Junji Majima, Miyu Tomita & Yusuke Kobayashi -- Ikouze Paradise（イこうぜ☆パラダイス）

Ever since getting back from Japan for good and getting into anime viewing again in the early part of the last decade, I've seen my fair share of programs with those elements of naughtiness, although my anime buddy doesn't go out of his way to get the hentai stuff. For example, I did catch "Tejina Senpai"（手品先輩）about the inept magician student who inadvertently shows more than her tricks. And up to now, the one show that really took the cake for all sorts of sexual innuendo was "Seitokai Yakuindomo"（生徒会役員共）. For such a seemingly straitlaced high school, the kids at Osai Academy could have given the folks at "Porky's" and "American Pie" a run for their money.

But then in the Winter 2020 season of anime, there came a show that most likely became the most talked about series for the season and it may have knocked even my "Seitokai Yakuindomo" off the top of the mountain. Yup, I did catch most of the episodes of "Ishuzoku Reviewers"（異種族レビュアーズ...Interspecies Reviewers）, the show about a group of buddies (including a fallen angel) in a fantasy land whose raison d'etre is to visit, sample and critique the various brothels in the region as a public (and very personal) service.

Nothing was left to the imagination here. My friend told me that there were three versions of the show: the censored one, the fairly uncensored one that got onto some of the subscription anime channels (and it's the version that my friend and I watched), and apparently a legendary take which supposedly shows everything that got the animator in some hot water with his bosses. I have to say that Episodes 3 and 4 took the royal cake and left our jaws hanging with me often saying "Wow! They really went ahead and animated that, didn't they?". The crazy thing is that I was also informed that the original manga didn't have those really sex-crazed scenes; the animators must have had a heck of a time at work. In fact, I had to look for a while to find a YouTube video of "Ishuzoku Reviewers" that I could place up here without having to warn folks. In double fact, the show got booted off a number of channels including Funimation and Amazon Prime Video since apparently they didn't realize what they were getting into (including a new way to enjoy barbeque).

Still for those who understand Japanese, I'm going to have to give a small warning about the lyrics for the opening theme "Ikouze Paradise" (Let's Go Paradise). When the opening line is "I love being a pervert!"...well, you know what I mean. The song is performed by the three main cast members Junji Majima（間島淳司）, Miyu Tomita（富田美憂）and Yusuke Kobayashi（小林裕介）as human Stunk, angel Crimvael and elf Zel respectively.

As they say in the entertainment industry, there's no such thing as bad publicity, so "Ishuzoku Reviewers" got plenty of it, and it certainly didn't hurt that "Ikouze Paradise" quickly became one of the catchiest anison in recent memory since it was inspired by the Village People's "Y.M.C.A." and "In The Navy". I think the philosophy here is if one's gonna get laid, get laid to a great disco number. You can thank Big Magnum Tachibana（ビッグマグナム橘）and Golden Ball Shinozaki（ゴールデンボール篠崎）(overcompensating for their names apparently) for their work on creating this one.

Miyu Tomita -- Present Moment

Happy Monday! I've certainly played my share of board games during my life. During some of my childhood, there was a weekly nightly programme for the local children to play those games down in the basement of our apartment building. Never showed much aptitude for games but I did enjoy UNO, Mille Bornes, Monopoly and Sorry.

So, some of those memories have returned on watching this anime at my friend's place over the past few weeks. "Hokago Saikoro Club"（放課後さいころ倶楽部...After School Dice Club）is a slice-of-life show about high school kids developing their friendships and knowledge about various games from around the world. Mille Bornes has yet to show up, but I've already garnered some interest in the ones that have appeared such as Marrakech and 6 Nimmt!

One of the seiyuu involved in "Hokago" is Miyu Tomita（富田美憂）, also currently in the wackier "Boku-tachi wa Benkyou ga Dekinai"（ぼくたちは勉強ができない）, as the fairly serious but game-loving Midori Ono（大野翠）. "Hokago" has got its share of humour but I'd say that it has more in the way of poignancy and life lessons. And for the first time on "Kayo Kyoku Plus", she's got her own solo theme song for an anime with this one, "Present Moment" which is apparently going to be her first official single to be released on November 13th this year.

Can't really say that it's an earworm but since it's a pleasant enough song and I've had a good time with the show, I decided to put it up here. "Present Moment" was written by Mayumi Kaneko（金子麻友美）and composed by Shuhei Mutsuki（睦月周平）. I've been seeing Tomita for a while in various anime for the past couple of years and so I'm surprised to hear that she hasn't even reached the age of 20 yet!

Study -- Can now, Can now

Last season on the anime "Boku-tachi wa Benkyou ga Dekinai"（ぼくたちは勉強ができない）, the main female characters were not only struggling with their studies but also with their feelings for their friend and tutor, Nariyuki. Well, after seeing the first two episodes of the second season yesterday, they're still struggling, and the miscommunications and inadvertent innuendos continue flying out faster than the jokes on a typical episode of "Three's Company". Of course, that has to include the mandatory onsen/beach episode.

Still early days for Anime Season Fall 2019 so I didn't expect a full version of theme songs to come out, but I think I may have come across the first earworm of the season for me with the opening theme to "Bokuben", "Can now, Can now". The opening theme from the first season was performed by Study, consisting of the three main female seiyuu, Haruka Shiraishi（白石晴香）, Miyu Tomita（富田美憂）and Sayumi Suzushiro（鈴代紗弓）, but this time around, it's an expanded Study behind the opener with the additions of Lynn as uptight teacher Mafuyu Kurisu（桐須真冬）and Madoka Asahina（朝日奈丸佳）as the saucy Asumi Kominami（小美浪あすみ）.

Those opening credits have gotten a bit fancier and "Can now, Can now" is perhaps even more lighthearted than "Seishun Zeminaru" (Salad Day Seminar). In fact, I could compare it to a typical PreCure opening song. Kentaro Sonoda（園田健太郎）took care of words and music for the song.

Study -- Seishun Zeminaru/Never Give It Up!!（セイシュンゼミナール）

Happy Monday! My anime buddy came back last week after nearly a month in East Asia so we've had to play quite a bit of catch-up when it has come to this season's batch of anime. A number of these are fairly short in duration and a couple of them (one being the sequel to "One Punch Man") haven't been quite up to snuff so we've left them alone for now and there's a possibility that my friend may even jettison them from the lineup.

One that is encapsulated within the regular 30-minute format is "Boku-tachi wa Benkyou ga Dekinai"（ぼくたちは勉強ができない）which has the English title of "We Never Learn" and the Japanese abbreviation of "Bokuben"（ぼく勉）. I've made the observation that this is a harem show of sorts and a slice-of-life high school comedy surrounding a tutor, Nariyuki Yuiga（唯我 成幸）, who has to help out three students: the ojosan-like Fumino Furuhashi（古橋文乃）who's a literature expert but can't do math to save her life, the stoic and logical Rizu Ogata（緒方理珠）who is a math whiz but has difficulty grasping literature, and supremely ebullient Uruka Takemoto（武元うるか）with a natural athleticism but is at a loss when it comes to academics. The site TV Tropes got it spot on when they compared the three to Kirk, Spock and McCoy respectively.

The lessons are the secondary point, though, as the show gradually displays a comedy of errors and misunderstandings when Fumino, Rizu and Uruka begin to show slightly more than platonic feelings for their tutor...and they are not the only ones.

The opening credits for "Boku-tachi wa Benkyou ga Dekinai" are adorned by Study's rendition of "Seishun Zeminaru" (Salad Day Seminar), and Study just happens to consist of the three seiyuu behind Furuhashi, Ogata and Takemoto, Haruka Shiraishi（白石晴香）, Miyu Tomita（富田美憂）and Sayumi Suzushiro（鈴代紗弓）respectively. Tomita is already gaining a fair number of songs on "Kayo Kyoku Plus", and as a seiyuu, she's becoming quite recognizable to me due to her calm and button-down roles for the most part. "Seishun Zeminaru" isn't all that different from the usual super-genki anime opening tune but considering a fairly busy week last week with the accompanying stress, I was quite welcoming in hearing this one again after almost a month. Saori Kodama（こだまさおり）and Takahiro Yamada（山田高弘）took care of words and music.

I have been able to find a full version of the ending theme. Once again the Study trio are back to perform "Never Give It Up!!" which has a mild synthpop feeling created by songwriters Mami Kawada（川田まみ）and Maiko Iuchi（井内舞子）. I actually like "Never Give It Up!!" slightly more because of that intro by Study and the credits themselves at the beginning which seem to have the rapidly singing mouths on the blackboard representing the three main characters themselves. I think the moe factor has been raised a bit more here.

At this point, I think viewers have already come up with their choices about who Taiga should ultimately be paired with, but most likely by the end of this show, he'll end up remaining friends with the three. However, in the interests of not straddling the fence, I wouldn't mind if the lad gladly accepted the affections of his junior high school buddy, Uruka. For one thing, she has that Lucille Ball appeal with me.

Miyu Tomita, Yu Shinohara, Lynn, Azumi Waki -- HAPPY!! Strange Friends（HAPPY!!ストレンジフレンズ）

Yes, indeed, the bewitching holiday is once again upon us. Although the above picture was taken back in October 2014, I'm fairly sure that McDonalds Japan is once again serving its annual squid-ink burgers. Happy Halloween, everybody!

We got our first meteorological scare last night after I finished my chat with JTM. I looked out the window to see a clean layer of snow outside; it's about the earliest I've seen of the white stuff in many a year, but it was all gone by this morning. I also took a look at YouTube's live stream camera onto the main intersection of Shibuya. There was a Halloween presence including a couple in corny prison uniforms and another couple that I can only describe as "Stripper Precure". However, maybe it was the timing but my impression was that the celebrations seemed a little more subdued this time. Then again, we still have a few more nights before the 31st.

Happenstance perhaps, but this season's crop of anime includes at least a couple of Halloween-friendly shows that my buddy and I have started watching. There is one that I would like to label as "Gochuumon wa Kyuuketsuki desu ka?" or "Is The Order A Vampire?", but its actual title is "Tonari no Kyuuketsuki-san"（となりの吸血鬼さん...Ms. Vampire who lives in my neighborhood.）.

It's another cute slice-of-life anime starring Miyu Tomita（富田美憂）as the 360+-year-old vampire Sophie Twilight who is far more grounded than a lot of humans. Tomita is no stranger to supernatural and horror since she was in last year's just-as-goofy "Gabriel Dropout"（ガヴリールドロップアウト）and later in the beautiful if oft-horrifying "Made In Abyss".

And as was the case with the theme songs for those shows, Tomita jumps in with the rest of the main cast to perform them. In this case, I want to feature the ending "HAPPY!! Strange Friends" as sung by Tomita, Yu Shinohara（篠原侑）as the vampire-obsessed Akari who becomes her BFF (or tries to, anyways), Lynn as Akari's human BFF from school, and Azumi Waki（和氣あず未）as fellow vampire Erie who I will probably see for the first time next week.

I did mention that shoutout to "Gochuumon wa Usagi desu ka"（ご注文はうさぎですか?）at the top there. Well, "HAPPY!! Strange Friends" is rather reminiscent of the theme songs used for that popular series, and I gotta say that I enjoy how Tomita draws out those first few lines in the verses. Junko Miyajima（宮嶋淳子）took care of the lyrics while Yu handled music and arrangement.

Miyu Tomita & Mariya Ise -- Deep In Abyss/Tabi no Hidarite, Saihate no Migite（旅の左手、最果ての右手）

Mentioning in my last article about the big feature in yesterday's anime-and-food session, "Kimi no Na wa"（君の名は。）, I also have to state that the latest Sunday get-together also had a dollop of darkness. We've been watching the interesting shows  "Made in Abyss"（メイドインアビス）and "Centaur no Nayami"（セントールの悩み...A Centaur's Life）, and yesterday's episodes were really bordering on charcoal-black. The latter had one episode which barely had the regular characters showing up, instead giving a history lesson on that universe's version of the Holocaust.

Before that, I saw episodes 9 and 10 of "Made in Abyss", and if it hadn't been for the fact that I had already found out online synopses about some of the horrors that main characters and travelers Riko and Reg endure, I think I would have gone into a fetal position with the events of the latter episode. Good golly, they're just kids! I will not put up any YouTube videos of the scene in question here...you can look it up yourself (and reactions of viewers), but suffice it to say that the happy-go-lucky flavour of the series has gone very sour. Heck, even my friend warned me beforehand and he had never done that before.

Miyu Tomita（富田美憂）and Mariya Ise（伊瀬茉莉也）who play Riko and Reg respectively also perform both the opening and ending themes for "Made in Abyss". Tomita I have already become acquainted with for her performance of "Gabriel Dropkick"（ガヴリールドロップキック）from the comedy "Gabriel Dropout"（ガヴリールドロップアウト）, but Ise is someone who has been in the anime industry for over a decade, including even a stint as a Precure warrior. And I think she has done some narration work for NHK.

The opening theme is "Deep In Abyss", a dramatic song foretelling the adventure to come as the explorers delve deep into that huge hole that is the basis of their civilization. It's written by hotaru and composed by KanadeYUK and Masahiro "Godspeed" Aoki.

After Episode 10, I wouldn't blame viewers if they begged for the ending credits and theme since they are so cheerful. Once again, Tomita and Ise handle singing duties for "Tabi no Hidarite, Saihate no Migite" (Left Hand of the Journey, Right Hand of the Furthest Ends). With that child-like melody, you would think that the kids are going off on a picnic with nothing more dangerous than a wayward ant (instead of a multi-mouthed hedgehog). Yukari Hashimoto（橋本由香利）wrote and composed this one.

Well, let's see how much more Eli Roth "Made in Abyss" gets. But at least, there were the hilarious episodes from "Mahoujin Guru Guru"（魔法陣グルグル）to enjoy later on.

After Episode 10, I wanted this koala

to reassure me.

Miyu Tomita, Saori Onishi, Naomi Ozora and Kana Hanazawa -- Hallelujah Essaim (ハレルヤ☆エッサイム)

Had another anime-and-food outing with my friend today. It's hard to believe that the Winter 2017 season is approaching its end, especially since we've been enjoying more shows than we had expected this time around. It'll be a pity to see them go.

One of those shows has been "Gabriel Dropout" (ガヴリールドロップアウト) with the episodic hilarity involving two teen angels and two teen demons in the same high school. I've already written about the earworm opening theme "Gabriel Dropkick" (ガヴリールドロップキック) starring the seiyuu behind those 4 characters: Miyu Tomita（富田美憂）, Saori Onishi（大西沙織）, Naomi Ozora（大空直美）and Kana Hanazawa（花澤香菜）.

Well, they're also at it again with the ending theme "Hallelujah Essaim". I had to look up what essaim means, and apparently it is the French word for swarm. I'm not quite sure what the connection is, though.

Written by Ryuji Sakai（坂井竜二）and composed by Shingo Yamazaki（山崎真吾）, it wasn't quite the immediate earworm for me that "Gabriel Dropkick" was but it's grown on me gradually over the weeks. And it has that similar back-and-forth banter among the seiyuu while the rock and techno (a bit of chip tune, perhaps?) are blasting away. From what I could get from Sakai's lyrics, it sounds like I'm hearing how the girls really feel for each other despite all the over-the-top bickering in the episodes.

Miyu Tomita, Saori Onishi, Naomi Ozora and Kana Hanazawa -- Gabriel Dropkick (ガヴリールドロップキック)

Well, today is an off-Sunday from the usual biweekly anime-and-food sessions with my friend, and it is just as well since the city is being pounded by a good heaping of snow. I don't think even he would have wanted to travel out on the roads today.

However, the winter anime season is in full swing and it looks like the shows that we have been watching are of the magical and mystical variety. At this point, "Little Witch Academia" seems to be the big hit so far but we've also been having fun with this other purely comedic program called "Gabriel Dropout" (ガヴリールドロップアウト).

The plot reads like something for an old 1960s daffy sitcom on the order of "Bewitched" or "I Dream Of Jeannie": the top student, Gabriel, at the Angel Academy in Heaven gets sent down to Earth to learn the ways of humanity (I guess this would be the divine equivalent of an immersion programme) only to crack and end up as a rude and antisocial slacker. Meanwhile a couple of devils-in-training, Vignette and Satanichia, who end up as classmates are far less malicious than Gabe (who even has her horn) while the No. 2 angel, Raphiel, gains a reputation as a slightly psycho stalker. Your weekly dose of irony, anime fans!

The opening theme, "Gabriel Dropkick" seems to be gaining a reputation itself as a sinister earworm including for my own auricular canals. I mean, even it has some ambitions to be a fun 60s-sitcom theme. Sung by the seiyuu for the 4 main characters, Miyu Tomita（富田美憂）as Gabriel, Saori Onishi（大西沙織）as Vignette, Naomi Ozora（大空直美）as Satanachia and Kana Hanazawa（花澤香菜）as Raphiel, it's a back-and-forth musical onslaught between the light and dark side...a little gospel here, a little rock there...all fun everywhere. And I gotta say that Tomita has got quite the angelic voice despite her devilish character.

Veteran anison creator Kenichi Maeyamada（前山田健一）took care of words and music. It looks like the full single is yet to come out (February 22nd is the release date) since we're not that far into the new season but I'm looking forward to getting my copy.

I guess it doesn't matter where you come from. If you're in Japan, you are automatically terrified of cockroaches.