JAPAN | 184 | 曽我部瑚夏「忘れられた池 feat. Yuki Murata（Anoice）」

[Uto]

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181	182	183	184
4s4ki	Hotei ft Aina The End	FAKY	Konatsu Sogabe ft Yuki Murata
Hyper Angry Cat	Andromeda	Bad Things	Wasure Rareta Ike (Forgotten Pond)

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[ZoboCamel]

I made it aaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Thanks for everyone who got me to the final again!

 

[RainyWoods]

Very pleased you broke your unfair curse @ZoboCamel Also, I'm happy to see my votes in this NF wouldn't have made a difference. The winner felt on the first listen a 7-ish number and Madder Sky I might have given a 9 (sounds like it could be from a Soulcalibur soundtrack). That's the right kind of epic for me I'm sure you'll consider it for a later edition Until then, good luck in the final!!

 

[nekoisneko]

OMG I have this song in my list as well! nice choice!

 

[ZoboCamel]

That one belated green room update I do once every few months: July 2020 Edition​

As is tradition, I've neglected my green room for far too long and now have to spend ages on getting it up to date. And as is also tradition, I'm going to try and be brief with my write-ups, only to fail horrendously...

WV121: Yuki Kajiura - Point Zero

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Not quite as much to say on this one; I already talked a bunch about Point Zero back when it first won the NF, so check back there if you're for some reason still interested in seeing me gush about that and give some context for it. But I will at least say: wooo, 8th place! Qualifying itself is already a success for me, so getting into the top 10 left me thrilled.

Ideally I'd like to manage some higher scores with something that isn't heavily Pot-F-feeling for once... so far over 60-ish editions I've only ever reached the top 10 with sad Pot F music (and one English pop song that I sent as a kinda-filler-entry only to be very pleasantly surprised when it managed 8th. ). But hey, I do still love my instrumentals and other sad stuff, so I guess I can't complain too much if I'm at least getting through with that!

WV122: N/A
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I forgot to send an entry in time because I am a dunce. (>-_-)>

WV123: Masayuki Suzuki feat. Airi Suzuki - Daddy! Daddy! Do!

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And so I returned from my accidental one-edition break with this beautifully-titled song. Which ended up flopping... but honestly, 16th/22 in the semi is higher than I was expecting for this! It's better than my average score for silly pop songs, at least.

Regardless of the score, I got to share a 63-year-old icon with a hot slice of funk pop and even hotter dance moves. And at the end of the day, isn't that what WV's really about?

WV124: Yuuhei Satellite - Daphne's Illusionary Song

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I'm required by law to send a Touhou cover (original song here) of some sort about once every 20 editions, so Yuuhei Satellite was brought in to represent Japan for a third time. I knew going in that loud, hyper Eurobeat would be a hard ask at WV, so the NQ wasn't a huge surprise here either (even if 21st in the semi did hurt a tad for what I think is a royal bop).

With this, Yuuhei Satellite now have the unenviable record of having entered three times – each with a quite different genre – only to NQ each time. I'd really love to see them make it through one day... well, fourth time's the charm, right?

WV125: Goose house - Hikaru Nara


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I'd been saving Hikaru Nara in my back pocket since I first joined WV; I adore the harmonies, and it's got one of my favourite ever pop chorus melodies. So when I saw that someone had finally found a copy of the music video and uploaded it to YouTube (I hadn't been able to find one before), I knew I had to send it. Said music video did apparently get deleted some time after the edition had ended... but at least I was able to get it saved, so hopefully the image above links to a working mirror of that now

For a song I love so much, and which I'd hoped might have more mainstream appeal, 20th in the SF was obviously a pretty disappointing result; it's not quite so easy for me to pass that one off with an "oh well, I knew it'd flop anyway". But at the end of the day, I guess you can't win 'em all; and at least I managed to send it and get some support!

WV126: Milktub - Naru ga Mama Sawagu Mama

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After the slightly unexpected flop with Hikaru Nara, I headed back to familiar territory: the "I know this will NQ but dammit I want to send it anyway" flop! Quoting from @anaraqueen , to whom I'd linked the song a few editions earlier when I sent it as a backup entry:

i'm three seconds in in your backup and YES it would flop

Three seconds is an impressive level of floptitude. Is that a word? It is now.

Anyway, this is another entry that I found from an anime soundtrack; specifically, it was used as the opening theme to the brilliant second season of Uchouten Kazoku, which would have to be one of my favourite shows from recent years. (Also, the visuals for that opening theme are great, combining animation with photography in a really effective way... I'd recommend checking out the video even if the song's not up your alley!) Funnily enough, the same show's soundtrack gave us Dakara Ore wa Kaeru ni Natta, which is about as different as possible both musically and in terms of results – it actually remains my best-ever WV result, having placed 3rd back in WV101.

As for the song itself - it's not exactly high art, but damn it's fun to just get into some corny rock-pop once in a while. And how many other music videos include a literal example of wigs flying off? Yeah, that's what I thought.

WV127: Sayuri Ishikawa - Amagi-goe

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Now for my latest entry, Amagi-goe. Surprisingly, I think this is the first song I've ever sent from the previous century; it's about time I got around to that!

My first time hearing Sayuri Ishikawa's music was actually when @esc87fan sent Tsugaru Kaikyo Fuyugeshiki back in WV89 (I don't think this is the exact video she used, but that one seems to have been taken down and there are dozens of other performances uploaded, so I've just linked one of those). It got my 12 at the time, though I didn't end up looking into her other songs.

Then a couple of weeks ago, I was watching a livestream by a virtual YouTuber (TL;DR, they're like regular livestreamers but use motion-capture and live-animation technology to show themselves as an animated avatar), and part of the stream was just her doing a karaoke session of sorts. That included her performing one song that I quite liked the sound of, but hadn't heard before... and looking it up, it turned out to be Sayuri Ishikawa's Amagi-goe.

There were plenty of performances of that original on YouTube, but at first I couldn't really find any that I loved. However, I was able to find a different and moody cover that I really liked, from a singer named Midori Oka. So I was right on the verge of sending that as my entry for this edition... and then as I was rewatching it again, one of the recommended videos was a performance from Sayuri that I hadn't seen before. I loved it right away – the drama, the staging, the vocals – and so ended up going with that performance of the original for this edition. Sorry, Midori!

As for the song and singer, Sayuri Ishikawa is pretty much a legend in Japan; she's been a household name since the 70s, is one of the country's most famous enka singers, and still gets brought onto major entertainment shows all the time. She's had a lot of success, but two big hits in particular. One of which is Tsugaru Kaikyo Fuyugeshiki, released in 1977... and the other of which is Amagi-goe, released in 1986. I still don't know which of the two I prefer; all that's left now is to find out what WV thinks!

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WV128: Hopefully an NF?
(if I can get it planned out by the end of the weekend)​

 

[Ana Raquel]

OMG YOU DID IT

 

[Seok-jin]

 

[esc87fan]

Sayuri-sama! With her other epic song!

 

[ZoboCamel]

That one belated green room update I do once every few months: November 2020 Edition​

(I swear I don’t intend to be this late with green room posts every time… )

Okay, so I won’t do a big writeup on my last bunch of entries like I usually do. Partially because I’m tired after a busy work week, but mostly because (I only realise this now!) all four that I missed out on doing green room posts for were just “YouTube recommended it to me and I really liked it” songs rather than something I know much background on, lol.

Though that doesn’t mean I don’t love them – I still enjoy these as much as all my other entries, and WV131’s Gone is perhaps one of my favourite rock-song finds of recent years. I’m happy to have sent them all; thanks a bunch to everyone who helped get that, as well as the completely opposite Ikyunnyakana, into the WV final. A 50% qualification rate across those four editions is pretty damn good by my standards!

WV128: TK from Ling Tosite Sigure – White Silence

WV129: Ikue Asazaki – Ikyunnyakana

WV130: Yogetsu Akasaka – Heart Sutra

WV131: coldrain – Gone

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Now for my WV132 entry – and unlike the last four, it actually is something with a bit of a fun story behind it! If nothing else, I think it’s got to be the most unique way in which I’ve ever come across a potential WV entry…

WV132: Seiho – Mitsui Chemicals on Sounds Good

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So for some background here, I work as a translator, TLing various different business news articles and press releases from Japanese to English. I was doing one such press release earlier this year, and noted the company mentioning that they were going to work with an indie artist named Seiho for an upcoming promotional project. I didn’t think too much of it at the time, though.

Then the company released more info on the project… and it sounded weird. They were going to be shutting down an old train line used for their business, apparently, so nothing too weird there – but to commemorate it, they said, they were going to sample a bunch of noises from the train line, release the samples to the public, and then use them to make train-themed ASMR* and music. At this point I’m so accustomed to just working on dry industrial news about market conditions and factory expansions and stuff, so to suddenly switch topics to “corporate-backed train ASMR” felt kind of hilarious to me in a surreal way; it kept popping back into my head and making me giggle. That said, I didn’t hear anything more about it for a while.

A few months passed, and the same company got me to subtitle a mini-documentary for the same train commemoration project. In the process, I found that the documentary included the train song I’d laughed about so much, and that… it was kind of a bop?! Then when I saw the song uploaded to YouTube, I knew I’d have to send it to WV sooner or later. Another couple months down the line, and… here we are! WV has now been blessed with Seiho’s train-sampling music.

*Yes, of course I’m also going to link the corporate-backed train ASMR. It’s corporate-backed train ASMR, which my peanut brain finds hilarious no matter how many times I write that phrase. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Bs_MSirVGk&list=PLu8hS8yDJGDoSDfFDdOrkkVop_LU37kqa&index=23

 

[Uto]

Given that we stan this glitchy track and its whole story, you might be interested in this album by a group called Matmos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9BGW61_zOA

It is the sounds of a washing machine put through various filters and turned into boppage and horror movie sound tracks. A lot of it is unremarkable, but when it has moments it sure has moments.

 

[ZoboCamel]

I'm leaving longer and longer between these update posts each time, aren't I?

So... apparently it's been almost a year since I last updated my green room; time flies. Between a bit of burnout and some other stuff I've had going on, I must admit WV has been somewhat on the backburner for me. But I'm hoping now to get back into the swing of things somewhat – with an NF to boot!

But first, I want to write a little recap of the entries I've sent since my last green room update. And given how many it's been, I think the occasion calls for a bit of a speed round, so let's see how that goes...

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WV133: Calliope Mori - Shitsurei Shimasu ga, RIP

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The first (though very certainly not last) entry I've sent from a virtual youtuber since getting into Hololive midway through last year. Despite usually being pretty picky with original songs from virtual youtubers – I ignore a couple dozen for every one I like – I very much appreciated the mix of "corny anime-themed character setting" and "honestly quite catchy rap" in this one. And the same singer's put out another couple things I've enjoyed in the time since (albeit under a fairly different type of rap), so she might pop up again at WV sooner or later...

WV134: Ilan Eshkeri feat. Clare Uchima - The Way of the Ghost

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I loved this song the first time I heard it as part of the Ghost of Tsushima soundtrack last year – and I only fell for it more as I got further through the game. A sense of drama, traditional ethnic influences, growth throughout, a big power-ballad finish; the song was pretty much made for the "just sit there and get absorbed into melodrama" part of my tastes. And for once, it managed a pretty decent result at the contest as well!

WV135: TK from Ling Tosite Sigure - Unravel

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While Unravel has become somewhat of a meme over the years for its over-the-top nature, I still have an unironic love for its wall-of-sound instrumentation and big choruses. Side note: this joins the likes of Bull's Eye, Kawaki wo Ameku and Euterpe on my list of "surprisingly good songs I've found in surprisingly crappy anime series and then sent to WV".

WV139: Tokoyami Towa - Palette

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After taking a bit of a gap due to WV burnout, I came back with another virtual youtuber from Hololive – and made the finals this time! As a rock ballad with deep and powerful vocals, this one was very much up my alley, and I find it especially impressive coming from someone who's more of a gaming livestreamer than a professional singer. I was left satisfied with the result, and wanting to send another batch of virtual youtuber-related entries to see how they do... though at the same time, I'm being conscious to keep up the variety and not just turn Japanese WV entries into the "Zobo sends assorted songs from 2.5D anime Youtubers" show

WV140: NakamuriEmi - Kakatte Koi yo

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Another attempt by me to explore the more hip-hop side of my tastes – this time with a song that didn't really speak to me on first listen (as the ending theme to the rather good Megalo Box anime), but that grew on me quite a bit over the course of a few months. My tastes in hip-hop and related genres still don't often seem to line up with those of most WV players, but I'm nonetheless happy to have sent this one through to show another part of what I listen to.

WV141: Ram Wire - Bokura no Te ni wa Nani mo Nai Kedo

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This is, from memory, just something I found through a binge of YouTube recommendations one day. But between the big power-ballad chorus and the cute story, I came to really like it after a while, putting it as my backup entry at WV for about five editions in a row before I decided to eventually send it as my main entry. I was honestly a tad surprised to see this one flop harder than most of the other entries on this list – my initial guess was that it'd have broader appeal and perhaps challenge for a qualification – but I suppose I remain terrible at predicting exactly what WV will go for, even after quite a number of years. Still, I'm very much happy to have discovered this for my playlists!

WV142: Naoki Hashimoto - Alone Infection

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It's not often I delve into the more grimy, metal-tinged side of my rock tastes, either at WV or elsewhere. But when I bought the new Guilty Gear game a few months back and heard this on the soundtrack, it got very quickly stuck in my head, what with the surprisingly catchy chorus and the oh-so-metal lyric that is "ABCDEF Go". I still find myself attempting to sing the chorus from this one in the shower on regular rotation (and then inevitably failing when it gets to those few really low notes... but I digress).

WV143: Ichikoro - Enemy

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Another case of "no backstory here, just a cool thing that YouTube recommended to me one day". I feel like I perhaps haven't been spending enough time on instrumental music lately – whether it comes to looking for new songs, listening to the ones I already love or sending them to WV – so when this came up I thought it was a great opportunity. Writing this up now, I'm starting to get a real itch to go out and actively look for some more songs along the lines of this one... though that can wait until after my NF!

WV144: Galneryus - Hunting For Your Dream

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I actually heard this as an ending theme to a long-running anime series years ago; but while I kind of liked the song there, it didn't particularly stick in my head at the time. Finding the song's full music video online earlier this year changed that, though; whether it was hearing the song in full rather than the truncated version, seeing a proper music video with the full glam metal aesthetic (is it glam metal? I'm always terrible with subgenre names) or both, something just clicked for me this time, and I felt the need to send it through to WV. Also, I'm only just noticing now, but this did surprisingly well in REJU votes for some reason, which was a pleasant surprise; while I didn't qualify, this seems to be the most REJU-points I've had from any entry since all the way back in WV83. Was it just a really REJU-voter-heavy semi, or was there something about this entry that made it do well there? It will remain a mystery (as I'm currently writing this on my laptop and can't be bothered to check the WV results archive on my other computer )

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...And of course the limit on how many videos you can embed in a single post is just a couple less than what I need here, so I suppose this (not-so-)little recap will have to continue over into a second post

 

[ZoboCamel]

WV145: Mami Kawada - PSI-Missing

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Continuing on, we’ve got a mid-2000s anime theme from an artist that I’m amazed I haven’t sent to WV before (as she’s got a pretty decent handful of songs that I love and I’ve been intending to send her since I first joined). “Slightly dated Japanese electronic music with a potato-quality video” was evidently not the formula for success this time around, but I continue to hold the song dear to my heart – and you can expect to see Ms. Kawada back at WV with a ballad, rock song or some more electro-pop at some time in the future (hopefully without another 60-entry wait this time around)!

WV146: ALI feat. Aklo - Lost In Paradise

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Finally, we reach my most recent entry: another venture into the upbeat side of my tastes, though despite seeming somewhat more accessible to my eyes it ended up scoring about as well as you’d expect from something I’d call a “hip-hop/funk fusion”. I adore this band (a group of half-Japanese, half-foreign guys who came together to make funk-tinged pop music in Japan) and their songs, and this one in particular has been an ear worm for me in recent months. Unfortunately I’m not sure whether I can expect to see much more from them any time soon – long story short, their drummer was recently charged with fraud, causing the band to enter an indefinite hiatus – though I’m hoping to eventually see them back with some more genre-fusing bops (and perhaps a different drummer)!

 

[ZoboCamel]

WV147: “Owari no Hoshi no Love Song” NF​

After far too many editions (and having finally updated my green room), I think it’s well past time I held another NF! This time, I’ve decided to go with three tracks from “Owari no Hoshi no Love Song” (translating to something like “A Love Song From a Planet at Its End”), a 2011 concept album released as a collaboration between composer Jun Maeda and singer yanaginagi.

As the album name would imply, the bulk of the songs are bittersweet love stories with a fantasy or sci-fi twist, some heavy melodrama and a sprinkling of anime tropes – in other words, largely what you’d expect from Maeda, who’s best known for directing dramatic visual novels and anime such as Clannad, Kanon and Angel Beats. Each one is self-contained, and is written much more like a story than like a conventional set of song lyrics.

I’ve loved this album since I first heard it a couple years after its release, and as someone who’s a big fan of both the composer (who I think has appeared in more of my WV entries so far than any other artist) and the artist (who I somehow haven’t sent to the contest yet), I’ve wanted to do this NF for a long time.

Five of the album’s thirteen tracks received a music video – and for this NF, I’ve chosen my favourite three of those, as I’ve always had a hard time deciding which is my favourite. We’ve got Owari no Sekai Kara, a power ballad that has some big orchestration and is perhaps the best-known song from the album; Muteki no Soldier, a much more fast-paced and rock-influenced track that still keeps the emotional core; and Killer Song, which strikes a balance between the other two tempo-wise. I’ve uploaded subtitled videos for each song (subtitles not my own), as I feel like the lyrics – melodramatic though they may be – are much more central to the song than they are in most other stuff I send. Hopefully you like something!

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Owari no Sekai Kara

Muteki no Soldier

Killer Song

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(NF Recap Video)

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Voting:

Votes can be sent to me in a PM on the forums, or anywhere else you’re able to contact me. Just rank each song out of 10 (preferably with your honest opinions rather than a set of 10-0-0 scores to boost your favourite ), repeats and half-points allowed, and you’re done!

Deadline will be 13:00CET on the 10th of October, so five hours before the WV submission deadline.

Thanks for reading!

 

[ZoboCamel]

Just one voter so far; my thanks to !

Sending out some pings to people who I think may be interested / have voted in my NFs before: @lavieenrose @SwedishFailurez @esc87fan @JChan @Charly @Edweis @Eulaliya @nekoisneko @Nicholas123 @Grinch @Gabor77 @whiteshoes @Lupus @Arion @EurovisionSmile @Fierro @Steffan @Gera11 @Amir @Seok-jin @theditz83 @Morocco2021 @hijirio @ferret @RainyWoods @Ringdalen And anyone else who wants to vote, of course!

Sorry for the pings – and if you decide to take a listen, hopefully you'll find something you like!

 

[ZoboCamel]

Oops; apparently I must've tried to ping too many people at once in that last post, because I'm being told the pings didn't actually work So let's try that again with less people at once (apologies if the earlier one -did- work for any of you and this ends up double-pinging or something)!

@lavieenrose @SwedishFailurez @JChan @Eulaliya @nekoisneko @Lupus @Fierro @Steffan @Seok-jin @ferret - please do check out my NF if you're interested & have the time, and sorry for the ping~

 

[Fierro]

I'm going to vote, don't worry.

 

[ShoeFlo]

Hey James,

just wanted to tell you I've heard your songs and planned to vote, but tbh I struggle with making a difference between the songs. They are pretty much on a similar level for me and I'd tend to give them all the same number of points... so my voting would be useless

Having said that, I don't find the selection bad, all three would probably be 6 points for me (am I allowed to reveal this publically? Nevermind, now I did)

Good luck!

 

[ZoboCamel]

Up to six sets of votes now; my thanks to !

Scores are still tight, though, so things could go anywhere:

38
36
31.5

Hey James,

just wanted to tell you I've heard your songs and planned to vote, but tbh I struggle with making a difference between the songs. They are pretty much on a similar level for me and I'd tend to give them all the same number of points... so my voting would be useless

Having said that, I don't find the selection bad, all three would probably be 6 points for me (am I allowed to reveal this publically? Nevermind, now I did)

Good luck!

No problem! I've felt the same way in plenty of NFs before and done the same thing as you. Thanks for listening & giving your opinion either way

 

[ZoboCamel]

Whoa, up to 11 voters now; that's pretty good! Thanks a bunch to

That said, if there's anyone else looking to vote over the next half a day or so, you've got a lot of power; the results are *still* super close! Current scores are:

80.5
79.5
77

 

[ZoboCamel]

WV147: yanaginagi - Muteki no Soldier

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So that was a close NF! Killer Song got off to a small early lead, with Owari no Sekai Kara inching past it at a couple of points... but in the end it was Muteki no Soldier that took the win, managing a comeback on the last day or so of voting after having previously sat in last by 5–10 points for most of the NF. Full results below:

Fingers crossed for a qualification!

 

[Ana Raquel]

PLEASE WIN