10 Songs I Wish Were Anime Themes - part 8 (Patreon)

Okay, before we go any farther, I have to vent my DEEP frustration with YouTube and The Internet in general, because I couldn't find a full post of the actual music video on YT.  There's a CLIP of the video, but I kind of need the whole song for the blog to make sense.  And there IS a post of the full video on bilibili, but I can't embed those on Patreon, so you're stuck with this lyrics video.  And it took me ten times longer to even track THAT down, because the Internet's been creeping at a snail's pace all night!  RAGE RAGE RAGE.  Okay, enough of that, on to the regularly scheduled blog post:

Okay, we’re back in Ending Credits territory for this one, though not because I like this song any less than the others. In fact, this song brings us back to my “early days of weeb discovery” folder, when all the Japanese music I know that WASN’T an anime theme came from randomly browsing YouTube. I don’t remember what it was that originally brought Kaela Kimura to my attention, probably just a long string of recommended videos, but I do know that “Happiness!!!” was the first of her songs I heard. Very convenient, that, seeing as “Happiness!!!” was only her second single, though she’s already gotten several albums out by the time I stumbled onto any of it. Actually, Kaela’s early stuff made for a great “next step” to anybody whose JPop exposure consisted entirely of Puffy AmiYumi. She also exhibited a sizable Western/Retro influence in the early days, though with juuuuust a bit more concessions to mid-00s Pop than Andy Sturmer allowed Puffy at the time. Case in point: “Happiness!!!” This song is a bouncy piano-driven tune that sounds straight out of the 70s. I mean, not ACTUALLY, but in spirit. Sort of like how Gregg Alexander or Ben Folds channel the likes of Billy Joel or Elton John without really sounding like them. Likewise, “Happiness!!!” sounds like the theme to some lost, family-friendly sitcom from back in the day, with its catchy melody and positive chorus and general positive attitude.  I guess that’s only appropriate for a singer who got her start as a TV host, and doubly appropriate a shoulda-been anime theme. Granted, I’m only picking it as an ED rather than an OP; I think it’s a little bit TOO easy-going to properly kick off something other than a 70s sitcom. But as a closing tune to send the audience home happy? Well, just look at the title! I think “Happiness!!!” would be a great way to wrap up an anime! But what kind of anime?

Maybe it’s because I already get sitcom vibes, but my brain immediately went to “Highschool Slice of Life” for “Happiness!!!” A song this freespirited and relaxed has no business at the end of a show with any real stakes… or characters with real adult issues, for that matter. The problem is, I already DID a school-based slice of life show back at the start of this blog series, go see “If” by Triceratops. Yeah, I know these shows are a dime a dozen in anime, so there’s no reason I can’t suggest more… but that’s really boring! I don’t even like watching these shows most of the time, never mind trying to come up with one myself. I gotta come up with some kind of twist to make things interesting!

Okay, here we go. Something meta. Our show follows an aspiring manga artist who views the whole world around her through the lens of whatever project she’s working on. Taking out the trash? That’s a dangerous mission to plant a bomb at the base of a post-apocalyptic fortress. Taking the dog for a walk? That’s leading a herd of mythological beasts across a fairytale landscape. Talking to an especially intimidating convenience store clerk? Piloting a starfighter against a humungous super-mecha. Deciding were to go with her friends for lunch? That’s an RPG party trying to quest their way through a labyrinthine dungeon. That way we can have ALL of the genres without actually being any of them! Big, flashy, lavishly-animated set pieces for the daydreams, surrounded by plain, naturalistic, low-budget scenes to show “real life.” I know, it’s not the most original idea, but you could do so much with it that the basic setup doesn’t really HAVE to be original. Viewers are way more likely to remember wacky cutaway gags where our heroine gets bored in history class and imagines the American Civil War as fought by ninjas or goes with her friends to a karaoke parlor and pretends they’re all wizards casting musical spells or what have you. Bonus points if the show could recruit fan favorite artists and studios just for individual scenes, both to make them stand out from the “real life” parts more and also to get all the otaku out there even more hot and bothered that their favorites did something random and weird.

Oh, and that was an important thing earlier: friends. Our main character would definitely be weird and a bit awkward, but not in a creepy, anti-social way. Not ALL aspiring artists are misanthropic shut-ins… just me. But seriously, our main character would have friends and a social life and generally be a happy, outgoing, cheerful person… just REALLY imaginative and prone to drifting off into some flight of fancy at a moment’s notice. The punch line of every cutaway gag would be a smashcut back to reality, where somebody inevitably wonders why she spaced out for a minute there or why she just said something that seems totally out of context to anyone who didn't see the fantasy sequence. And even that would be less cringe comedy and more “hahahaha moving on.” After all, this would have to be a show that leads up to “Happiness!!!” at the end of every episode, and that pretty much has to be a show with no heavy moments.

But what would those closing credits look like? Well, the lazy answer would be one of those simple loops of the main character walking while some still images of the other characters scroll by behind her… but we’ve already established that I don’t feel like taking the easy route here. I’d like to have the closing sequence of each episode be a live-action, time lapse close up of some hands drawing the main character in one of the fantasy outfits from that episode. It’s different, it ties in to the theme of the show, and I’d even argue that high speed footage would kinda fit the cheerful energy of “Happiness!!!” Oh, and the final episode of the season could be a sequence of all the separate drawings from previous episodes being combined into a single collage, giving everything the sense of being pulled together. Kind of a “2nd ED of Shirobako” type of thing, ya know? Well, I think it’d be neat…