The latest ani-songs with solid royalty but strong pop-ness! Hiroyuki Deguchi's "Just Shut Up and Listen to Anime Songs! in Winter 2019".

Hello to all 10 million anime fans in Japan. I am Hiroyuki Deguchi, a wandering bassist and DJ focusing on anime and special effects songs.

I've been writing a column called "Just Shut Up and Listen to Anime Songs!

Thanks to your support, I will be continuing this column in 1019. Thank you very much.

The article I wrote at the end of last year with Hiromi Samejima, comedian and ani-song DJ BAN BAN BAN, summing up the ani-song of 2018, has been well received in various places. There are many things we have not talked about enough, and there is a growing momentum to revive the talk event we held in 2017, so we would like to hold a talk event this year to enjoy anisong from various angles on the theme of anisong.

We will borrow the help of Akiba Research Institute! This is important!

Thank you all for your cooperation! This is also important!

⇒Hiroyuki Deguchi and Hiromi Samejima will talk about ani-song in 2018! Year-end special "Just Shut Up and Listen to Anime Songs! Long dialogue!

Now, some of you may be reading this column for the first time, so let me give you a brief explanation of this column.

This is a column in which I listen to all the opening and ending songs of each season's anime and choose 10 songs based on my own subjective judgment. I listened to all the opening and closing songs of each anime series, and selected 10 songs based on my own subjective judgment. You didn't include this song! Redo it!" I'm sure there are some who will say, "Oh, there's another way to listen to these songs," but I hope you enjoy reading this column.

This is the 2019 winter anime, and I have the impression that each work has a distinct color this season. The anime is currently airing to rave reviews, so my evaluation may change in the future, but for now, I felt that there are many works that I can easily choose my favorite genre, such as gag, daily life, or serious, and can enjoy them with ease. Looking at it from a slightly different angle, it could be said that there are many solid works overall and few adventurous works with "strong novelty" or "foreignness. However, "Virtual-san ga miteiru" is an animation work that deviated from the conventional grammar, and it has a strong sense of foreignness, including the fact that I am not sure if it can be called an animation work, as a work that has never been enjoyed in a way that has never been seen before. Revisions" and "Dororo" are also aggressive works. There are many people who feel that there are many quiet works this season as a whole, while others feel that they can enjoy their favorite works without worries! I am glad that the anime is on the air again this season!

I am happy to announce my solid selection of 10 anime songs that you should listen to this season!

So, here we go!

Ueno-san is Clumsy

OP "Senki Heart Beat/Mirai Ito

Kaguya-sama ga Kesshirasai ~Love Brain Battle of Geniuses~ OP " Love Dramatic feat.

OP "Love Dramatic feat.

Circlet Princess

OP "HEAT: Moment/Miyuki Hashimoto

Star Twinkle Pretty Cure

ED "Pape-pip Romantic / Chisato Yoshitake

3D Girlfriend: The Real Girl (2nd series)

OP "Futari nara / BiSH

Doyojimono ha Hiza, Tokimeno, Tamae no Uezu [Roommate is on your lap, sometimes on your head.

OP "Unknown World/Schrödinger's Cat Kotringo

Virtual-san ga miteiru

OP "AIAIAI (feat. Yasutaka Nakata)/Kizuna Ai

Mini-ni-jiji

This program is brought to you courtesy of the enrare young public servants Kanami Eto (cv. Kaede Hondo) & Mimame Anzakura (cv. Hiika Akaneya).

Mob Psycho 100 II

ED "Memo sepia / sajou no hana

I an Angel Descended on Me!

OP "Carefree Angels/Watataten☆5

These were the 10 songs.

This time, unusually, there are many opening songs. As those who have been reading this column since the beginning may know, I have a tendency to "choose ending songs," but this season there were many works with strong opening songs, or so-called "grabs.

Among them, the OP "Love Dramatic feat. Rokka Ihara" from "Kaguya-sama ga Kesshirasai ~Tensai-tachi no Koen-i Toushi Tachi no Arukutsu Brain Battle~ " boasts the strongest pull of this season.

Sung by Masayuki Suzuki."

This alone is a winner, but the lyrics and music were written by Yoshiki Mizuno. An anime song by a top-ranked Japanese musician is nothing but a winner. Well, I'm amazed.

This type of music (songs derived from black music) is a genre in which the qualities of the performers, especially the singers, are questioned to a great extent, so "Song: Masayuki Suzuki" was a convincing winner.

Rather than analyzing musical explanations or technical details, the power of the music is such that a single listen will make you think, "Oh, this is amazing. The power of "Song: Masayuki Suzuki" is such that it draws the viewer or listener in.

One of the recent trends, or "pulls," is the Jackson 5 homage. This season, "Watashi ni Tenshi ga Muketa Hakeru! s OP "Kikama na Tenshi-tachi" (Angels at Will).

The piano grease at the beginning and the fine 16-minute cut on the guitar can be assumed to be influenced by the Jackson 5's "I Want You Back". The rhythm comes together as modern pop music based on funk, disco, and other black music, and the underlying respect for oldies is very instructive.

I'm afraid I'm going to have to call in the punk police when I write this, but it is very healthy for music (and other art forms, of course, including animation) to be able to see the original source material. It is difficult to explain what is being quoted and what kind of homage it is without actually listening to the song, so that is exactly what I would like to do at the talk event, listening to "I Want You Back" and answering each other's questions.

The well-known song that makes cat lovers (including myself) want to dote on their cats when they listen to it is "Roommate is on your lap, sometimes on your head. OP "Unknown World" by

Since I picked up a kitten and took it in about two years ago, I have perfectly understood why cat lovers want to say, "Ours is the cutest. Yes, my Tsukune (female, 2 years old) is the cutest, actually.

That's what this song is about. I was going to end the song with "I'm the cutest," but since all I've said is that Tsukune is cute, I'll continue.

It has a nice Motown beat like "Koi wa Aserezu" by the Supremes, which you can still hear in many commercials today. The beat is more like an oldie, but the sound production and phrasing are quite modern in their approach. It is quite edgy and the drums are more powerful than expected, which is very current. Drum sound production changes interestingly from era to era, so if you concentrate on listening to drums from different eras of music, you will notice many things, for example, you may discover musical tastes that you did not notice yourself.

Ease of listening" is a very important factor for music, especially for genres such as anime songs. No matter how great the message is, if people think "I can't listen to this! It's a waste of time and energy. However, if you focus too much on "listenability," you will end up with music that is neither interesting nor surprising, and people will pass it by without being particularly attracted to it. Ease of listening is only possible if the music is difficult to listen to.

The ED "Memosepia" of "Mob Psycho 100 II" is a song that strikes the perfect balance.

Amidst the swirling elements of alterna and post-rock, the lyrical melody is unique. The unusual number of moves and fast phrases may make it difficult to listen to, but on the contrary, it is a good hook and gives a very "pop" impression as a result. In this case, "pop" does not refer to a musical genre, but rather to popularity and ease of listening.

Another song that gave me a similar impression was the OP "Futari nara" from "3D Kanojo Real Girl (2nd series).

Compared to the theme song sung by the voice actors who appear in the work in a character-based manner, the song is, to put it bluntly without fear of misunderstanding, very bad. However, this snarkiness is BiSH's color and identity.

The distorted balance between the aggressiveness that is not found in most idols and the strange coquettishness that emerges from the aggressiveness is also attributed to "pop" as a result. That is why this song, too, will remain in your ears long after you hear it.

The song "This program will be presented courtesy of enrare young civil servants" from "Mini-ni-tsuji " is also quite a ferocious and not-so-friendly song.

Anyway, the overwhelming amount of information that fills the gaps in the rhythm by cramming as many notes as possible into the song is so overwhelming that you are saying, "Aha! The song is so full of information that you can't stop thinking about what's in between the lines. Since there is no time to think about the gaps between the lines, the only way to listen is to let the momentum take over once it starts. However, this song is also easy to listen to. The sounds coming from all directions come together to form a big mass, weird but poppy, and it makes you want to play the bass. Also, the bass guitar is full of phrases that make me want to play, so I really want to copy them. Someone please take a video of you trying to play it and upload it. I'll practice while watching it!

The OP "Senki Heart Beat" of "Ueno-san wa Ugudeyuki" has an impressive rhythm pattern that has never been seen before.

The rhythm pattern of the intro and chorus is a Latin rhythm. It is very difficult to explain in words, so I will try my best to abbreviate and explain it, but don't you think it is a "bouncy" rhythm, especially in the chorus?

That's it. In Latin, there are various technical terms such as "3-2" or "2-3," but anyway, if you think of Latin music as having a unique bouncy rhythm, you'll be fine. The details will follow! This rhythm is so cool!" That's all you need to know, so don't think too much about it and just listen to it.

HEAT:Moment", the OP of "Circlet Princess", is one of the most popular anime songs of this season.

The tempo around 140 BPM, the zesty and crisp guitar that gives the whole song a sense of speed, the synths that weave through the gaps, and the modulations throughout the song. The song's tempo is around BPM140, the guitar has a zesty, crunchy feel, and the synths are used throughout the song, and the song changes throughout the song. Since then, they have become a staple of the anime song repertoire. Recently, the range of genres has expanded and we can hear new types of anime songs that we have never heard before, but it is still "This is it, this is it! This is what anime songs are all about! I feel like I'm hooked on a strong song without any logic.

Star Twinkle Pretty Cure" was the latest to start airing among this winter's anime series. The music of the Pretty Cure series really doesn't have any throw-away songs. This work is another great song. The one that should be talked about here is the ED "Pape-pip Romantic".

The most popular song in Pretty Cure is the dance song! However, this song does not have a danceable beat derived from black music. It is a song with a beat right before techno-song, techno-pop, and other genres. I think this song is probably "Pretty Cure's version of Pink Lady".

This time Pretty Cure is space. Space means UFOs, and UFOs mean Pink Lady. This chart is completely my imagination, but judging from the half-tone phrase at the beginning of the intro and the slightly comical dance choreography, I am sure of it. Still, whoever thought of this combination is amazing! The Showa-era flavor of the song has been updated to the present day. Genius!

The last song is "AIAIAIAI (feat. Yasutaka Nakata)," the OP of "Virtual-san ga Mititeiru.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, "I don't know if it can be called an anime work," and this is the most outrageous work of this season. So, the opening song is also changed in the middle of the film. To be honest, I had no intention of including it in these 10 songs, but when I actually saw the opening, I was blown away.

Yasutaka Nakata's song is a Japanese traditional city pop song similar to early CAPSULE or Kyary Pamyu Pamyu before and after they shifted to the club direction. The song is a slapstick gag in which a virtual YouTuber runs through a virtual Shibuya town, only to have the town explode and collapse at the hands of the virtual YouTuber. But if you look closely at the bike he's riding, it's a Garland! It's a MegaZone 23! That changed my view at once.

To explain "MegaZone 23" in very simple terms, it is a three-part OVA centered on the human race that has killed off the earth and the system that questions whether or not the human race is right or wrong.

If you don't know what it is, please look it up on your own, but if you watch "Mega Zone 23" and then watch "Virtual-san ga Mitaiteiru," you'll see it from a slightly different perspective, although to say you'll read too much into it would be an overstatement.

It seems that the opening song will change from episode 7, so it will be interesting to see what kind of material will be included in the next episode.

How was it?

Did you find any of your favorite works or songs in the 10 songs we selected?

I would like to choose "Love Dramatic feat. Rokka Ihara" as my favorite song of this season.

Already, this song is too strong in all directions. I think it would look outstanding in clubs, and I can't wait to play it at DJs!

I can't wait to play it at DJs! This is bad! I hope to see more anime songs and works that make me say, "Wow!

(Text by Hiroyuki Deguchi)