayed the adorable Kukuri in the updated version of "Mahoujin Guru Guru"（魔法陣グルグル...Magical Circle Guru Guru）.
