The Klassic Note Review 2017.07 Issue 2
Friday, 28 July 2017
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Hey, happy Friday everyone. And yes, with the weekend dawning upon us I'm excited to talk about new reviews! Well, I've decided then to split into two posts so I can talk about Sumipe and TrySail separately, so don't be surprised to not see the latter artist below. The next one will appear shortly, yes?Talk about new releases, this one is definitely the last thing that should be on my shelf. How did it even chance its way into Klassic Note? Let's find out.
音楽 The Klassic Note Review
Uesaka Sumire - Odore! Kyuukyoku Tetsugaku [Single]
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| Limited Edition | Regular Edition |
Origin: Wow I don't even know how to start. You guys may know of voice actress and solo music singer Uesaka "Sumipe" Sumire, but I don't. Because for as much as I've seen her chest more than her (we shall not discuss that here), she is greatly interested in weird music styles and Russia? Yeah, she knows of the Russian language, as seen from her blog and Twitter posts. So when did this all start? Let's see... it's only from like, last year? Yeah, only from then did she grab my attention with Anime "KONOBI" as Colette, but even then the pace did not keep up for long. I was greatly disappointed in her ending theme song despite the hype for it (smartphone music video, acceptable song style etc.), but her image stayed within me. Besides the occasional attention she keeps getting on Twitter, that's as much as she got from me. Until now. Her newest 8th single ever since her debut in 2013 and also a new one since a year ago, has many reasons for me to take a listen. Firstly, the show "Uesaka Sumire no Yabai Maru Maru" is a thing. I won't surprise you on what show it's about, but suffice it to say it's her personality TV show (yeah) to talk about stuff in general that feels weird, which will explain why the title of the show is named as dangerous or terrible or maybe both. Of course, it's also a pitch for the parent company King Records to promote their artists and content, but I swear, I didn't get hit from any of it. (Okay, maybe Minase Inori, but that's it!) Three months down and they mentioned about a single release with this unlikely theme song. Add on with an ending theme song from current running Anime "Aho Girl"... this is pretty much where it all started. But how can such a compelling release ever hit the shelf of Klassic Note? This one, I may have to enlighten you all further in order to convince even myself of the reality that this is a worthy single to give.
(1) Odore! Kyuukyoku Tetsugaku [Dance! Ultimate Philosophy]
Firstly, the topic song. This one was easy to give, for starters. It had a straightforward melody, and from first impressions which came in the form of a multi-level mobile site-based music video in which you can swipe to see different versions of Sumipe dancing and stuff (it's just a YouTube video FYI). Quite impressive to say the least. Production-wise then I feel a lot of nostalgia backwards music style from the 80s or 90s somehow, but I'm not complaining. I praise this song for having an easy-listening melody because for Sumipe, this is actually a rarity especially if you browse through her song list. Otherwise, you'd be pleased to know that I like this song and have been listening to it actively ever since. The lack of a long bridge part of a song is surprising, but as I said, the outdated music style is overwriting everything this song is not lacking, which is rather fine by my opinion. All in all, if this song wants to make Sumipe dance, so would I. And so should you. But seriously, very out of today's music style, I would say.
Rating: 4 stars (Safely Average)
(2) Yabai Maru Maru [Dangerous XX; The circle is an expression of censored/unknown word(s)]
And yes, this is the most compelling song I have to give in the list, and let's talk about why. It started of - as mentioned above at the start of the review - as just a theme song of a TV show I can totally ignore, but ended up catching my attention much longer down the road. To say this song itself is "dangerous" may be an understatement, because this song has quite a lot of ticks on the songs I refuse to give: the melody is off, there's plenty of speech compared to singing in a song, Sumipe is not cute in this song (lol), and the list goes on. To give reasons to why I give this song may likely attribute to the fact that (1) I have watched half the season of the TV show to be in acquaintance with the song, but most importantly is (2) getting used to Sumipe's voice. Because for a long time (at least a year) I've been struggling of giving this voice actress and her uniquely cute voice any credit until now. And that, I guess, is the best reason I would give. To top it up I would also say the lyrics are rather relevant to portraying how much she is living on the edge mocking music production in general lol and how much the song is about her liking such people and things... Then again it's advisable even to myself, that you shouldn't listen to this song for too much ie. take your dosages sparingly. Because for the short song, cute voice and some singing and outstanding music style this song will give me a headache, literally.
Rating: 4 stars (Dangerously Below Average)
(3) Saisentan Girl feat. Uchida Maaya [Leading Edge Girl]
To summarise this song in a phrase, I would say "a great collaborative Anison that should be sung live" because really, this is what I may have missed from Anison all these years. Something easy to listen to, the lyrics are fairly relevant to what is leading edge, and thanks to fellow voice actress and solo singer Uchida Maaya if you have not heard her before because I didn't lol, Sumipe's cute pitch is complimented by a slightly softer voice, which in first impression did help a lot in giving this song off the bat. Other than that, I like how this song is adequately long yet does not spoil the song in any major way like song structure or the main melody itself. There is even just a short conversation between the two in the middle of the song to talk about what it means to be "leading edge", which I like. The melody may be an easy giveaway to how this ends up on the list, but I must say this collaboration between the two voice actress may not be a bad one. Now I really want to hear this in the upcoming Anime festival "Anisama". Here, I said it.
Rating: 4 stars (Anison-Level Average)
Conclusion: Overall, an okay single, if not for me having less of a choice to give because I'm already halfway in when I took a listen to this release. I guess the audio preview online did help to some extent, but this one. I've definitely heard more compelling releases than this, so Sumipe don't get too surprised because you aren't exclusively terrible. Otherwise you'd be glad to know if you liked Anime songs this one shouldn't be a miss. With this much song credit and even an artist collaboration, you cannot go wrong with this single. Even without them, I would say the topic song is worthy of praise, and thanks Uchida Maaya for making this single even better. Uesaka Sumire, you have done it. You're on my shelf now. You're welcome.
- Kaineng, on the Klassic Note
THE PACKAGE
Where should I start first... Okay, let's start with an image:
Or maybe I should hehe we shall see I got the paper anyway haha
This is it for now. Stay tuned for the other review where I'll take a time machine back to review two singles from TrySail, after I've reviewed their latest from
P.S. This is not #ad or whatever, but be sure to check out Sumipe's Twitter account for more. Well, more like, for more information because of a recent court case concerning a fan death threat they've "combined" all related accounts to one official Twitter account now. So yeah, no luck for you all then. I've seen it for year so I know. MUAHAHAHAHA man I wish I could've written about how great her Twitter account is here right now
P.P.S. Okay there's still her LINE BLOG if you're that interested in her standing pose haha God I can't stop