Hanae -- Kamisama no Kamisama （神様の神様）

About a couple of years ago in late 2012, I saw an anime with the title of "Kamisama Hajimemashita"（神様はじめました...Kamisama Kiss）which was adapted from the manga about a high school student, Nanami Momozono（桃園奈々生）, who ends up as the land god for a shrine and as a partner of sorts with the former god's familiar, Tomoe（巴衛）. Because of the spiritual hocus-pocus and the according language, it was somewhat difficult for me to follow but I enjoyed it because of the bickering give-and-take between Nanami and Tomoe. To bring in a couple of old American sitcoms, I was reminded of "I Dream of Jeannie" and "Moonlighting". I also ended up featuring the opening and ending themes, "Kamisama Hajimemashita" and "Kamisama Onegai"（神様お願い）, both by Hanae（ハナエ）.

Well, cue forward to January 2015. It doesn't happen too often but if the anime became popular and there was enough material in the source manga, a 2nd season does happen. And it did for "Kamisama Hajimemashita". So my anime buddy and I have been watching this new season for the past several weeks. The bickering has continued (despite that kiss between the two main characters at the end of Season 1) but the scope has expanded so that the couple with the help of new friends and old has been spending more time in the fantasy world.

In a way, I had been hoping that the new opening theme to Season 2 would be the old opening theme from Season 1, but that would be even rarer than a Season 2 happening, period. However, it is Hanae doing both opening and ending themes with the former being "Kamisama no Kamisama" (God of a God). For the first half of this new season, I wasn't quite sure about this new opening theme since it was very different in tone from the somewhat Japaneseque AOR beat of the original opener. But I can say now that it has grown on me. In fact, after another all-day session with my friend yesterday which included another couple of episodes from the show, the flittery flutes of "Kamisama no Kamisama" and Hanae's "...spinning around the world..." lyric kept playing over and over in my head last night as I tried to get some shuteye.

There's more of a traveling pace to "Kamisama no Kamisama" which befits the overall feeling of Season 2 although the melody still retains that Japaneseque flavour. And the opening credits which focused far more on Nanami's plight in Season 1 seem to have opened up to include Tomoe and the rest of the characters having a bit more fun, including a dance scene.

Another common point is that Shuichi Mabe（真部脩一）who had taken care of the writing and composition for the Season 1 opening theme was behind this song for Season 2.  For Hanae, this was her 7th single from January 2015 and it got as high as No. 25. The interesting thing I found out about Mabe was that he is the bassist for the band Sotaisei Riron（相対性理論...Theory of Relativity）, the same unit that has another whispery-voiced singer as the lead vocalist, Etsuko Yakushimaru（やくしまるえつこ）, who has also provided anison.

So, the take-away here is that we're all happy with our songs. However, I was surprised and delighted to hear the seiyuu for Nanami, Suzuko Mimori（三森すずこ）, sing "Kamisama Hajimemashita" during a montage scene for one episode.

Hanae -- Kamisama Hajimemashita （神様はじめました）

Over the past several months, I've been getting my fill of the latest anime. I did write one entry on a couple of the songs used in the mindbending "Mawaru Penguindrum". It was a crazily interesting show, and along with "Madoka Magica", they were pretty dark in nature. However, I also caught some lighter and lighthearted fare such as "Kamisama Hajimemashita"(Started Doing The God Thing) which came out late last year on TV Tokyo and was adapted from the manga by Julietta Suzuki. I just finished watching the series earlier this week and enjoyed it thoroughly. I'm not sure if any of you readers will remember or know some of the old American TV shows I'm referring to, but strangely enough, the story kinda reminded me of the 60s sitcom "I Dream of Jeannie" with Barbara Eden and the late Larry Hagman (later to become far more famous as the J.R. Ewing of "Dallas" fame), and the spiky banter between Nanami and Tomoe had me harkening back to some of the barbs that David and Maddie threw at each other in the 80s "Moonlighting" (yeah, I know, a bit of a stretch but the intent is still there). It was just a charming anime and it had one of the sweetest endings I've seen in some time.

I also have to say that I enjoyed the theme song by Fukuoka-born teenaged singer Hanae（ハナエ）, and since it was the first thing I heard from the anime, it gave me a good impression of the show from the get-go. Written and composed by Shuichi Mabe（真部修一）, this is her 3rd single, released in November 2012, and along with the ending theme of the show as the coupling song, it was able to get as high as No. 20 on the Oricon charts.

As much as I like the husky voices of chanteuses like Akina Nakamori and Kahoru Kohiruimaki, I guess I also have a thing for whispery tones, and hearing Hanae makes me think of Shibuya-kei singer Kahimi Karie to a certain extent. In addition, what makes the theme to "Kamisama Hajimemashita" appealing to me is Mabe's melody. I'm not sure if he used a real shamisen or if it's an amazing duplication on synthesizer, but I was a pretty big fan of the Japanese-American band, Hiroshima, way back when and they often used the shamisen for their AOR songs.

I guess, considering this is a 2012 song, it and the anime itself ironically contain plenty of nostalgic memories for me.

And here is Hiroshima's "One Wish", just to let you know what I mean.