ChouCho -- DreamRiser/Ankou Team -- Enter Enter MISSION!

Well, it's been quite the sluggish Monday. Humidex of 40 degrees Celsius on the first official day of summer and I had to attend the annual homeowners' meeting of our condo complex. Nope, not exactly the most entertaining time and I left as soon as the "Let's scream at the executive board" segment began. But the Timbits were delicious. In any case, I haven't had a go at the blog for a couple of days and I much prefer hitting the keyboard for this purpose than sitting for a couple of hours witnessing local conflicts.

Yesterday, though, was the usual get-together with my anime buddy and the highlight of the day was watching "Girls und Panzer: The Movie", the 2015 cinematic sequel to one of the sleeper hits of 2012. And yep, if you liked the original anime series, then you will like the movie. Even more characters, even more tanks, tons of banter on the order of "It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" and there was an important life lesson that all of us should learn:

WHEN IN DOUBT, GET IT DOWN IN WRITING!!

Plus, there was the usual stuff about gathering everyone together to fight the good fight, blah, blah, blah. And it was totally enjoyable with an amazing full-orchestral version on composer Shiro Hamaguchi's（浜口史郎）"Panzer Vor!". I was pretty much stamping my feet when that came on at the beginning. Speaking about enjoying it, enjoy the above Hollywood-ized trailer for the movie which was only lacking Mr. Movie Trailer Man.

Anyways, what I wanted to talk about was the opening and ending themes for the original anime from 2012. As much as Hamaguchi's amazing renditions of marches and original score enhanced the enjoyment of watching high school girls go on the attack in their tanks, my memory still remembers those two songs since they were so noticeably different from the score.

ChouCho's "DreamRiser", the opening theme to "Girls und Panzer"（ガールズ&パンツァー）could frankly have been the opening theme to any high school anime, but I guess director Tsutomu Mizushima（水島努）must have gone "What the hey...why not my show?" But hey, it did grow on me as time went on. Written by Saori Kodama（こだまさおり）and composed by rino, "DreamRiser" is the singer's 5th single which got its official release in October 2012.

ChouCho was also the singer behind "Starlog", the opening theme to the first entry in the "Prisma Illya" franchise, and like that theme song, "DreamRiser" has got that arrangement with what I call the disco strings that gave a number of songs by the J-R&B divas that nostalgic touch a decade previously. I think it certainly did a fine job helping out introduce the dozens of characters in the opening credits and gave that positive spin of going to school, even one as unique as Oarai Girls' High School.

According to the J-Wiki article on "DreamRiser", the song was approached by ChouCho by bringing together the singer's dreams of becoming a singer and the dreams of the main character of Miho Nishizumi. It got as high as No. 41 on Oricon.

Then, there is the ending theme as sung by the Ankou (Anglerfish) Team from the show. I went with that name for the title line above just to keep things brief but in the Labels section, I have put down all of the 5 seiyuu portraying the plucky main characters from the team:

Mai Fuchigami（渕上舞） -- Miho Nishizumi（西住みほ）
Ai Kayano（茅野愛衣） -- Saori Takebe（武部沙織）
Mami Ozaki（尾崎真実） -- Hana Isuzu（五十鈴華）
Ikumi Nakagami（中上育実） -- Yukari Akiyama（秋山優花里）
Yuka Iguchi（井口裕香） -- Mako Reizei（冷泉麻子）

A cute little tune with the ending credits to match, "Enter Enter MISSION!" was a nice way to finish off each episode but by the end of the climactic finale, the song suddenly took on a heart-swelling pride as the victorious Ankou Team paraded through the streets of Oarai. I was even a tad disappointed that the song didn't make an appearance in the movie although there was an orchestral excerpt sometime in the middle. The prolific Aki Hata（畑亜貴）provided the lyrics with Kana Yabuki and Hiroshi Sasaki（矢吹香那・佐々木裕）making the music. I probably wouldn't be surprised if the real Oarai Station had the song playing on the tracks whenever the trains arrived.

I figure that I will have to write about the famous "Ankou Ondo"（あんこう音頭）sometime soon.

Kanae Ito, Mai Nakahara, Kana Ueda and Mamiko Noto -- Romantic Strike （浪漫ちっくストライク。）

Well, another Sunday of anime and food. And I got to see more of the 2009 TBS anime "Taisho Yakyu Musume"（大正野球娘。...Taisho Baseball Girls）, the heartwarming tale of a group of high school girls in Taisho Era Japan trying to create their own baseball team. I did mention in the article for "Tokyo Bushi"（東京節）, the musical number that the main character of Koume sings in the first episode, that her performance was the only spot of zany humour I saw. Ah, once again I spoke too soon. Last night, I saw a couple of later episodes which were downright out in left field (pun fully intended) and then I came across the above YouTube capture of a scene that I will probably catch next time at my friend's place which covers the usual anime trope of walking through a scary forest. Much hilarity ensues.

The other observation was realizing how many well-known seiyuu were crammed into this show. Of course, back then perhaps not all of them were as famous as they are now, but still to know that a number of these ladies would end up in some of my favourite anime such as the "Fate/Stay Night" franchise, "Uchoten Kazoku"（有頂天家族）and "Gekkan Shojo Nozaki-kun"（月刊少女野崎くん）was enough to feel that with "Taisho Yakyu Musume", I was watching something even more special.

Anyways on to the topic of the article. The opening theme song "Romantic Strike" hasn't exactly become an earworm like seiyuu Kanae Ito's（伊藤かな恵）rendition of "Tokyo Bushi", and in fact, I had to refer to the video on YouTube to remember how exactly the song went, but still listening to it again with Ito and her fellow cast members Mai Nakahara（中原麻衣）, Kana Ueda（植田佳奈）and Mamiko Noto（能登麻美子）had me getting happy again. Written by rino and composed by Takayuki Hattori（服部隆之）who I just wrote about the other day for creating the dramatic soundtrack to the old PS1 game "I.Q.", the song is all sunniness and cherry blossoms that had me pining for some of the J-Pop tinged with a bit of disco or Shibuya-kei at around the turn of the century with Misia and bird among other singers. It was arranged by Kaoru Okubo（大久保薫）who would come up with an even breezier and happier anison some years later.

I love the horns in the opening credits but boy, do they turn loose in the full version of the song. Kinda wonder if Ito and company looked pleasantly surprised when the trombone and trumpet burst out in the second verse. "Romantic Strike" managed to hit a double of sorts when it reached No. 58 on Oricon.

Minori Chihara -- Arigato, Daisuki (ありがとう、だいすき)

Well, about a week ago, I wrote about the opening theme song for "Nagato Yuki-chan no Shoushitsu"（長門有希ちゃんの消失...The Disappearance of Nagato Yuki-chan）, "Fure Fure Mirai"（フレ降レミライ）which has those echoes of the crazy-popular ending theme from the original "Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu"（涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱...The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya）.

However, I have to say that I fell for the ending theme for "Nagato Yuki-chan" first. There is something about Minori Chihara's（茅原実里）singing of "Arigato, Daisuki" (Thank You, I Love You) that just summed up her character of Yuki-chan in this new, non-cosmic world that I wouldn't have thought possible with the original reality-warping version.

The version for the TV series was fine enough but then on hearing the full version, I just thought that she was going for the full Celine Dion...and that's not a bad thing here. As with "Fure Fure Mirai", the song was written by Aki Hata（畑亜貴）but the music this time was provided by rino.

I've heard Chihara sing the other themes in the "Haruhi" franchise, but with "Arigato, Daisuki", I think, especially in the first several seconds, that she sounds like a higher-pitched version of Ayaka Hirahara（平原綾香）. In any case, the song was released as her 22nd single in June 2015. On the regular Oricon charts, it managed to peak at No. 15 while on the Billboard Japan Hot Animation charts, it made it as high as No. 9.

There are only 3 more episodes left for me to watch in "Nagato Yuki-chan" after the past month of psychological melodrama, so things might be getting a bit lighter again. My only hope is that Yuki-chan decides to pick up an electric guitar and rock out on the stage.

Minami Kuribayashi, Miyuki Hashimoto, Faylan, Aki Misato, yozuca*, rino -- Super Affection （すーぱー☆あふぇくしょん）

Ahhh...the alternate universe plot....the o-toro (fatty tuna) of the sushi platter that is science-fiction/fantasy. It's always fascinating to sample but not particularly healthy to have on a regular basis (and no, I didn't get into "Fringe" past the first season). The trope has been there for decades. The earliest example I can remember is from Capra's Christmas classic, "It's A Wonderful Life". But then arguably, the most well-known geek example is that 2nd-season episode from the original "Star Trek", "Mirror, Mirror" when Kirk and some of the Enterprise crew end up in the Mirror Universe and come face-to-face with the supposedly evil Mr. Spock...with the beard.

Anime isn't exactly a stranger to alternate universes either. "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya" (2006)? Meet "The Disappearance of Nagato Yuko-chan" (2015). And also this season, I've been watching the epic "Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works" (2014) with a very robust dose of sword & sorcery. Plus, there's been quite a lot of heaviness and darkness during the last few episodes including one episode in which one of the characters meets a very brutal and sad demise. It was so depressing that both my anime buddy and I agreed that we needed to re-watch the much happier and fluffier alt-universe version that starred that dead lass, "Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya" (2013).

When I think of the above two anime franchises, I wonder if anime production houses actually use the alternate universe gimmick to provide solace to everyone involved: writers, animators, audience and voice cast. Your favourite character gets sliced to ribbons? No worries....here's an alt-universe show where he/she buys ribbons!

Then, I found out that there was yet another alt-universe version which came in earlier in 2011 called "Carnival Phantasm" which not only stars the cast from "Fate/stay night" but another franchise, "Tsukihime", all put together in an absolutely madcap set of situations that seems to be a shout out to productions such as "Robot Chicken", "South Park". "Wacky Races" (that's going waaaaaay back) and "Yogi's Gang" (the "Ocean's Eleven" of Hanna-Barbera). If I ever get too down from watching Shirou and Rin bleeding all over the floor on "Unlimited Blade Works", I can just watch them goofing about on "Carnival Phantasm".

And then there is the opening theme which had me at the first WhoaWHOA. To bring in another pop cultural trope, I got hit with an earworm again. "Super Affection" and that Busby Berkeley-like dance sequence in the opening credits was just too much for me...I ended up watching the video a few times since I couldn't quite believe the normally dour Rin and Saber energetically waving their arms and kicking up their heels.

"Super Affection" was written by Aki Hata（畑亜貴）, whom I'm starting to think is on the way to becoming the Yu Aku（阿久悠）of modern-day anime (I just seem to see her everywhere in the credits), and composed by Masatomo Ohta（太田雅友）. Quite the crowded recording studio as well with Minami Kuribayashi（栗林みな実）, Miyuki Hashimoto（橋本みゆき）, Faylan（飛蘭）, Aki Misato（美郷あき）, yozuca* and rino, only one of whom I know because of Marcos V's articles on her. For me, I think it's not only the cheerful melody that hooked me but also because of those WhoaWHOAs. And those WhoaWHOAs even remind me of an old Morning Musume（モーニング娘。）song, "Ren'ai Revolution 21"（恋愛レボリューション21）.

I'm not sure how "Super Affection" did on the rankings but I kinda wonder if the anime fans had a good time with this one in the karaoke boxes.

A very inside joke to finish off the article, but since I have been writing about alternate universes as a form of spiritual reassurance, perhaps it wouldn't be too much to ask for "School Days: Nice Boat" with some cute and goofy and non-homicidal high school students?