Krv and the Wild World of Anisongs

So, before I got into this whole idol thing I was quite into anime. I still watch quite a few, but I have anime to thank for me learning Japanese in the first place and for opening my eyes to the rather madcap world of Japanese music. Of course, just like most of the rest of J-pop, anisongs run the whole breadth of the musical spectrum from the cutesy happy pop of Koharu's oft-disturbing anime themes to dark and peculiar tracks which I'll likely outline a few of in the post. I'll likely avoid any idols this post, as to be honest, Momoclo's Mouretsu just blows all other idol anisongs out of the water so there's no point.

So, to start, I'll give you the first anime song I ever heard, due to it being the theme of the first anime I ever watched. It's called Sakura Saku by Hayashibara Megumi. The OP for Love Hina, it's pretty damn crazy. The bassline was more insane than a great deal I'd ever heard at the time, and the cutesy voice plus guitars made me wonder what insane world I'd reached. I did try to tab it, but I failed spectatularly. I was young then. Relistening I'm surprised I've not listened to it a lot more. Probably confused me too much back then so I just sort of glossed over it in my head. Now, however, I'm able to truly appreciate its mild insanity and love it better for it.

After this I experimented far and wide with pretty much any anime that would have me, and gave up on most of them. However, I got hooked on a new manga, which was to seal my fate, as it were. Called Mahou Sensei Negima, helpfully penned by Love Hina's mangaka Akamatsu Ken, it drew me in with its massive cast of cute girls, a Welsh kid, and fantasy. And vampires. And robots. And time travel. And magic. And huge-assed battles. Being a Sci-Fi/Fantasy nerd I couldn't pass it up, and indeed, I ended up scanlating some of it with a certain now-deceased HQ scans group. The manga is now finished and the ending was an ill-thought out mess, but it did provide me with 355 chapters of distraction. Likewise, it received a ridiculous amount of anime adaptions, all of which broke the story in some way. The first adaption had a cool theme song which I did eventually tab. It also had a huge amount of versions which sort of melded into one. It was called Happy Material. Either way, I was pretty hooked. One of the so-called "character songs" also really enthused me. Performed by the seiyuu for the vampire, robot and ghost, it was called Maze of the Dark, and gave me my first hint of metal in Jpop. After the first anime came a weird Shaft-produced adaption, which was more a crazy Shaft-style anime than it had any links to the source material. However, it did get me hooked on Shaft (which comes in handy later in the post) and gave me 1000% Sparking, another mildly insane OP. One day I actually got mildly bored and did a death metal karaoke. Very bored, in fact.

Anyway, from there, we enter the twilight zone of the weird and wonderful.

Ebichuu's Immaculate Return to Achieve Final Victory For The Glory of the Vampire Race

Subtitle: C-C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER!

With wu's recent delightful spamming to keep this blog alive, and with me being virtually deceased due to getting involved in some hideously complex processes known as a) making films and b) getting my ass into gear and finally getting a photobook printed, I figured it was high time I made a post. Just as I thought that, I saw Ebichuu's new video and thought, "aha! Perfect." And then I saw the rest of the video and my "perfect" turned into a "YOU MOTHERFUCKERS!!!!!!!!!!!" type of thing, though probably not for the reasons you may (or may not) be thinking.

Also apologies at the start for what will likely be an incredibly illogical post, I've been battling my ISP all day and likely will do so several more times before the post is finished, so it may start semi-coherent and then descend into a mass of feeble writhing over an increasingly bloody pane of glass.

So, the PV:

Momoiro Clover Z - 5th Dimension Review

So, the time has come. The time of reckoning. The opening of the wormhole to the next and 5th Dimension. The progression of Momoiro Clover Z to ever greater heights.

Or something.

It's worth pointing out at this point that Battle and Romance was one of my favourite idol albums ever, and if I hadn't actually reviewed the second disc it would have been even higher. The bar is thus set rather high from the start and there's no shame in falling short of the exacting requirements needed to better the first album. Still, with luck (and a great deal of hope), this album won't fall anywhere. It may even surprise me and match (or possibly even better) the first. We shall see.

I'll start off with a word of warning. This post is a bit wordier than I planned. Also, you might want to keep your mouse handy to hover over the text, this post is link heavy, but the new theme doesn't really draw any attention to them whatsoever.