Necry Talkie -- Fuzaketenai ze（ふざけてないぜ）/Momo Asakura -- Pinky Hook（ピンキーフック）

 

If it weren't for this pandemic, I would most likely be over at my anime buddy's house right now watching the finales for the 2021 summer season of anime. Naturally, that hasn't been the case for over 18 months so a lot of anime that I could have seen throughout 2020 and 2021 up to now has gone by the wayside. However, by my own volition, I've been catching a little of the stuff that has been within my "like" range and that has included the second season of "Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid Dragon"（小林さんちのメイドラゴン...Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid）.

Perhaps one small advantage that I've gotten from choosing my own anime to try out is that I've been able to see shows that my buddy probably wouldn't have chosen for the biweekly viewings. One such show is "Kanojo mo Kanojo"（カノジョも彼女...Girlfriend, Girlfriend）. It's within the same genre of slice-of-life comedy as "Kobayashi-san" but this one is far more in the farce category. I mean, if "Kobayashi-san" is the "I Dream of Jeannie" of anime then "Kanojo mo Kanojo" is "Three's Company" for those who are in the know regarding old American sitcoms.

For my anime buddy, "Kanojo mo Kanojo" is probably too farcical for his liking. But I've enjoyed watching the first two episodes so far and it has one seiyuu who I've known since I came back from Japan a decade ago. Ayane Sakura（佐倉綾音）has been in the business since 2010 and some of the earliest anime that I've seen since getting back into the animated tangled web have featured her in programs such as "Joshiraku"（じょしらく）and "Gochuumon wa Usagi desu ka?"（ご注文はうさぎですか？...Is The Order A Rabbit?）. With "Kanojo mo Kanojo", she's playing closer to her short-tempered rakugo-ka in "Joshiraku" as the suffering but bi-curious girlfriend to a fellow who is insanely honest to the point of potentially ending up at the bottom of the Sumida River someday. 

Listening and watching the opening and closing credits to "Kanojo mo Kanojo" has gotten me to write about the opening and closing themes today. As for the former, it's "Fuzaketenai ze" (Not Fooling Around) by Necry Talkie（ネクライトーキー）, a rock band which I wrote about less than two weeks ago, so it is with some coincidence that I'm talking about them again. With words and music by guitarist Asahi（朝日）, it begins with an appropriately sultry rock beat which continues into something more upbeat and innocent, probably reflecting the overall harem situation among the characters.

The ending theme is "Pinky Hook" by seiyuu/singer Momo Asakura（麻倉もも）, a funkier tune with some light and breezy synthpop involved which was written and composed by Sho Watanabe（渡辺翔）. I mentioned his name earlier in the summer since he composed a Tokyo Girls' Style（東京女子流）song a decade ago. If I'm not mistaken, the title refers to the Japanese custom of intertwining pinky fingers between two friends to confirm a promise.

And the "Three's Company" award for double entendres goes to...

TOKYO GIRLS' STYLE -- Kodou no Himitsu（鼓動の秘密）

Well, it's been quite a few years since Tokyo Joshi Ryuu（東京女子流）, aka TOKYO GIRLS' STYLE, was up here on "Kayo Kyoku Plus". I think the last article up was Marcos V.'s own special selection back in the spring of 2018. And I have to thank Marcos for introducing me to TGS in the first place through his article for "Partition Love" which came out in 2014, and since that was the year that I did my first visit back to Tokyo since coming home for good, I was more than happy to get my own copy of the single.

Now, I come across this even earlier single by TOKYO GIRLS' STYLE that was released in May 2011. It was not only the group's 6th single, it was also a double A-side single titled "Kodou no Himitsu/Sayonara, Arigato"（鼓動の秘密/サヨナラ、ありがとう。...Secret of the Beat/Farewell, Thank You.）. I'd like to talk about that first song "Kodou no Himitsu" which was written by c. close, otherwise known as Chihiro Kurosu（黒須チヒロ）, and composed by Sho Watanabe（渡辺翔）.

It's very appealingly quirky and blippity-bloppity but at the same time, I also treated it as something very old-fashioned, and I'd been knocking it around in my head wondering why I would think that latter opinion. Finally, I figured it out. There's something very Taeko Ohnuki and Ryuichi Sakamoto（大貫妙子・坂本龍一）circa early 1980s about the arrangement which was handled by Hiroshi Matsui（松井寛）in terms of the synthesizers.

Some of that quirkiness apparently filtered into the official music video, I see. I especially like some of that jittery choreography for "Kodou no Himitsu" which relates the story of someone falling head-over-heels but not knowing how to approach the target of their dreams. Oh, that kataomoi again. In any case, the single peaked at No. 24 on Oricon, and the song became part of TGS' first album "Kodou no Himitsu" which hit the shelves in May 2011 a couple of weeks before the single. The album reached No. 25 on the charts.