Aimi, Liella!, Reina Kondo, and Nanaka Suwa - Review of four fresh new voice-over songs to color your new life! Seiyu Artists Monthly - April 2021

With the arrival of slightly chilly spring, some of our readers may have started their new lives. In the April 2021 issue of "Monthly Seiyu Artist Bulletin," we have selected five groups of artists who will make their debut this month, or who have just started their careers. We hope you will enrich your Golden Week with music that is perfect for the "season of beginnings.

◆Aimi's single "ReSTARTING! (April 7, 2011)

Aimi made her debut as a voice actress in the spring of 2011, and has released five singles and an album so far. Her new single "ReSTARTING! is a pledge that her music will "start sounding" again, released about eight years after her last album.

Aimi wrote the lyrics for all the songs on this album. She wrote the lyrics to all the songs on the album in the hope that her music would be a source of support for others, and she wrote about her deepest feelings, which can seem negative and vulnerable, as they are. In the past, she has shown her cynical and dark side, which she calls "dark poems," on her TV show "Aimi's Perfect Woman," and also in her activities as "Team Y," a YouTuber unit with her best friends Mirai Sasaki and Ayasa Ito, she has shown her wide vision. In their activities as "Team Y," a YouTuber unit with their best friends Mirai Sasaki and Ayasa Ito, they often pay attention to other people, and they were told that they should rely on themselves without being overbearing during the time spent with these members. It is true that I have had more opportunities to see her as a human being without being a celebrity.

This direction was particularly evident in the serious piano rock song "Mayday," which sounds like a "distress signal" on a lonely night, and the sentimental rock tune "Love Letter," which is a song about a lost love after being stubborn with your significant other. And the song in which Ms. Aimi overcomes her own fears and doubts in her own heart, if not of the same quality as those, is the title track "ReSTARTING! is the title track, "ReSTARTING! The phrase "Hey, I still don't know what to do... Let's start again..." right before the chorus clearly shows her strong love for music and her impulsive excitement for it. As if in response to this sentiment, the track after the chorus gains a driving feel, which is also exhilarating.

The vocal aspect of "ReSTARTING! is basically sung with a dignified touch, almost like a natural voice, with a husky approach in the middle of the song, giving the impression of a shadow (this singing style was also used by Team Y when they covered YOASOBI's "Running Into The Night"). She may also have relativized and analyzed the characteristics of her singing voice in her own mind after taking some time off from her previous music career and gaining experience as a voice actor. At the time of her debut, her stoic side was evident in her singing voice, but now it has calmed down in a good way, making her lyrics more persuasive and sometimes more eloquent than the lyrics themselves.

In summing up the above characteristics of her lyrics and singing voice, this single is a reminder that Aimi is a person skilled in "self-awareness. As a side note, in the Team Y video, "Aimi-san," the "Aimi critic," talks about the background of the title song production and behind the scenes of the music video shooting. She is a different person from Aimi-san, but she also talks about detailed information that only she would know, so be sure to check it out.

Debut single "Hajimari wa Kimi no Sora" (April 7)

Media mix contents "Love Live! Super Star! Super Star!", a five-member unit formed in the spring of 2020 from the media mix content "Love Live! The name of the unit is a coined word that consists of "liere" (=to connect, to tie together), which means "Yugaoka," the name of the school, and "brillante" (=internal brilliance). The name was coined from the words "liere" (= to connect) and "brillante" (= inner brilliance), with the hope that the members will combine their inner brilliance like stars and become superstars. The phrase "Though my radiance is smaller than the light of a star, I have a feeling it will grow someday," which appears in the second chorus of the title track, is a symbol of the song's desire.

The dynamic drums in the chorus are also an important part of the song. Normally, the second loop of the chorus would have been a drum roll with the same 8 beats as the first loop, but instead, only the "1" loop of the chorus, which is the number of the beginning of the song, is a drum roll, This may have been done to heighten the anticipation of the "beginning" of the song. However, it is a phrase that is very much stuck in my mind.

After the second chorus, as if to foreshadow such a catch, the same phrase is inserted again in the chorus. Here, the magnificent sound depicted the star-filled sky that the girls would someday see, and through the flow to the big chorus, the future in which they would "hold hands" to overcome the night when they seem to be falling apart.

In the first chorus, the guitar was in the foreground, while the piano, strings, and drums were used in the chorus. If the former is considered a rock sound typical of "Love Live!" songs, the latter can be seen as a phrase that shows the song's will to spread its wings with originality. The drums alone give the song a lot of room for imagination (the performance is by Toyomu Tamada, who also played on the tricky and technical Gen Hoshino's "Creation").

) Other songs in this single, such as the brass-swinging coupling song "Dreaming Energy," were all unified by the band sound. Compared to past "Love Live! this is probably the first time that the band sound has been pushed so purely. I am very much looking forward to seeing what Liella! will bring to the stage in the future, from the youthful vivaciousness that is typical of school idols to the romanticism that goes well with topics such as constellations and the night sky, which are related to the unit name.

◆Rena Kondo debut single "Sakura Dancing in the Night" (April 14)

Reina Kondo is known for her roles as Hanana Ichinose in the TV anime "Slow Start" and Sakura Kono in "Horimiya. Her debut single "Sakura Dancing in the Cherry Blossom Night" was a piece of work that confirmed her high qualities as a singer and voice actress in both aspects.

The title song was used as the ending theme for the TV anime "Battle Athletes Undokai ReSTART! It is a pops number about "night cherry blossoms," a song about the loneliness of losing a loved one and the will to look forward to the future. As for the singing, Ms. Kondo's voice is smooth and seamless like silk, and the way it sprawls over the track raises expectations for her future as a singer.

The coupling track, "Listen - Rainbow at Midnight," is an orchestral musical piece. The song is structured in a storytelling style, and the bravado of the singer's voice increases in a gradient-like manner toward the chorus. Perhaps it is because she is known for her love of Disney that she was able to interpret the singing technique of this song with such high resolution. Her voice is completely different from that of "On a Cherry Blossom Dancing Night", which swings to the opposite side of the song, thanks to her "different acting" as a voice actress.

◆Nanaka Suwa 1st single "Cobalt no Kodo" (April 21)

The title song is used as the opening theme for the TV anime "Battle Asleites Daiundokai ReSTART! The song was produced by OSTER project, and according to aiko herself, "Sugoyaba Song" was created (Reference: OSTER project official Twitter ). Indeed, the song is a lively guitar-pop song with a jazz-style piano playing a light melody, as is typical of OSTER project, which in recent years has worked as an arranger for aiko and produced songs such as "Straw" and "Atashi no Koukou".

Incidentally, Ms. Suwa herself was surprised to hear that "I was told that the tone of a song like 'Cobalt's Heartbeat' is more like OSTER project's style" when compared to the songs they had provided in the past (see [Interview]: Nanaka Suwa sings her first anime theme song. (Reference: [ Interview] "Cobalt's Heartbeat," a refreshing song about the feeling of being on the starting line ).

In fact, from the first interlude to the A melody of the second number, the number of moves in the arrangement centered around the irregular drumming is tantalizing, and in the big chorus section, the vocals and guitar follow the same melodic progression, which instantly brings the excitement of the song to its zenith. The track has an unusually strong presence, but even when Suwa's voice, which excels in clarity, is layered on top of it, the song's sound compositional ability to hold together as a whole is astonishing.

The coupling track, "Gust Sparkle," was produced by micco and Tatsuya Kikuchi of marble, an organic pop unit famous for their work on the "Hidamari Sketch" series, which inspired Suwa to become a voice actor. In the aforementioned interview, Mr. Suwa commented on the song, "The fact that the D melody comes right after the second chorus is typical of marble, and I thought the lyrics were good, too.

The lyrics also look back on Suwa's life from her school days to the present. The lyrics also look back on Suwa's life from her school days to the present, and as she expands her vision of the future in which she will achieve even greater dreams, she sings that no matter how far she goes, there are "important things" that she "cannot touch". This is perhaps an abstract expression of the dreams and longings of "that day," which are his driving force, but the description of not being able to "touch" them forever paradoxically sounds like a message that there is no end to his journey, and it has a very emotional resonance. It also has a very emotional resonance. It is truly a song that could not be better suited to reflect on her career as an artist.

Other new talents are still waiting in the wings, even if we only pick up this month's releases, such as Akane Kumada's 2nd single "Brand new diary / Mahou no Kaze" released on April 21, and Tomori Kusunoki's 2nd EP "Forced Shutdown" released on the 28th of the same month. Kusunoki's works, in particular, will be introduced separately in the "Monthly Seiyu Artist Bulletin, Special Edition," so please take a look at that as well.

(Text by Kota Ichijo)