This track is from Sashida Ikuya, who’s style seems to be buried in sappy ballads, but somehow he produced this interesting blend of Jazz and Rock, with the occasional dash of Pop. The song is called Spam, and it is the kind of tune that lodges itself in your head so you find yourself playing it over and over. To bad he can’t crank out a bunch of these; or maybe I just can’t find them with a search. It may be like Godley and Creme, who had an amazing run of killer songs with their bands 10CC and Godley and Creme, but when you search for them you only ever find two songs: I’m Not In Love by 10CC, and Cry by Godley and Creme. Songs like Rubber Bullets and Snack Attack never seem to come up.
Daisuki is an online streaming service created by a consortium of Japanese Anime companies. Some of the titles they are streaming this season include Sword Art Online II, the Irregular at Magic High School, and M3 the Dark Metal. It has taken them almost a year, but finally the first Daisuki App is available for the iPad or iPhone (word is they will have an Android version available soon). Unlike many of the premium streaming services, you don’t actually need a paid account to get to watch programs from them. You will still be limited to their free programs, or the first few free episodes from some of their paid programs, of course. But you only need a free registration from their web site to use their app, which puts them head and shoulders above most such applications, which require a paid subscription. And since even the free registration log in to their app allows you to stream a ton of videos not available anywhere else, you can’t really go wrong by signing up for this.
In Spring and Chaos we see the animated biography of Kenji Miyazawa. He was Japan’s most read and beloved modern poet. The film was released as a TV Special in 1996 to mark the 100th anniversary of Miyazawa’s birth, and while I do not know how they got permission to mirror it, it seems TokyoPop TV apparently did. Enjoy, and learn a bit about one of the worlds best artists, if you do not already know about him.
Sword Art Online will be kicking off season 2 in a few days, on Saturday the 5th. If you liked the first season, I recommend you sign up for a free account with Crunchyroll so you can see the second season quickly, watching each episode a week after it airs in Tokyo. If you REALLY like the show, you might want to consider getting a premium membership, so you can watch each one an hour after it airs in Japan.
「ソードアート・オンラインⅡ」トレーラー by AnimeSlovenija
The latest live action version of Lupin The 3rd is going to be hitting the big screen in Tokyo on August 30th, and I can’t wait to see it released in the US. The mastermind who created most of the original season was Hayao Miyazaki of Studio Ghibli, and the rest of season 1 was built by Masaaki Ōsumi. But they were building on strong foundations, taking the original 1905 character Arsène Lupin created by the brilliant French author Maurice Leblanc. Maurice’s Lupin was a perfect match for Doyle’s Sherlock, and the two contemporaries shared a rather large audience between them. When the 1971 TV series kicked off it was his grandson Lupin 3rd who incorporated all the James Bond elements and dragged the show into modern times. If you are not already a fan of this program, now is the time to learn all about it.
A new tune from Passepied, the song being Tokyo City Underground MV, and yes, the MV does mean Music Video. The lead vocalist is also a graphics artist and helps create the animations for her videos, as you may have noticed from Wednesday’s post. This track is from their new album, and will be in stores on June 18th, and available on iTunes at the same time. I also included another track which was from a mini-album released just a month or two back.