iowahawk: Feed Your Family on $10 Billion a Day

Erasing the deficit, made easy:

iowahawk: Feed Your Family on $10 Billion a Day

Weekly OP: Active Heart

The theme for the next few weeks: remakes. But you can't have a remake without an original, and here's one of the classics.

Gunbuster hopefully requires no introduction. If it does, I weep for you, and wonder just how you managed to read all the preceding posts. In any event, perhaps one of the seminal giant robot anime, its opening is quintessentially 1980s, yet has aged rather well. Perhaps better than the woman who sang it; Noriko Sakai, of course, made headlines in 2009 with her involvement in a drug scandal. Japan is extremely intolerant of such things, and so this fairly well marked the end of her career.

In 1988, though, all that was far in the future. The present was full of lots and lots of synthesizers.

Active Heart is a song that would not look out of place in the discography of A-Ha or WHAM! Yes, it's that... perky? The introduction is definitely very bouncy, and would make a good workout track, if you have the proper tight pants and leg warmers. It's also not very long, with the drum beat to establish things, and the familiar chords from the keyboard.

Noriko's voice is rather light and airy, and not as obsessively cute as jpop has gotten, later on. This was long before the moe boom, and while having a woman sing the opening song for a proper, manly robot show might be a little off, well, the fact that the manly robot show had primarily female protagonists might have altered things a bit.

In any event, her voice mostly carries the song. There is the drum and bass underlying it, in a fairly intense beat, but that's almost all for the instrumentals during the actual singing; there's little to get in the way of her voice, aside from the occasional backing vocals.

As such, though, the song feels a bit thin in places. Part of this is its length; at 3 minutes 22 seconds, it's fairly short for a song. Part of this is that it's not an especially complex song; there are no instrumental heroics in this piece, as it has a very straightforward chord progression. The bridge is almost an afterthought, and it took me a few listenings to remember just where it fell. So no guitar solos.

For all that, it's not a bad song. It's just not a very good song. Written, as it was, at a time when anime openings were just those, openings, and not necessarily made to sell singles, that isn't so surprising. Still, it does pale a bit, when compared to later songs. On its own merits, though, it does what an anime song is intended to do, which is catch the ear. It just happens that the overall effect of this song is to sound as if the album length version is just something they had to come up with because they already had the OVA-length version laying around.

Three of five stars, mostly from nostalgia.

Weekly OP: 明日へのbrilliant road

Well. It had to happen sometime. Finally, a Japanese anime opening song whose title involves actual Japanese.

Stellvia was one of many anime in the "annus mirabalis" of 2003, which saw so many other quality titles as Scrapped Princess, Planetes, Last Exile, and others. It's a lovely series, as the others were, and one I even rewatched a couple years ago, without disappointment. Well, too much; it's hard to remember that 4:3 was the standard aspect ratio for programming back then. How high definition has changed the scene.

Asu e no Brilliant Road is the opening for the series, and as such was also a gamechanger for its group, angela, who have gone on to a number of other anime openings and endings, as well as a general boost in their career. And it is also just about everything you would want in an anime opening.

There are little hints of synthesizer and drum in the vocal intro, before we jump with the full band compliment. They calm down again, though, as the first verse starts. The bass is almost in a call and response, with a bit of bells as well, before jumping into the first chorus.

This is, without, the wheelhouse of the song. atsuko's vocals work perfectly with a string ostinanto, and driving bass and guitar beats. atsuko, the vocal half of angela, has impressive vocal range, and she uses it in the lead in to the bridge. The bridge itself is, surprisingly, dominated by strings. Lovely, lovely touch.

Second verse much the same as the first, of course. The chorus comes again, and I do like how the voice just marches up and down the scale, giving the impression of walking. Into adversity? Of course. And then a second bridge, again dominated by strings. This might be the best part of the song altogether.

The end of the song is almost an afterthought, with another iteration of the chorus. All three parts of the band drive together, and finally fade into a last few, demanding notes of verse... and then an instrumental finale. We're left to drift away, with a few parting words of the drum, fading strings, and a last guitar riff.

This is a very good song. And like all good songs, the more you listen to it, and begin to pick it apart, the better it gets. This was for awhile on the CD I'd mixed together for running, and with good reason; it's quite motivational, though its pace is a bit too fast for using for running cadence. Five of five stars, and what would have been the best opening song of 2003... if it weren't for a little ditty called Dive in the Sky.

Weekly OP: metamorphose

It's the end of the world as we know it, and we feel... huh?

Believe it or not, Yoko Takahashi has done other songs than her signature Cruel Angel's Thesis, the bane of anime convention karaoke the world over, and also one of the best opening songs of all time. Certainly the most recognizable, and enough has been written about it, elsewhere, that anything I tried to say about it here could not do it justice.

So, I'll go back to something a bit newer, if that makes sense, and metamorphose. Kono Minikuku mo Utsukushii Sekai, or This Ugly Yet Beautiful World, aired in 2004, and was noted at the time for being a somewhat transparent retelling of Gainax's previous Mahoromatic. I don't intend to rehash those differences here, but it is useful as a starting point for the series, which concerns two cute girls who are intended to bring about the eradication of Earth. Cheerful, and yet it managed to wrap up in thirteen episodes.

The song itself is... well. I'd say it's about what one would expect from Yoko. She has a very distinctive voice, and she uses it to best advantage. I think, if there was a single knock against this song, it would be that it sounds too similar to Cruel Angel's Thesis. Both start with vocal solos, then jump into a driving rock beat. The first verses are similar in pacing and instrumentation. The refrains are are a bit different; here we lean on the strings, where in Thesis it's all about the backing vocals. The bridge in this case is a violin solo, where of course in Thesis you have the infamous guitar solo.

It's striking, actually, the similarities, and yet those similarities mean that metamorphose succeeds, in many of the same ways that Thesis succeeds. Yoko's low, sexy voice holds your attention, and she works well with the bass and strings, neither competing nor overpowering them. This song has a slightly less frenetic pace, but only slightly. There is something of the inevitable about this song. That the end of the world is already a given, and there's nothing for it but to march on, to even hasten its coming.

Instrumentally, it's somewhat interesting. The guitars are played in a way almost reminiscent of a harp arpeggio, which is neat. Lots of short, repeated notes in the guitar riffs, as well, and a bit of synthesizer thrown in for fun. I like the very subtle tapping of the cymbal in the bridge; it's very much like a ticking clock.

Four of five stars for this song, which for me put Yoko back on the map, after very few appearances after Evangelion.

the mideast, this ain't

The cheek of politicians is amazing.

For two years, the excuse presented for the fact that somehow a Democrat-controlled White House and Congress had such difficulty actually getting anything done (how long did that health care bill take again?) was because of the Party of No. Well and good. The Republicans definitely took an aggressive stance in that, and while I'm not fond of that sort of tactic, one has to concede that it was at least effective from their standpoint. You could call it obstructionism if you liked, I suppose, but whatever you think of it, it's hard to argue that it worked against them at the polls, which is, in American politics, the only goalpost that matters.

Of course, now state legislatures in Indiana and Wisconsin go into more or less open revolt, by fleeing into neighboring states in the dark of night, and refusing to come back and present a quorum. Now none dare call it obstructionism, because of course that would make it seem as if the conservative wing had the moral high ground. And that will never, ever be acceptable to most of those who report the news, and nor, I imagine, to many who read it. No, a prominent Wisconsin Democrat had the gall to say that it was the governor who was holding up the works of government, and not the fourteen who decided they didn't want to play anymore.

The indignant protests over the rights of unions are, of course, justified. Those who have descended on the Wisconsin state house have every right to protest, though I tend to think that they could find a better way to go about it, and certainly they seem intent on fulfilling every nasty stereotype normally levelled at the Tea Party (strangely, nobody seems to pore over their pictures to see how many minorities are hiding in the crowd). That I happen to severely disagree with their viewpoints on, say, collective bargaining, is irrelevant. What, exactly, gives elected officials the right to absent themselves from their elected posts, just because they disagree? Guess what: every elected body in history has had people who disagree. When you do disagree, the solution isn't to run away and prevent business from being done. It isn't to offer up a slew of amendments to delay a vote you know that you will lose. It's not to point fingers.

No. Your job, and your duty, is to stand up, speak your mind, cast your vote, and sit back down. You really feel your issue is that important? Explain, in words clear and compelling enough to command the assent of the governed, your case, and if the voters agree, they'll say so in November. How it can be said that the Wisconsin governor is the sticking point is amazing, and I find it very hard not to consider the fourteen missing representatives very petulant, very immature teenagers who, seeing they won't be able to have their way, decide it can't possibly be their fault.

The irony, of course, is that in Washington, luminaries such as Nancy Pelosi are already setting the stage to blame the opposition for causing a shutdown of government. If representatives not showing up for a quorum isn't a government shutdown, then I can't think of what is.

Sadly, I fear that this sort of thing will become the norm, if it hasn't already. All that talk about new civility, and dialing back the hateful rhetoric? Yes, we see now just how sincere those calls were now, don't we?

Weekly OP: Message

Listen to my song! Or not...

Message is an odd song. Normally, the point of an anime opening is to grab the attention, to be catchy and remarkably prone to hum or sing along. Message does not do that. At all. I suspect that my interest in this song is secondary to the anime to which it's attached, Sōkō no Strain (or, as it was released in the US, Strain: Strategic Armored Infantry). The anime itself is highly watchable; Wikipedia lists it as being loosely based on the Little Princess novel, but I hadn't gained that impression from watching it, and I think the comparison is fairly meaningless when it comes to watching the series, which I would recommend. But this blog is not about anime I like. Yet.

So. The song is done by YoKo, who is probably more familiar to most listeners as Yoko Ueno. Under that name, she's probably most familiar as part of Oranges and Lemons, the group which did the opening and ending songs for Azumanga Daioh, and as a separate duet, the ending for Scrapped Princess. She has a very high voice, but in this case she avoids the pitfall of being so shrill that I just don't want to listen at all.

In any event, YoKo here lends her voice to give this a somewhat ethereal feel. The notion of a fairy very much comes to mind. There's actually an almost Arabian feel to the lilt of her music. Probably something to do with the scale used. In any event, the sing-song nature of the song lends an airy quality.

The instrumentals both help and harm the song. I think the drum and bass are a bit heavy, but happily they restrict themselves largely to the refrains. The main parts of the song are almost all synthesizer, and they, too, use light notes, but played almost in a mournful tone. That I approve of, since a large part of the series is the protagonist's rather estranged relationship with her brother.

Downsides to this track? It is, as I noted before, not especially catchy. It very easily can blend into the background, which is not what an anime opening should be. On its own, it's not a bad song, but as a hook for a series I have to say it fails utterly. That said, I still find it pleasant listening, and somewhat a change of pace from the usual, frenetic pace of an anison. Call it... three of five stars.

Weekly OP: White Destiny

And no, it's not an ode to the KKK.

I'm reaching back a few years with this one, but it's still a decent anime, and since magical girls are in vogue lately, why not? White Destiny is the opening song to the somewhat forgotten Pretear, which aired in the dark ages of 2001. I remember buying the DVDs in late 2003, and it was always fun paying $30 for each disc of a three disc series. Now, of course, I grouse about paying $50 for a four disc series, and that's assuming I pay for it at all, and I have it on good authority that my desire to actually pay money for anime puts me in the minority. That is, however, another rant.

This rant is about a song, by the estimable Yoko Ishida. She's had a long and distinguished career; older fans will recall that she got her start with Otome no Policy, the ending song for Sailor Moon R, back in 1993. After that, though, she largely fell off the map until the turn of the century, specifically between Pretear and Ai Yori Aoshi. The latter was a complete snoozer, but this song is quality.

The song is carried, from beginning to end, by Yoko's voice; the intro has only a light instrumental accompaniment to her voice. Even past that, though, the main backing is a steady bass. It would be a dance beat, I think, if a bit faster, and with more drums. In any case, guitars are almost absent; it's just the bass, and a bit of synth. Little is there to distract from Yoko, who has a very pretty voice; not ultra high pitched, like many jpop singers, but also without the smokiness of some of the more sexy singers (Ogata Megumi, I'm looking at you).

The absence of a guitar solo is somewhat striking, actually. The bridge is again, bass and synth. And the odd thing is that it works. In some ways, I'd look at this as a bridge between the 1990s, and the more driven, guitarish 2000s opening songs. This song does not attempt to be light and peppy throughout. Nor does it try to be too moody, either. It's... determined, I would say, which is appropriate; the anime is intended to be a more empowered telling of Snow White, as evidenced by its subtitle.

Major points to take away from this song? the pacing is excellent, of course. The refrain is really what carries it, though, in the end. It continues in a falling scale, kind of, starting high and marching down low, with Yoko's voice giving the impression of running down a set of stairs.; a lot of short, broken notes add to that impression. And... it's not overdone. Everything about this song should really put it squarely in the category of mediocrity, and yet it manages to be engaging, catchy, and overall, good; that I'd still rate this in the upper echelon of anisons, even after ten years, is testament to that. Five of five stars.