Month: November 2009

Also available ahead of its scheduled release (09-11-04) is ELISA‘s ending theme for Railgun. Compared to her previous single earlier this year, “Wonder Wind” (Hayate no Gotoku!! 2nd Season OP1), “Dear My Friend -Towards an Unseen Future-” didn’t take nearly as long to grow on me. Here, her voice sounds slightly lower during the verses, which I find is better in a way. While I’ve liked ELISA’s angelic-like voice since I first heard it in the ef series, it was never a really powerful sounding voice to me. It just never had the “fullness” of say, Mizuki Nana’s voice. Given ELISA’s softer voice, that may simply not be her style, but her singing during the verses (0:16-0:52, 1:36-2:13) already gave me the impression of a more powerful voice. I find it’s a lot less transparent and unassuming then, so I’d personally like to hear more songs like this one. It’s minor, but I somehow picked up on that during my endless repeats of this song. It could just be me though and the fact that I prefer the sound of the somewhat slower verses. (I’m no musician so yeah… -_-;) As for the PV itself, we have ELISA cycling by the beach in a summer dress. Not like we need anything more than that, but the bright sunny setting also suits the upbeat lyrics.

Show To Aru Kagaku no Railgun ED1 「Dear My Friend -まだ見ぬ未来へ-」 by ELISA ▼

Somehow, I’ve taken it upon myself to post more PVs here. There’s a reason behind this madness though (and insanity isn’t it!). While I used to listen to a fairly diverse selection of music (Japanese, Korean, Chinese, English), I slowly drifted away from that over the years. This is primarily due to 1.) the amount of anime I’ve been watching and 2.) the drastic change in what constitutes “anime music”. Unlike the music used in western cartoons, anisongs were pretty unique to begin with since they’re usually “normal” songs borrowed for anime use. However, even songs written specifically for a series these days tend to sound like music anyone would listen to. As such, I no longer look for new music to listen to; I can just let it come to me via anime opening/ending themes. The natural extension of that are the PVs to those songs, hence why I’ll post about entire concerts these days. At least, that’s what my music collection of 950+ singles/albums/soundtracks labeled with an “Anime” genre tell me.

So with that, I have the PV of fripSide‘s “only my railgun” here. Surprisingly, it’s “available” ahead of its scheduled November 4th release. As a pop group that started in 2002, flipSide’s music sounds anything but anime-only to me, even though they became a part of the visual novel publishing/distributing company Visual Art’s in 2006. They’re comprised of two main members, Nanjou Yoshino (vocals/lyrics) and Yaginuma Satoshi (composition/arrangement/lyrics/guitar), the former of which replaced the originally vocalist Nao earlier this year. Some of you may be familiar with Yoshino’s work as a seiyuu, having voiced Oosawa Maria in CANAAN and Tsukishima Koko in Da Capo II.

Given the title of the song, I assume that it was written specifically for To Aru Kagaku no Railgun, but you probably could’ve fooled me if you told me it wasn’t. The song has a surprisingly good beat and could probably pass as a dance song if remixed a bit. Because of that, I originally thought it was something by I’ve Sound, especially since they had done the music for Index. I tend to like I’ve Sound’s KOTOKO and Kawada Mami‘s songs almost immediately, so fripSide’s similar sound was easy for me to get hooked on. As for the PV itself, it’s anime-themed with a girl in a Tokiwadai uniform and espers showcasing their abilities. Befitting of the song, you also get to see a Misaka Mikoto style railgun at the end. Pretty cool.

I have more PVs in store, so stay tuned. (Feel free to comment though. :P)

Show To Aru Kagaku no Railgun OP1 「only my railgun」 by fripSide ▼