Heart Cocktail Vol 3

It would be difficult to riff changes on my previous blog posts about Heart Cocktail, so I'll focus on a different aspect of the series: the music. While the show usually features a light, jazzy background, it frequently interpolates western music. For example, volume 1 included instrumental covers of three classic rock/pop songs: California Dreamin', Donna the Prima Donna, and Let It Be. Volume 2 includes excerpts from a couple of classical pieces: Chopin's Prelude in G Minor and Schubert's Heidenröslein. But volume 3 amps this up to another level, with vocal covers and pastiches from the best 60s bands:

• The chapter "Mr. Moonlight, the Prankster" starts with a cover of the opening of John Lennon's Mr. Moonlight.
• The chapter "The Day the Carousel Horse Sang" features a pastiche of the Beatles She Loves You, sung, of course, by the eponymous carousel horse.
• The ending song is a complete cover of the Beach Boys' Surfer Girl. The harmonies are uncanny, and only the usual issues in pronouncing English show that it's a cover.
  

This volume also features music by Tony's Show and an original insert Garasu ni Yubiwa (グラスに指輪) in "Cinderella Express 4," sung by Wise, a group consisting of Takumi Yamamoto and Shingo Kanno. Tony's Show was a collection of notable jazz musicians who only used that name to record the Heart Cocktail volume 3 soundtrack, with Yamamoto, Kanno and Masashi Hirashita handling composing and arranging.

The use of these classic songs raises the question, of course, as to whether the anime's creators obtained the rights to use these songs. Probably not. In the 70s and early 80s, anime shows were fairly cavalier about using copyrighted or trademarked intellectual property. Heart Cocktail is filled with renderings of the actual Coca Cola and Coors logos. That changed fairly suddenly in the mid 80s, probably when studio lawyers realized the problems IP infringement might cause. After that, brand names were spelled with one letter changed or just used generically.

In addition to the music, this volume is notable for introducing multi-segment stories. "Cinderella Express," about a relationship maintained through long-distance railroad commuting, covers four segments. Otherwise, the stories are pretty much the same as before: short vignettes about relationships: started, stopped, resumed, or broken forever. Only a few of the stories have live-action segments afterward; and two of those segments have narration instead of just sound effects. In keeping with Surfer Girl, many of the segments appear to have been filmed in California.

The principal voice actors changed in this volume:

• Okuda Tamiyoshi (man) is primarily a narrator. He also appeared in the recent reboot of the series, Heart Cocktail: Colorful.
• Shimamoto Sumi debuted as Clarisse in The Castle of Cagliostro. She starred as Sara in Princess Sara, Nausicaa in Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Otonashi Kyouko in Maison Ikkoku, and Dayan in Neko no Dayan. She also played Shokupanman in the Soreike! Anpanman franchise, Tinkerbell in Peter Pan no Bouken, Antoinette in Reporter Blues, Big Mama in Bakuretsu Hunter, Sue in Maris the Choujo, Elice in Fire Emblem, Miss Akiko in The Girl with Blue Eyes, Suzuko and Suzu in Fire Tripper, and the mother in Kiku and the Wolf. The last five are Orphan releases.

Once again, Darkonius of DarkWispers translated and did initial timing. Yume translation checked. ninjacloud did the fine timing. I edited and typeset. In a change, Nemesis and Rezo did QC. The encoding is by an anonymous friend, based on laserdiscs purchased in Japan over many months. MartyMcflies of LonelyChaser Fansubs coordinated the complicated, multi-continent effort. I'd like to acknowledge the help of 6/10 with initial translation as well.

I should warn the viewer that Surfer Girl is an EAOT (Earworm of All Time), and if you listen to the ending more than once, as I have, you will never get it out of your head. If you're willing to risk that, you can get this volume from the usual torrent site or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net.