Walküre -- Ikenai Borderline（いけないボーダーライン）

 

This is a slightly irregular approach for this particular tune but if you can bear with me. I was doing a bit of adjusting last night on an old 2015 article featuring "Futari no Kimochi no Honto no Himitsu" （ふたりのきもちのほんとのひみつ）, the ending theme for the nutty anime "Kill Me Baby", and as I was doing so, I noticed at the right side of YouTube that there was another song from another anime, and something told me that I should give it a shot. Instinct has led me to many a great tune in the past on the blog, so I did as I was inspired.

Instinct...I owe you a Big Mac set! I heard "Ikenai Borderline" (The Borderline You Don't Cross) and was automatically smitten by the really bouncy ska beat and the feeling that this could have been the theme song for a really action-packed anime.

Well, I wasn't too far off the mark. This was actually Track 3 on the debut single for the fictional aidoru group, Walküre（ワルキューレ）, on the 2016 anime "Macross Delta"（マクロスΔ）. And sure enough, that single was "Ichido dake no Koi nara/Rune ga Pikatto Hikattara"（一度だけの恋なら/ルンがピカッと光ったら...If It's a One-Time Love/When the Rune Sparkles） whose second song was one that I covered back in 2019. "Rune ga Pikatto Hikattara" was also one banger of a tune whose spiritual ancestor happens to be one of my favourite songs of all time, "September" by Earth Wind & Fire.

As was the case with that song, "Ikenai Borderline" was also created by lyricist Naoki Nishi（西直紀）and composer Minoru Komorita（コモリタミノル）. This time, it's actress JUNNA as Mikumo on lead vocals with the rest of Walküre on backing vocals.

This video only came up in the last 48 hours or so and that is because the album only came out in the last 24. Yup, on April 6th, "Macross Yonjuu Shuunen Kinen Korabo Album Deculture!! Mixture!!!!!"（マクロス40周年記念コラボアルバム デカルチャー!! ミクスチャー!!!!!...Macross 40th Anniversary Collaborative Album） was released, and a cover of "Ikenai Borderline" is included as sung by seiyuu May'n and Megumi Nakajima（中島愛）as their characters Sheryl Nome and Ranka Lee respectively.

Walküre -- Rune ga Pikatto Hikattara（ルンがピカッと光ったら）

I have a tradition whenever the 9th month of the year arrives, and that is to listen to both versions of "September", the early single by Mariya Takeuchi（竹内まりや）and the epic joyful R&B anthem by Earth Wind & Fire. "September" by EW&F was released in 1978 but it seems like a song that I've been hearing ever since my early childhood. Moreover, it's been the one song that could get me dancing each time in my chair at home, and as far as I'm concerned, it will be the only song that will get me onto the dance floor even at my current age (as horrifying as that image might be to many).

Then one day, not too long ago, I came across this video:

To say that I was smitten and delighted would be an understatement. This was a minute of concentrated anime joy!

What I would later discover that the original song was "Rune ga Pikatto Hikattara" (When the Rune Sparkles), one of the ending themes for the 2016 anime "Macross Delta"（マクロスΔ）which just has to have been inspired by "September".

A dang catchy song in itself, "Rune" was performed by the aidoru group in the show, Walküre（ワルキューレ）, with Freyja Wion as played by seiyuu Minori Suzuki（鈴木みのり）as the lead vocal, and then the rest of the band helping out through fellow voice actors JUNNA, Nao Toyama（東山奈央）, Kiyono Yasuno（安野希世乃）and Nozomi Nishida（西田望見）. The above is the full version covered by Nyadus on YouTube, but man, she really does sound like Suzuki! You know, this could be the type of feel-good song that could even be covered by Little Glee Monster. Naoki Nishi（西直紀）wrote the lyrics while Minoru Komorita（コモリタミノル）took care of the music.

"Rune" was one song on the Walküre single "Ichido dake no Koi nara/Rune ga Pikatto Hikattara"（一度だけの恋なら/ルンがピカッと光ったら...If It's a One-Time Love） released in May 2016. It made it to No. 3 on the Oricon weeklies and ended up as the 94th-ranked single of the year. That first song was also the first of the two opening themes for "Macross Delta". Both songs were also included on "Walküre Attack!", the group's debut album released in July that year which made it to No. 2 on the album charts and later became the 34th-ranked album.

Of course, with YouTube, the ever-popular "September" and the similarly groovy beat throughout "Rune", it was inevitable that an epic mashup just had to be done, so thanks to folks like Emdyion, there is "When the Rune Sparkles in September". Dance away!

But Emdyion wasn't finished. The YouTuber even came up with an amazing inverted version of the song, this time with the late, great Maurice White taking over on vocals.

I learned a lot here. I will no longer admire Minori Suzuki for just "FEELING AROUND" and I have a new song to love from the "Macross" franchise.

Nozomi Nishida, Reina Kondo, Saki Minami & Honoka Inoue -- Donna Toki mo（どんなときも）

One of the new anime that we've gotten a gander of this season is "Hachi-gatsu no Cinderella Nine"（八月のシンデレラナイン...The Cinderella Nine of August）which I found out was based on a smartphone game from two years ago. As soon as the first episode started rolling out, I immediately got memories of another baseball-and-high school girls anime from a decade prior called "Taisho Yakyu Musume"（大正野球娘。...Taisho Baseball Girls）. That show was based in the Taisho Era almost a century ago, so my imagination started running on whether the characters here were actually the descendants of the students from "Taisho Yakyu Musume". Maybe another title for the new show could be "Reiwa Yakyu Musume"（令和野球娘。）?

I've only seen the first couple of episodes from which the story is showing some similarities with "Taisho Yakyu Musume" in that the energetic and optimistic central character suddenly decides to set up a girls' baseball team in the school with her loyal best buddy in tow after which they recruit a couple of timid students with no particular athletic ability and then an initially disillusioned classmate who has a keen eye for baseball tactics and strategy. There hasn't been a whole lot of drama and despair as of yet but I'm sure that it will be coming from the middle episodes. So far, it's all been happiness and light.

The opening theme for "Hachi-gatsu no Cinderella Nine" hasn't exactly grabbed me yet but I do like the sweetness of the ending theme. My overriding reason is that it's a cover of "Donna Toki mo" (どんなときも...No Matter When), the breakthrough single of songsmith Noriyuki Makihara（槇原敬之）from 1991. The absolute cheerfulness of that big hit has been retained in full for this version as sung by some of the cast consisting of Nozomi Nishida（西田望見）, Reina Kondo（近藤玲奈）, Saki Minami（南早紀）and Honoka Inoue（井上ほの花）. As I've mentioned in my last anime article (from this morning), I wouldn't also mind hearing the full version of this in the coming weeks.