I tried to balance it with the animation and let it fall apart as usual ─ ─ Tokyo Karankoron is peculiar in its sound!

Tokyo Karankoron is a five-member group fronted by two unique vocalists, Sensei on female vocals and Ichiro on male vocals. Their latest single, "Spice," is the ending theme song for the TV anime "Shokugeki no Soma. The theme of the song is food, and it is filled with a sense of happiness. The coupling song is a cover of a nostalgic anime song, which is related to cooking. How did it turn out?

Tokyo Karankoron = Smile. Spice" is filled with happiness at the dinner table.

─ ─ I know you have been asked this many times, but why "Sensei"?

Sensei: I'm a very slow-paced person. When we were practicing in the studio and everyone was talking about the songs, I was often drawing pictures by myself, or just sitting idle. I became "Sensei" because people would say to me, "Sensei, could you do something for me?

Ichiro- The first time I lifted it up as a joke.

──Each member has a nickname, doesn't he?

Ichiro- My name is the same as mine, but the guitarist Oita-chan's nickname is from when he was in college. My real name is Oikawa. Kamimu, the drummer, is a little older than the other members, but it was impolite to call him Mr. Kamimura, so he became Mr. Kamimu. These days, we call him Mr. Moo for short. The bass player, Sato Zenzoku, used to go by that name before he started working with us.

Sensei: He calls himself "Zenzoku" (laughs).

─ ─ They are all unique individuals, and their sound is twisted, or rather, it has a kind of hook that you can't listen to without playing along.

Ichiroo: That's right. I put a lot of thought into each guitar and drum phrase.

─ ─ On the contrary, the melodies are very easy to listen to. Who makes the melodies?

Ichiro- I often make the melodies, but this time, "Spice" is based on one that Sensei made. It was right around the time we were making our previous album (3rd album "UTUTU" released in January 2015), and we were all tinkering with Sensei's melodies when we heard about the ending of "Shokugeki no Soma".

Sensei When we were approached, we already had the chorus of the song.

Ichiro- The chorus melody seemed to fit "Shokugeki no Soma" and I thought it would be good. From there, we all worked together to build the intro, A-melody, and B-melody.

─ ─ This is the first tie-up for Tokyo Karancho Koron with a TV anime, isn't it? What did you think when you heard about it?

Sensei: It sounded interesting!　I thought. Then I wondered if we were the right people to do it. (laughs). Tokyo Karankoron is an elusive band in the good sense of the word that plays various types of songs, so I thought that the fact that they chose us meant that they liked Tokyo Karankoron itself. I was happy to think so.

───Did the anime production side have any requests?

Sensei: That I sing, and what else?

Ichiro- Since it is the ending theme, they wanted the song to be somewhat quiet, but also positive and cheerful, and they wanted to include phrases such as "gathering around the dining table together" and "eating together".

─ The resulting song, "Spice," is full of the happiness of eating together.

Sensei: We often smile in everyday life and at our live performances, and I think people have the image of Tokyo Karankoron = smiling.