Yoshinoh Aoyama, Haruka Kudo, and fripSide -- three new releases to highlight the spring of departures and farewells! Seiyu Artists Bulletin, April 2022 issue

In the April 2022 issue, we picked up three albums by Yoshinoh Aoyama, Haruka Kudo, and fripSide.

The focus of this issue is on "works that mark a turning point for each artist. Beginnings are always glorious. At the same time, a beginning is the beginning of the end. But it is better to have fun than to have nothing. I would rather count the happy memories than the sad ones. With these thoughts in mind, we are at the beginning of a glamorous story and a transitional period in which we are convinced of our own expression. From there to the end of the long history, I would like to trace back the flow of time that took place over the past month.

Yoshinoh Aoyama 1st digital single "Page" (released March 9)


With the warm arrival of spring, a voice actor artist made his debut exactly three years after the breakup of Wake Up, Girls! Yoshinoh Aoyama, a member of the same unit.


Her debut song, "Page," was written by Aoyama herself and composed by Kana Yabuki, who has written songs for her beloved Saori Hayami. The song is inspired by the image of a "blank white page," and the dazzling morning is superimposed on the anticipation of her future activities. The listener's thoughts and feelings are gradually lifted as if the sun were rising.

In addition to her experience in Wake Up, Girls! I could tell that she has already found her own singing voice, which is not a character.

The most important point is that after the end of her Wake Up, Girls! activities, she wanted to organize her own live performances, and as an extension of that, she wrote original songs, which eventually led her to this solo career. In other words, she started her music career from an approach opposite to that of many voice-over artists. In this respect, too, it could be said that Ms. Aoyama "became an artist by choice.

Haruka Kudo's first full album "Ryusei Ressha" (released March 30)

It has been exactly two years since her debut as an artist in March 2020. As if to prove the confidence she has gained through her experience as an artist, Haruka Kudo has finally completed her first full-length album, "Ryusei Ressha" (Shooting Star Train).

As in the past, the format of the album remains unchanged, with Ms. Kudo writing the lyrics and Koji Hiraji, known for sound production for the idol group PassCode, writing and arranging the music. The theme of the work is "Train, Passenger, Life, and Journey," and 12 stories derived from the starting number "Tabidachi (Departure)" are told. All of them are about someone's life. The details will be explained later, but the important point of this work is that while it is based on the concept of "journey" and "life," it dares not to depict a single story throughout the entire work.

The third track, "Utopia," is a mischievous rock song with hip-hop elements, such as the choice of words, "Double up," and the foot rhyme before the chorus, and the middle track, "Hop," or "Utopia" by "Car No. 3," is the first song of the album. After "Utopia," the middle part of the song, "HOPE" and "Home Road," turned into relaxing mid-tempo numbers. The bluesy guitar ballad "Ieji" was dedicated to Kudo's nephew, who had not been born long.

Car 9's "No scenario" is a late-2000s rock song. However, after the first number, the sound and composition switched dizzyingly every few 10 seconds from there. It was almost like another song was being played one after another. The fact that one can never predict what will happen next is just as "scenario-less" as the title of the song itself, but the way in which the different songs are so neatly connected together, as if by a beat change or DJ-like thinking, is very typical of Mr. Hiraji (such a thing is not uncommon in his music). (Mr. Kudo, who writes lyrics to such songs and sings them, is also too frightening). From there, with the last number "Tread this Earth," the album we have in our hands reaches the end of the line for the time being. ......

This is only my impression, but I felt that this album has a lot of blank space, like a so-called "riddle story". At what point in the past, present, or future are the songs sung? Who is the subject of the songs? While the lyrics are very specific, with blood in the lyrics that approach a single person, focusing on the cries of the heart, regrets, and even rebelliousness at times, the aforementioned timeline and the position of the main character remain abstract (perhaps this is why Kudo's vocals are often auto-tuned). The song is not a song about the main character, but rather a song about the song's theme.

At the same time, the themes of this work, "train, passenger, life, and journey," can all be considered almost equal in their relationship. Life is a journey, and trains, like life, keep going even when we do not want them to, and passengers, including us, are the subjects of that life, that journey. We happen to gather at a train or station, a place where we feel a sense of romance for some reason. We do not know who the passenger next to us is. Still, they too must have a story to tell about their lives.

The story of each song in this film, which is like a short story, can be taken as an ensemble drama of strangers who happen to meet each other, or as a series of monologues in different scenes? Perhaps Kudo's goal is to allow listeners to take the story in a variety of ways.

I wonder if there are hearts I lost at the stations I couldn't get off at.

A billion words can be applied to a single melody.

There is no answer.

I'll be born again, born again, born again, again and again

Yes, I'll take you with me, just this song.

Incidentally, reading the lyrics of "Tabidachi (Departure)" quoted above, the author also thinks that most of the songs in this album are about the protagonist of the song who, while going about his own life, thinks about the "if" stories in the "stations he could not get off at". Life is short, but we can look back on the past. Life is short, but there must be time to look back on the past and change the present. In other words, boarding the "meteor train" may be synonymous with facing one's own weakness in order to be "reborn again.

fripSide's second and last album "infinite synthesis 6" (released on March 23)


Finally, let me talk about something a little sad. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the group's formation, and Aino Nanjo is graduating from fripSide. This summer will mark 14 years since she took over the position of the first vocalist, nao. While there is still room for challenges in the current structure, her graduation was decided for reasons such as fulfilling the unit's promise of a "vocal rotation system," which had been planned from the beginning but postponed.

This work "infinite synthesis 6" is, so to speak, the "graduation work" of fripSide "Phase 2". The songs are based on the "Toaru" series, which is synonymous with the band, and include "worlds collide," the opening theme for the second season of "Toaru Majutsu no Index: Gensou Shoushoku" and the lead song "endless voyage," which is a return to the roots of the band's sound. The use of a high-pitched synth at the beginning of a bar for just one beat, or the way the melody is carried, one can really feel the history that fripSide has spun out.

I remember well how composer Satoshi Yaginuma once described this kind of sound as "an unmistakable sense of impermanence. This characteristic can also be felt in "Your breeze" and "regret," which he created before fripSide was formed and reincarnated the songs of the time, not wanting to leave anything behind when Nanjo joined the band for the last time. The former, in particular, has a particularly fresh atmosphere compared to his previous songs, which seem to include a touch of 1990s Eurobeat.

Speaking of Nanjo's lyrics, the 10th song, "With falling snow," embodies the stylistic beauty of the unit in a good way. fripSide is known for winter songs. The aforementioned sound of "a sense of impermanence" is a sadness that has been fostered by innocence. ...... The song depicts the lost love of two people who should have had feelings for each other in the most delicate and scenic way possible. In fact, many of Nanjo's works, such as "Secret of my Heart," still have a strong base of support even after nearly eight years since their release.

Above all, listening to "endless voyage" (written by Ms. Yaginuma) and "Dear All" (written by Ms. Nanjo), you will realize how precious the paths they have taken are. I would like to quote a verse from both songs as follows

The place where I arrived with you, overflowing with light

I held on to each memory that glittered endlessly

I flapped my wings in my dreams, the strongly drawn trajectory

I'll keep engraving it in my heart with this sound and this song.

(endless voyage)

What do you think about? The time we spent walking together, hold on to those feelings.

If you look back, may this present shine brightly

I'll be here today, singing to the future

(Dear All)

Especially "Dear All" is like a letter left by Ms. Nanjo. It is a message that is clearly directed toward this side of the audience, and includes the ending "〜ne", something that has never been used in her previous songs. The phrase "Today, too, I am here..." conveys the tense, quiet atmosphere that pervades the recording booth. When we listen to this song again, she may no longer be the vocalist of fripSide. Even so, ......, we can look back and realize that there was a small amount of time left, and we can still look back and chew on that by saying "even today," a phrase that will soon become part of the past.

Looking back, the existence of fripSide "Phase 2," which has been active for more than 10 years, has been a "place you can return to anytime" for many people. Touching the familiar digital music reminds us of our youth, and gives us the courage to connect to the present. It is precisely because the unit's "character" was firmly established from the beginning of its activities that it has been loved for so long.

Less than a month remains until Ms. Nanjo's graduation performance, the final live at the end of April. In the few remaining hours before that day, I would like to spend more time with fripSide's music than ever before, and enjoy the memories of their music.

By the way, have you released Nanjo-san's "Kikkaku ni Kishimasu Uta" (Song that Forcibly Ends) and Yaginuma-san's "Dice Tour" yet?

(Text by Kota Ichijo)

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