The "What's Old is New" saying is definitely the mantra of one of the next Nijiiro Version update's newcoming Anime peaks. Meet it a few days in advance here, on our weekly corner!
God Knows... The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya| Version |  |  |  |  |
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| All | x? (???) | x? (???) | x? (???) | x? (???) |
Taiko N
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???Nothing says 'first 4th-gen Taiko song feature' louder than a hit piece from a 2006 Anime series, isn't it? This really popular piece made its debut as an insert song of the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya series, performed in-lore by the titular Haruhi -voiced by Aya Hirano (平野綾)- and in in-lore school music club ENOZ, named after its members' initials (Enomoto, Nakanishi, Okajima, Zaizen) and mimicking the name of the real-life J-Pop act ZONE. Satoru Kōsaki (神前暁), already of Lucky Star score fame, is the composer of the song, with the lyrics set penned by Aki Hata (畑亜貴) who later went on to also lyricize many songs in the Love Live! franchise.
The live performance for God Knows... that was used for anything Haruhi, on the other hand, featured an all-stars cast of instrument-playing talents whose performance was not just a show for the anime animators' ears! On the guitar, we have Susumu Nishikawa (西川進) from the Japanese rock band Diamond Head; the bassist is Takeshi Taneda (種子田健) from Crush 40, a Sega unit focusing on rock songs for the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise's games; closing the trio is drummer Yutaka Odawara (小田原豊), member of Rebecca as well as recurring contributor in other musical units such as the now-disbanded Kalafina. The three artists' performance of God Knows... was tracked by animators in Rotoscoping and the resulting drawing sequences were used as the basis of the animated sequence of the song performance in the Haruhi anime.
The song was later recorded for June 2006's Suzumiya Haruhi no Tsumeawase (涼宮ハルヒの詰合) album and February 2010's Imaginary ENOZ featuring HARUHI album releases, with the former peaking #5 at Oricon charts and netting the highest sales in franchise history with over 126k copies sold. God Knows was even played as the final track of an Haruhi-themed concert by the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra in April 2009, going by the name of Suzumiya Haruhi no Gensō (涼宮ハルヒの弦奏).
