This is Yukikane Nishizawa!　Powerful vocals and performance on her new song "The Asterisk War".

Yukikane Nishizawa is releasing "The Asterisk War," the new opening theme for the second season of "Gakusen Toshi Asterisk," as her third single on May 25, 2016. Its speedy sound and powerful voice have been praised as soon as it went on-air on TV. Even more powerful is the music video for "The Asterisk War" available on Youtube. It is an imposing work that gives the impression of a rock singer's stature. Here we see a figure that has grown up a lot in the year since her debut.

I sang about the feelings of the characters fighting in the Asterisk War.

─ ─ "The Asterisk War" is a cool song!

Nishizawa Thank you very much. It's a rock song with digital elements, and it's my favorite song too. The opening video for "Gakusen Toshi Asterisk" also moves very well with the song. It was so cool that I watched it over and over (laughs).

───The song was composed and arranged by West Ground, the same composer and arranger as your previous work " Brand-new World ".

Nishizawa: The first demo I listened to was just the orchestra, but the A melody with the two guitars cutting different rhythms was cool. I was convinced that this was going to be a great song! I was convinced that it was going to be a great song.

───Didn't you get a good idea for the lyrics?

Nishizawa: It's still difficult to write lyrics, but in the end, the feeling of "This is so much fun! I feel like I'm having a lot of fun. I wrote the lyrics while thinking about the story of "Asterisk" and at the same time thinking about what I myself would like to hear as the opening song of the anime. In the end, I thought that ani-songs are great.

─ I felt that the lyrics were also lined with active words that matched the tone of the song.

Nishizawa: I wrote "Brand-new World" about the bond between the hero, Ayato, and the heroine, Yuris, but this time I focused on what it means to fight in Asterisk (another name for Rokka, a waterfront school city where six schools compete for supremacy). I wanted to express what I wanted to express the most. What I wanted to express the most was the mental strength of the students fighting in Asterisk and their determination to stand there with their various thoughts and feelings.

They each have their own passionate feelings, but fighting means that there will be winners and losers.

Nishizawa: There is a lot of drama in a fight. When I watch the anime, I tend to root for the main characters, but I realized that the opponents also have various feelings and circumstances.

─ What do you particularly like about the lyrics?

Nishizawa: The last part of the chorus, "This is The Asterisk War. Everything we have sung up to that point is a battle in the asterisk. When I heard the melody, I had a gut feeling that this was the only word to use here! I had a gut feeling that this was the only word to use. So I tried to apply the words, and they fit the notes perfectly. The director said, "I like it," and I was very confident about this part.

───Maybe this part of the lyrics was the first to be written?

Nishizawa: No, I wrote the lyrics from the beginning. I had to think through the lyrics to come up with them, and I had a lot of trouble writing them, but at the end of the chorus, the words just came to me. I thought, "This kind of thing can happen.

I practiced guitar actions at home.

─ How was the recording?

Nishizawa: It was a very difficult song. But I feel that I was able to make the vocals more emotional than in "Brand-new World. I think I was able to sing the song powerfully while chewing each word. I had a lot of fun recording the song, discovering that even though I wrote the lyrics myself, I could actually interpret the words in this way.

─ Perhaps it is because time has passed since you wrote the lyrics, and you can be objective.

Nishizawa: That's right. When I first wrote "Brand-new World," I thought it was a powerful lyric that pushed people who were working hard, but recently, when I listen to it, I feel as if I am being comforted... It is an interesting thing about lyrics that the way they are interpreted changes. The Asterisk War" also made me wonder if I might realize the deeper meaning of the lyrics in the future. When I become more mature, I may feel that I was young back then (laughs).

─ ─ I hope you will continue to sing this song even when you grow up. The music video is now on view, and it is also very cool.

Nishizawa Thank you very much. I am so confident that I thought, "Wow, this is cool! I am so confident in this work that even I thought, "Wow, it's cool! (Laughs) Until the previous work, I was so focused on doing it right that I didn't have time to think about how I wanted to express myself. But this time, I was able to communicate with the staff better than in the previous work, and I was able to be proactive and make suggestions on how I wanted to work. I am now able to actively make suggestions on how I would like to work with them. Once again, I felt that I was working together with them on the production.

───Can you tell us what you are particular about?

Nishizawa: First of all, I tried to make the performance with the guitar much more advanced than that of "Brand-new World. I watched videos of various female artists and studied them at home.

─ So you practiced on your own at home?

Nishizawa Yes, in the mirror. I am short, so I often could not get into the same movements as other people. I enjoyed the process of making the action my own. I was absorbed in the process in my room.

─ ─ The guitar action was great, but I also felt that your eyes seemed to have more power when you were staring into the camera.

Nishizawa: Yes, I was very particular about the eyes. I practiced how to make my eyes look at the camera. It was interesting, because I would never face my own face so closely unless I had to do something like this (laughs). In the chorus, there is a part that says, "Go strong and chop it," and in the recording, I squeeze my voice to sing the "za" sound in the chorus. I was conscious of trying to make the actions and eye contact more powerful to match the song.

─ ─ No wonder the music video has been so well received by fans.

Yes, it is the theme song for the PlayStation®Vita game "Gakusen Toshi Asterisk Festa: Houka Gorgeous". It is an intense song, just like the "Asterisk" songs.

─ You also wrote the lyrics to "Brilliant Star" yourself.

Nishizawa: I wrote the lyrics to go along with the storyline in which the player becomes the main character and aims to win the Festa championship while getting along with the partner of his/her choice. The theme is "kizuna" (bonds).

─ Was it difficult to write a series of lyrics based on the same worldview?

Nishizawa: It was hard (laughs). (Laughs.) If you have an extensive vocabulary, it probably wouldn't have been so difficult, but when you are writing each song without sparing any words, you may find yourself saying, "Oh, no, there are the same words as in the previous song.　But in the end, I was able to find a different overall theme, and I think that the lyrics give a different impression from "The Asterisk War".

─ What is your impression of the music?

Nishizawa: It has a rock, yet glitzy feel to it. There are a lot of synth sounds, and the song has a sci-fi feel to it.