Garden of Remembrance

Yamada Naoko is a modern anime auteur. She started at Kyoto Animation, where she became one of the youngest directors in its history, helming TV series including K-On and Tamako Market, and movies including Tamako Love Story, Koe no Katachi (A Silent Voice), and Liz to Aoi Tori (Liz and the Blue Bird). In 2020, she went out on her own and directed several projects for Science Saru, including the TV series Heike Monogatari and the newly released movie The Colors Within. She's not yet 40.

Garden of Remembrance is an anime short just released in Japan. There is no dialog, just music and one song. The plot is abstract. Summarizing the program at the Annecy Film Festival, "In an untidy room, strewn with empty beer tins, empty wine bottles, and a half-empty glass of whisky, a girl is getting up and preparing herself for her day. YOUR morning starts.

One day, in town, YOU walk past THE CHILDHOOD FRIEND who is buying an Anemone I liked, and remembering that I liked them, YOU rush out to buy them. THE CHILDHOOD FRIEND displays the Anemone with care. 

One day, years after I died, YOU hear noise from the closet. Opening it, YOU see MY garden right in front of YOU. Overflowing emotions of ME and YOU. When exiting from the room of memories, a picture of the Anemone that YOU painted is displayed in YOUR new room."

Got that? You may not remember the plot, but you will remember the visuals: a riot of dazzling colors and designs. 

The action starts out repetitively: the girl's morning is shown seven times. However, the sequence gets faster each time, and the details vary slightly to show the passage of time: different T-shirts functioning as pajamas, different breakfasts and, because years are passing, not just days, different smartphones. 

The explosion of memories, when it occurs, jolts the film out of repetition into variability and even fantasy, accompanied by a melancholic song. It ends silently, on an up note... I think.

One translation note. The song includes this lyric:

I don't need a cucumber horse
Or an eggplant cow

This is a reference to Obon, the festival of remembrance for the dead. Participants carve a cucumber horse and an eggplant cow that allow the dead to come home and return, respectively.

Skr grabbed the video as soon as it started streaming in Japan. He timed and translated the song, typeset the credits, and asked me to typeset all smartphone screens. Perevodildo and onkeikun checked the song translation. Skr and I QCed.

Orphan is a not a real-time, or even real-decade, fansubbing group, except when a broadcast or streamed short catches Skr's attention. When you watch Garden of Remembrance, you'll see why this one did. You can get the show from the usual torrent site or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net.

The Audio Side

Although Orphan is a fansubbing group, the 'completionist' impulse that runs through the group's charter sometimes extends into other media. In particular, the team has acquired and released a number of soundtracks for its projects or prospective projects. Other enthusiasts have done a lot more, but finding and ripping soundtracks has become a notable sideline to Orphan's main fansubbing mission. For one thing, it's a lot easier to capture and encode audio, and it doesn't require translators or video encoders.

Most of the music has come from CDs, but there are other sources as well, including records and "dual track" laserdiscs. Here's a list of the ones I can remember.

• Alice in Cyberland OP-ED single. CD source.
• AWOL soundtrack. CD source. 
• Bakuen Campus Guardress music collection. CD source. 
• B.B. Fish soundtrack. CD source.
  
• Boyfriend music collection. CD source.
• Capricorn image album. CD source.
• Eien no Filena soundtrack. CD source. 
• Elf 17 image soundtrack. CD source.
• Fighting Beauty Wulong OP-ED collection. CD source. 
• Fukuyama Gekijou soundtrack. CD source.
• Genji, Part 1 soundtracks and image album. CD source.
• Grimm Douwa: Kin no Tori OP-ED single. CD source.
• Haruka Naru Toki no Nake de 3: Kureniai no Tsuki soundtrack. CD source.
  
• Haruka Naru Toki no Naka de 3: Owari Naki Unmei soundtrack. CD source. 
• Hashire Melos ED single. CD source. 
• Heart Cocktail soundtrack collection. CD source. 
  
• Hidamari no Ki ED1 and ED2 singles. CD source.
• High Speed Jecy soundtrack. CD source.
• Kakyuusei (1999) soundtrack. CD source.
• Kiss wa Me ni Shite soundtrack. CD source.
• Kyouryuu Daisensou Izenborg music collection. CD source.
  
• Majo demo Steady image album. CD source.
• Majo demo Steady soundtrack. LD source. 
• Megami Paradise soundtrack. CD source. 
• Nana Toshi Monogatari. CD source.
  
• Next Senki Ehrgeiz OP and ED singles. CD source.
• Nozomi Witches soundtrack. CD source.
• Oedo ga Nemurenai! soundtrack. CD source. 
• OL Kaizou Kouza OP/ED EP. LP source.
  
• Oshare Kozou wa Hanamaru soundtrack. CD source.
• POPS soundtrack. CD source.
• Project A-Ko 2 extended soundtrack. Laserdisc source.
• Purple Eyes in the Dark image albums. CD source. 
• Singles soundtrack. CD source.
• Stop!! Hibari-kun Songbook. LP source.
• Tomoe ga Yuku! music collection. CD source. 
• Waza no Tabibito soundtrack. CD source.
  
• YAMATO 2520 music collection. CD source.
• Yuukan Club ED1 single. CD source. 

Most of the work has been done in the material's country of origin, but Stop!! Hibari-kun! was done in the US, because none of the team's overseas members has a turntable. Sometimes it pays to be old.

Soundtracks are also available for many of Orphan's other projects as well:

• A-Girl soundtrack. CD source.
• A Penguin's Memory soundtrack. CD source.
  
• Ai no Kusabi music collection. CD source.
• Akai Hayate soundtrack. CD source. 
• Akatsuki no Yona music collection. CD source.
• Amatsuki music collection. CD source.
• Blazing Transfer Student soundtrack. CD source.
  
• Blue Sonnet. CD source. 
• Boku no Oldies wa All-Color OST. CD source.
  
• Bremen 4. CD source.
  
• Call Me Tonight theme songs. 
• Choujikuu Romanesque Samy: MISSING 99. CD source.
  
• Condition Green song collection. CD source.
• Cosprayers soundtrack. CD source.
• D4 Princess music collection. CD source.
• Dallos soundtrack. CD source. 
• Ear of the Golden Dragon music collection. CD source.
• Fire Emblem OST. CD source. 
• Hameln no Violin Hiki movie music collection. CD source. 
• Heart Cocktail soundtrack collection. CD source. 
• Heart Cocktail Again OST. CD source. 
• Hand Maid Mai music collection. CD source. 
• Hiatari Ryouko soundtrack collection. CD source.
  
• Hidamari no Ki soundtrack. CD source.
• Hoshi Neko Full House singles collection. CD source.
  
• Izumo (1991) soundtrack. CD source.
• Joker: Marginal City music collection. CD source.
• Karuizawa Syndrome soundtrack. LP source.
  
• Kindaichi movies 1 and 2 soundtracks. CD source. 
• Kosuke-sama & Rikimaru-sama - Konpeitou no Ryuu soundtrack. CD source.
  
• Mikeneko Holmes soundtrack. CD source. 
• Nagasarete Airantou music collection. CD source.
• Nine Memorial Album. CD source.
  
• Nora soundtrack. LP source.
• Oruorane the Cat Player soundtrack. CD source.
• Rainbow Signal: Hi-Fi Set. All songs from Hi-Fi Set albums Pasadena Park and Indigo. CD source.
• Sanctuary original soundtrack. CD source.
• Sangokushi TV specials soundtracks. CD source. 
• Sangokushi movies 1 and 2 soundtracks. CD source. (No OST for movie 3.) 
• Shirokuma Cafe music collection. CD source.
• Smash Hit! soundtrack. CD source.
• Sonic Soldier Borgman 2058 soundtrack. CD source.
• Sonic Solder Borgman: Madnight Gigs. All songs from Sonic Solder Borgman: The Last Gig of the World. CD source.
• Starship Troopers soundtrack. CD source.
• Techno Police 21C soundtrack. CD source. 
• The Tale of Princess Kaguya music collection. CD source.
• To-Y image album. CD source.
  
• Tokimeki Tonight background music. CD source.
• Yume Tsukai music collection. CD source.
• Zetsuai, Bronze, and Cathexis music collections. CD source.

These can be hard to find, because they're scattered among public and private trackers, forums, and IRC bots.

My wish list isn't very long, but my greatest wish is that all the "secret sharers" would make their stashes publicly available.

 
[Revised 12-Dec-2024]

Purple Eyes in the Dark

Here's another anime music video or AMV, 1987's Purple Eyes in the Dark. It's based on an award-winning, 12-volume shoujo manga by Shinihara Chie about a teenage girl who finds she sometimes turns into a leopard, with appropriately bloodthirsty instincts.

There has never been an anime of this title; however, it has been made into a series of light novels and a live-action TV series.

The AMV is based on a pair of image albums for the manga, Purple Eyes in the Dark from 1985 and Purple Eyes in the Dark part 2 from 1987. Of the 17 songs on the two albums, seven are included in the AMV: two instrumentals, two in Japanese, and three in English:

1. Destiny Again (instrumental)
2. Mysterious Purple (English)
3. Kizuna/Secret (Japanese)
4. Tell Her Tonight (English)
5. All By Myself (English)
6. Set Me Free (instrumental)
7. Lullaby of Twilight (Japanese)

Because there's no dialog, the AMV can't convey much, if any, of the plot. Fortunately, the complete manga has been scanlated into English by Aerandria Scans.

Purple Eyes in the Dark centers around four characters:

• Ozaki Rinko, a seemingly ordinary high-school girl who transforms into a large and powerful golden leopard when stressed or angry.
• Her boyfriend, Mizushima Shin'ya.
• Her biology teacher, the evil Sonehara Kaoruko, who wants Rinko for "experiments."
• Odagiri Mitsugu, a freelance reporter who can transform into a large black panther (not the superhero kind). He's on the prowl for a mate.

The AMV uses images, incidents, and actual panels from the manga, but not in chronological order.

The songs are fairly typical late 80s Japanese rock, with heavy, simplistic guitar riffs. The music is by Nitta Ichirou. He also did the music for Nanako SOS and Dallos. The English lyrics were written by Linda Hennrick, who was the go-to lyricist for English anime songs in this period. She also did songs for Starship Troopers, Area 88, Record of the Lodoss War OVAs, Armitage III, and the first City Hunter series. Two of the English songs are sung by Yamaguchi Yoshiko and are awkwardly pronounced, but the hymn to female (feline?) empowerment, All By Myself, is sung by US artists, Derek Jackson and the Purple Girls. It's the best song in the OVA, IMHO.

Although there are only two Japanese songs, the AMV has quite a few signs. This includes stills from the manga with dialog balloons, sometimes too small and blurry to read.  Sunachan translated the songs and most of the signs (Aerandria's translations were used where the dialog was unreadable), ninjacloud timed, I edited and typeset, and Nemesis and Calyrica did QC. Erik of Piyo Piyo Productions encoded from his own Japanese laserdisc. Iri purchased Purple Eyes as part of a bloc buy of titles in Japan, but it turned out Erik already had it, so he sent the duplicate on to me. I can now amaze the young 'uns by showing them what optical discs looked like 30 years ago. Unfortunately, I can't play it, but it's real shiny.

Purple Eyes in the Dark is the fourth AMV Orphan has released (the other three are Cathexis, Rainbow Signal Hi-Fi Set, and Borgman Madnight Gigs). The team is going to take a break from the genre for a while, so enjoy this last one. You can get it from the usual torrent sites or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net

Sonic Soldier Borgman: Madnight Gigs

Here's another Anime Music Video (AMV) from Erik's seemingly endless Collection of Laserdisc Goodness - Sonic Soldier Borgman: Madnight Gigs (1989). It consists of seven songs from the original Sonic Soldier Borgman. That series has never been fully translated into English, even though it has been reissued on Blu-ray. All seven (plus three others) are collected on the album Sonic Soldier Borgman: The Last Gig of the World. They are:

1. Don't Look Back - first opening.
2. Borg, Get On - insert song.
3. Let's Spend the Night! - second opening (romaji, Yoru no Buttobase).
4. Don't Stop Happy Rain - insert song (romaji, Yamanaide Happy Rain).
5. Exhaust of Rage - insert song (romaji, Ikari no Exhaust).
6. Tender - second ending.
7. Forever - first ending.

Earthshaker, a popular Japanese heavy metal/hard rock band in the early 80's, did the first OP and ED (Don't Look Back and Forever). Show-Ya was a women's band in the same genre. The two bands collaborated as "HIPS" for the second OP and ED (Let's Spend the Night and Tender). 

The songs are Japanese 80s rock set to scenes from the series and follow the progression of the plot. The first five songs are full of action; the last two reflect the return of peace following the end of the conflict. In particular, the last song (Forever) has a montage about the characters' future lives. It's the true end of the series, and it wasn't included in the Blu-ray release. (Thanks to Jonathan for this information.) Thus, Madnight Gigs makes a unique contribution to the Borgman oeuvre.

Moho Kareshi translated most of the songs; Jonathan translated Let's Spend the Night! Yogicat timed, I edited and typeset, and Nemesis and VigorousJammer did QC. Erik, of course, encoded from his own Japanese laserdisc.

The treatment of English words, and English loan words, requires some explanation. Official lyrics are available, both on the laserdisc jacket and in the CD booklet. Where the lyrics have English words, they have been put in the romaji, with an initial capital letter. When the lyrics have katakana, the phonetic transcription has been used, even when the singer pronounces the English correctly. So the romaji lyrics have "moonraito" for moonlight, although the vocalist pronounces moonlight exactly right. Otherwise, I would have been making judgment calls on whether the English pronunciation is "good enough."

You can get Sonic Soldier Borgman: Madnight Gigs from the usual torrent sites or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net.

A-Girl v2

It's taken three tries, and fifteen months, but here at last is a complete and listenable version of the 1993 OVA A-Girl.

In 1992, Madhouse and Margaret Comics collaborated on an OVA of the shounen-ai romance Zetsuai 1989. This was successful, and in 1993, Madhouse issued six additional OVAs based on Margaret Comic properties:

• Oshare Kozou wa Hanamaru
• Singles
• Pops
• Oeda wa Nemurenai!
• Kiss wa Hitomi ni Shite
• A-Girl

Unfortunately, these additional OVAs were not successful and quickly sank into obscurity. None of them made it to Laserdisc, let alone DVD.

A-Girl is based on a 1984 shoujo romance manga by Fusako Kuramochi. It tells a very simple story: girl meets boy, girl loses boy, girl gets boy. High-school student Mariko and her elder sister Mayu are forced out of their apartment by a fire and move in with their landlord. Mariko meets the landlord's handsome son, Natsume, who is also a model. They fall in love but break up when Mariko discovers that Natsume is seeing other girls. Eventually, they are reunited, and the end credits roll.

The story of this release, however, is far from simple.

The first raw we found, back in September 2016, was defective: small (512 x 384) and missing the end credits. Apparently, it was stitched together from three pieces on YouTube. The second raw was based on a used VHS tape purchased in Japan.  It wasn't perfect either: tape stretch caused noticeable audio distortion in three places - but at least it was complete. This month, the VHS ripper realized that the audio distortion could be overcome. He made a new audio track, and I spliced the new track over the old one in the three chapters that were broken. That brings us, at long last, to this "VHS v2" release.
 
A-Girl was the directorial debut of Kousaka Kitarou. (He also did the character designs.) He later worked for many years as an animation director and key animator on Ghibli films before achieving prominence as the director of the award-winning Nasu: Anadalusia no Natsu. For A-Girl, he chose a novel approach: he made a "silent movie." A-Girl has no dialog and is performed against a background of Japanese pop songs composed by Okada Tooru and sung (in English!) by SEIKA. Dialog placards provide continuity, like in old silent films. It works pretty well and doesn't interrupt the flow of the story.

Iri bought the VHS tape for this release in Japan.He also translated and timed. I edited and typeset, Nemesis and Eternal_Blizzard did QC, our media guy ripped the VHS tape (and the replacement audio track), and M74 encoded it (and the replacement audio track).
 
As usual, you can get this version of A-Girl from the usual torrent sites or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net. If you like the music, the soundtrack is available on BakaBT. If you already downloaded the previous version, you can get a patch to v2 here. It's rather large; the entire audio track gets replaced.

Stop!! Hibari-kun! Song Book

Just in time for Christmas, a digital version of the 1984 Stop!! Hibari-kun! Song Book - a collection of songs from the anime, including the opening, the ending, and various insert and character songs.

I like to find and release the soundtracks from the old shows that Orphan subs, but sometimes it's not easy. Like the shows themselves, the musical offerings are often stuck on the wrong side of the digital divide. Even when a CD version exists, it's usually out of print.

As with most of our analog media, this album comes from Yahoo Auctions in Japan. Skr bought it for me and photographed the album art and insert pages. (I bought the album to get the official lyrics for the insert songs.) Skr then shipped it to Erik of Piyo Piyo Productions as part of a massive shipment of laserdiscs. (It fits right in, format-wise.) Erik transshipped it to me. I ripped it on my vintage Panasonic SL-1200 turntable via a USB encoding gadget. Then I spent too much time figuring out how Audacity worked, separating the songs into tracks, adding metadata, and encoding the WAV files to FLAC and MP3. They're now released.

This is my first time ripping and encoding an LP, so please be gentle.

You can get the encoded versions, FLAC or MP3, from the usual torrent site. The torrent descriptions also include direct download links.

Rainbow Signal: Hi-Fi Set

Here's a rarity: 1985's Rainbow Signal: Hi-Fi Set. These are six or seven loosely-related anime/live-action music videos from the Japanese singing group Hi-Fi Set. This show was released in 1985, right in the middle of Hi-Fi Set's career (1974-1994), and features songs from their 1984 and 1985 albums Pasadena Park and Indigo. (Information summarized from MyAnimeList.) It was never released on DVD and did not appear in either AniDB or AnimeNewsNetwork until we added it.

The story revolves around two cute dragons in a future high-tech city.

The plot doesn't venture any deeper than boy (dragon) meets girl (dragon), boy (dragon) loses girl (dragon), boy (dragon) gets girl (dragon), but it's hard to fashion a complex plot without dialog. (Actually, there is one line of dialog, or at least we think there is. It might be just a random exclamation.) Hi-Fi Set's song are harmonious ballads and pop songs - no angsty rock or heavy metal. And all ends happily.

Maho Kareshi, finally done with translating the entire Oishinbo TV series (136 episodes!), translated the songs from official lyrics, and Sunachan checked the translation. Yogicat timed, I edited and styled (no signs), and Nemesis and Calyrica did QC. Nemesis also corrected the romaji and added the background lines in the songs. Erik of Piyo Piyo Productions encoded from the Japanese laserdisc. We hope to subtitle other AMV rarities from Erik's collection sometime in the future.

So settle in to listen to some Japanese pop from the mid-80s and watch Ms. Red Dragon and Mr. Green Dragon find their way to reptilian happiness. You can get Rainbow Signal from the usual torrent sources or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net.

Cathexis

Zetsuai (Desperate Love) was a shounen-ai (boy's love) manga that started its run in 1989. It was adapted into an OVA in 1992. Although it was not the first shounen-ai anime by any means, it was very influential. Its operatic plot, tragic characters, and strange character designs defined the genre for years afterwards. The manga and OVA both received sequels (Bronze: Zetsuai since 1989). In addition, the Zetsuai OVA was followed in 1994 by an anime music video, Bronze Kouji Nanjo Cathexis (or Cathexis for short), supposedly a set of music videos by one of Zetsuai's protagonists, musician Kouji Nanjo. Cathexis has not been available with English subtitles since the VHS fansub era... until now.

As a compilation of music videos, Cathexis has no plot. Instead, it's a fever dream of five rock songs:

1. Bad Blood
2. Jesus Christ Love for You
3. Katuai
4. 20XX Zetsu-ai
5. Moonlight Eternal Mobius

The songs are sung by Hayami Shou, who played Kouji Nanjo in the OVAs. The lyrics are by Shou or by the mangaka, Ozaki Minami. The animation is a delirous cornucopia of homoerotic imagery, mostly featuring protagonist Kouji Nanjo and his love interest, Izumi Takato, as angels, soldiers, cyborgs, and so on. 

Some of the images are moderately NSFW, but it's all fairly tame by current standards. Following the music videos, there's a still image gallery of drawings by the manga author, Ozaki Minami.

The subtitles are from Lupin Gang Anime and have not been checked. Yogicat timed the songs, I edited and styled them, and M74 did QC. Erik of Piyo Piyo Productions encoded from his own Japanese laserdisc. For a while, I thought the audio in the encode was defective, because in the second song, the music is interrupted for one second by a test tone. Apparently, this is deliberate; the same tone appears on the original soundtrack.

So, love it or hate it, here's the first digital version of Cathexis with English subtitles. You can get it from the usual torrent sites or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net

A-Girl v1

When I wrote the blog post about the original, incomplete release of A-Girl in September, 2016, I said that if we ever found a complete raw, we'd release a new version. We did, and we have.

A-Girl is one of six shoujo OVAs based on properties from Margaret Magazine and animated by Madhouse. The others are POPS, Singles, Kiss wa Me ni Shite, Oeda wa Nemurenai, and Oshare Kozou wa Hanamaru. None of them was very successful apparently, because none were ever released on Laserdisc, let alone DVD. Orphan's previous version of A-Girl used a web 384p encode derived from a YouTube rip. It stopped after 25 minutes. Because the story seemed wrapped up, I assumed that only the end credits were missing. I was wrong.

The last segment of A-Girl, which lasts six minutes and is based on the song The Magic of Your Sight, brings the story of Mariko (the A-Girl of the title) and Natsume (the playboy brought low by her charms) to a real conclusion. It includes the end credits too, but it also includes actual dialog, a whopping six lines of it. (It also includes an additional 250 lines of typesetting just for a "Whipped Cream" label, but who's counting?) With the last segment, the OVA is now 31 minutes long and makes more sense.

Iri obtained the new raw by buying a used VHS tape in Japan. Our media guy transcribed it, and M74 encoded it. It's still not perfect - tape stretch causes noticeable audio distortion in three places - but at least it's complete. Iri translated and timed the additional signs and dialog, I did the additional editing and typesetting, and Nemesis and Eternal_Blizzard did QC. This tape, imperfect though it was, was quite expensive, so I don't think Orphan will invest further in A-Girl media. Perhaps it will show up on DVD someday, in some sort of Madhouse retrospective.

As usual, you can get the complete version of A-Girl from the usual torrent sites or from IRC bot Orphan|Arutha in channels #nibl or #news on irc.rizon.net.

A-Girl v0

Here's a bluebird that happened by and flew through the release process in a flash: A-Girl, an OVA from 1993.

In 1992, Madhouse and Margaret Comics collaborated on an OVA of the shounen-ai romance Zetsuai 1989. This was successful, and in 1993, Madhouse issued six additional OVAs based on Margaret Comic properties:

• Oshare Kozou wa Hanamaru
• Singles
• Pops
• Oeda wa Nemurenai!
• Kiss wa Hitomi ni Shite
• A-Girl

Unfortunately, these additional OVAs were not successful and quickly sank into obscurity. None of them made it to Laserdisc, let alone DVD.

A-Girl is based on a 1984 shoujo romance manga by Fusako Kuramochi. It tells a very simple story: girl meets boy, girl loses boy, girl gets boy. High-school student Mariko and her elder sister Mayu are forced out of their apartment by a fire and move in with their landlord. Mariko meets the landlord's handsome son, Natsume, who is also a model. They fall in love but break up when Mariko discovers that Natsume is seeing other girls. Eventually, they are reunited, and the end credits roll, except...

The raw we have - and the only one available - is defective: it is small (512 x 384) and is missing the end credits. Apparently, it was stitched together from three pieces on YouTube. Accordingly, we've labeled this release a "v0". If a better raw turns up - complete, and hopefully at 480p - we'll reissue the show.

A-Girl was the directorial debut of Kousaka Kitarou. (He also did the character designs.) He later worked for many years as an animation director and key animator on Ghibli films before achieving prominence as the director of the award-winning Nasu: Anadalusia no Natsu. For A-Girl, he chose a novel approach: he made a "silent movie." A-Girl has no dialog and is performed against a background of Japanese pop songs composed by Okada Tooru and sung (in English!) by SEIKA. Dialog placards provide continuity, like in old silent films. It works pretty well and doesn't interrupt the flow of the story.

Iri found the raw (after sitting on a dead torrent for a year) and then translated and timed it. I edited and typeset the captions, and Nemesis QCed.

So enjoy A-Girl in its truncated form. This will have to do, until a better source turns up. If you like the music, the soundtrack is available on BakaBT.

"It's Stuck in My Head..."

In Alfred Bester’s award-winning science-fiction novel, The Demolished Man, the protagonist, Ben Reich, is trying to figure how to get away with murder in a society where the police can read minds. His solution is to be “accidentally” exposed to an “earworm,” a portion of a song that repeats compulsively within the mind. Thus, when a telepathic detective looks into Ben’s mind, all the detective hears is the endlessly repeating song.  Colloquially, we would that the song is “stuck in his head.”

There are many different “hooks” that can turn songs into earworms. In The Demolished Man, it’s a repetitive, tongue-twisting lyric:

Eight sir, seven sir, six sir, five sir, four sir, three sir, two sir, one.

Tenser, said the Tensor, Tenser said the Tensor.

Tension, apprehension, and dissension have begun.

In many songs, it’s the music itself. An ostinato, known as a vamp in popular music, is a phrase or motif that’s repeated in the same rhythm and tonality. (A favorite example is the vamp at the start of “All That Jazz” in the musical Chicago.)  Regardless of the actual repetition, if the motif is memorable, the mind latches onto it and extends it indefinitely.

Anime series and OVAs seem to be a particularly prolific source of earworms, and it’s an occupational hazard of fansubbing to be exposed, and over-exposed, to songs that get stuck in one’s head. A viewer can fast-forward past the OP or ED; the fansub team has to listen to the songs week-in and week-out, and quite possibly multiple times during the timing, editing, and QC phases. The results can be truly mind-wrecking.

A couple of my favorite (or perhaps, least favorite) examples of anime earworms:

• Love Getchu OP: “Nanairo Nadeshiko.” This incredibly bouncy example of bubblegum J-rock is a prime offender. It has repetitive lyrics (“Chu chu chu chu, chu chu churu ru ru…"), an extended vamp outro, and a catchy melody. Because of multiple abortive attempts to finish this series, this song is now irretrievably etched into my frontal lobes.

• Happiness OP: “Happiness.” Another irrepressibly cheery bubblegum song that I hope never to hear again, because I’ll never be rid of it if I do.

• Chi’s Sweet Home OP: “Ouchi ga Ichiban.”  It’s only 30 seconds long in the anime, but it’s simple, bouncy structure, repeated 104 times, turns it into an earworm.

• Kekkaishi OP: “Sha la la -Ayakashi Night.”  I heard this song at least 51 times, because Kekkaishi only had one OP, and I had to retime it every week to fit the hardsubbed kanji. I actually like the song, but it too has repetitive lyrics and a recurring vamp and is very difficult to eradicate.

• Nodame Cantabile OP: “Allegro Cantabile.”  Another good song turned insidious earworm, because of the structural similarity of all the musical lines in the verses. Koda’s terrific karaoke for C1’s version helps make it even more memorable.

• Durarara!! OP1: “Uragiri no Yuuyake.”  This hard-driving J-rocker uses a simple, repeated two-note motif to hammer itself home in the mind.

• Elfen Lied OP: “Lilium.”  This one is rather different. It’s haunting, rather than repetitive. The contrast between the serene beauty of the song, and the horrific subject matter of the anime, made the song particularly memorable. Monster’s ED2, “Make It Home,” posed a similar threat.

Over the years, what anime earworms have bitten you?