Credits

I would like to give credit where credit is due. Videos are from YouTube and other sources such as NicoNico while Oricon rankings and other information are translated from the Japanese Wikipedia unless noted.

Friday, October 24, 2014

Petits Rabbit's -- Daydream Café/Chimame-tai -- Poppin' Jump (ぽっぴんジャンプ)


According to the good folks at Wikipedia, an earworm is "...a catchy piece of music that continually repeats through a person's mind after it is no longer playing...The word earworm is a calque from the German Ohrwurm...first used in the 1980s".

I myself also like to envision the earworm as the Ceti Eel used to torture and subdue Commander Chekov and poor Captain Terrell in the original version of "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" all the way back in 1982. One wonders whether a German Trekkie was inspired by that movie to come up with the name for a song that just...blast it all...won't leave your mind.


For this year, I've got a couple of those aural larvae hanging out in my brain, and they just happen to come from the same anime. My buddy unleashed "Gochuumon wa Usagi desu ka?"(ご注文はうさぎですか?...Is The Order A Rabbit?)on me earlier this year, complete with the opening and ending themes. As for the show itself, it was adapted from a manga, and it's basically a pleasant half hour of watching 5 cute girls going through life while working at 3 different cafés in a small European-type town. Mind you, among those kids are a girl with a sister complex, a future NRA member and a moe version of Mr. Spock (yes, another "Star Trek" reference). Bringing in the foodie analogy, when I view "Space Cruiser Yamato" as some serious kaiseki ryori and "Space Dandy" as delectable junk food, "Gochuumon wa Usagi desu ka?" is basically a nice cup of coffee with a small slice of strawberry shortcake. And I do appreciate my cup of joe and shortcake.


"Daydream Café" is the opening theme, and just like the show itself, it is an adorable and breezy ditty featuring all of the 5 main seiyuu put together as the group Petits Rabbit's (as a former English teacher, that apostrophe in there annoys me to no end). Written by Aki Hata(畑亜貴)and composed by Kaoru Okubo(大久保薫), it is as sugary as a Xmas candy cane but without the added calories and can almost get me to skip on the street whenever I hear it...over and over again. I was surprised to find out that Petits Rabbit's Ayane Sakura(佐倉綾音), Inori Minase(水瀬いのり), Risa Taneda(種田梨沙), Satomi Sato(佐藤聡美)and Maaya Uchida(内田真礼)even pull off a nice little song-and-dance in the official music video as above.



Ceti Eel II is the ending theme, "Poppin' Jump" by Chimame Tai( チマメ隊). Inori Minase is joined by Sora Tokui and Rie Murakawa(徳井青空・村川梨衣)who voice two of the minor characters, and the name chimame is an acronym of the three characters of Chino, Maya and Megu who are classmates. If anything, "Poppin' Jump" is even cuter than the opening theme and if taken in large doses, could induce uncontrollable hopping just like the titular animal in the show's title. As it is, though, it has just gotten me to sway my head. Still, it is what it's doing inside my head that's been the problem. I can blame the creators of the song, Uran(うらん)and Yuuki Kimura(木村有希)for making me feel like a 5-year-old at Xmas time.


"Gochuumon wa Usagi desu ka?" will most likely not enter the annals of significant anime in the 2010s (note from 2019 me: Oh, really?) but neither will it send me to bed racking my brain about what the meaning of life is or trying to purge existential horrors. And you know what? The songs there are probably what I would like to hear in my brain when I enter and exit a particularly welcoming small café...not a Starbucks or even a Timmies.


Tiramisu and coffee at Cova
in Shinjuku Times Square

6 comments:

  1. Hi, J-Canuck.

    Thanks for this entry. I just had lots of fun with it, especially with the seiyuu's video.

    As for the songs, "Daydream Cafe" was the one that really caught me. That chorus is irresistible (every song with "pyon pyon" in the lyrics is a winner), and it just made me remember lots of cute anime songs from the 90s that I sometimes listen to in Megumi's albums.

    Also, thanks to you, I'm still listening to "Witch Activity". And now you just introduced me to another guilty pleasure.

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    1. Always a pleasure, Marcos. Both tunes make me wanna reach for that cup of strawberry milk. Still enjoying "Witch Activity", eh? I think that's still burying itself somewhere in my cerebellum as well.

      To return my thanks as well, I actually picked up "Partition Love" by Tokyo Girls' Style while I was in Japan. :) I will probably get the especia discs around Xmas.

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    2. I always listen to "Witch Activity" and the single's b-side, "Saturday Night"when I need a cute and upbeat song. Now I'll put "Daydream Cafe" on this list as well. Also, the seiyuu's video is a jewel. The girls are very cute.

      I still have to buy Tokyo Girls' Style and Especia albums, but, as you probably know well, we always have many things to buy, but never enough money. And now I have a big problem, because I'm thinking about getting some Naoko Kawai's releases (a singles collection and the great AOR-tinged "Daydream Coast" album) around Christmas, so TGS and Especia are gonna wait a little more.

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    3. Yes, I was rather surprised to see the seiyuus actually dressing up like their characters and perform the song...but at the same time, they look like the oldest aidoru group currently around. :)

      I totally sympathize about so much to desire but not enough money to buy them all. If I'm given enough time, there will be at least another dozen albums I want to get...Especia's output being two of them.

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