[ASFS] Kimi no Shiranai Monogatari – (Bakemonogatari ED) from jacklong on Vimeo.
Why is “Kimi no Shiranai Monogatari” the top seed in the Anime Music Tournament? It’s not bad; the arrangement is solid, if a bit overwrought, and the recording demonstrates that Ryo can work with real singers as well as Hatsune Miku. It may well be one of the better songs in the tournament. But I don’t hear anything remarkable in it. I’ve listened to it several times, and as soon as it ends, I can’t remember a single phrase well enough to hum.
I’ve gone through all the tournament entries now, and what I said earlier stands. (I’ll admit that I didn’t listen to each and every one all the way through. Sometimes, if a song didn’t catch my interest after the first verse and refrain, I skipped to the middle to see if there were any surprises there. There weren’t.)
A few further notes:
1. Radiohead? Really? Gah. At least Yes is worth listening to. Radiohead is allegedly brilliant, but whiny twit Thom spoils everything they do.
2. The more homogenized, pasteurized pap I hear, the more I appreciate forthright rock ‘n’ roll like “Ride on Shooting Star.”
3. Evidently Ali Project is out of favor these days. I expected at least “Coppelia no Hitsugi” to make the cut.
4. While the majority of the nominees were new to me, most of the ones I judged to be good I was already familiar with. I did find a few songs worth adding to my playlists, though. “Forces” sounds like Karkador-era P-Model — no surprise, since it’s by Susumu Hirasawa. I might have to track down the Berserk soundtrack. “Hanaji” has a pleasantly trashy psychobilly feel, and “Shoujo S” (which reminds me of The Monkees for some reason) rocks nicely.
5. Curiously, the opening and ending themes for The Tatami Galaxy sound better separated from the animation. The wispy vocals in the latter song, “Kami-sama no lu Toori,” are peculiarly effective combined with the spooky synths.
RE:“Kimi no Shiranai Monogatari” It’s not particularly hummable, but it’s pleasant and upbeat without being sappy. I’m surprised to see it # 1 but the song is pretty decent and there is sufficient agreement amongst voters on this point that it collects support from a broad spectrum as opposed to a songs that are brilliant to certain niches.
Recency bias… if I had 5 seconds to name the Big Hype-laden Shows over the past couple years, I’d say PMMM and *monogatari. Everyone[citation needed] is familiar with the shows and their music. Since it can take time for a song to “grow on ya”, but a simple melody can also get old fast, popular and recent-but-not-brand-new wins the votes.
Plus, as you said, it’s a competently-written, moderately-interesting j-pop song… with a vocalist who can show a bit of power, so it stands out from the moe-soprano-syrup that makes up probably 200+ of the candidates. It’s on my iPod’s playlist of J-pop-and-related-stuff. (Said playlist is heavily weighted towards Nana Mizuki and Yuki Kajiura things.)
And as the Muppet said, a tournament like this favors the least-objectionable candidate. Everyone[citation needed again] voting is a J-Pop fan of some level, not everyone is a fan of visual-kei/jazz/blues/hip-hop/sympho-pop/whatever else is in there.