While in Japan, I had a very short list of things that I wanted to pick up. Usually I come with a long list, but this time, I had already decided that I wouldn’t be buying much media, only things I didn’t know – and goods. Media is the easiest thing to get shipped. That said, there was one manga series I was looking for, that sadly I did not find and one CD, which I did!
Watashi no Oshi ha Akuyaku Reijou. 私の推しは悪役令嬢。) レイジョアハンズ!!～Raise Y/Our Hands!!/O.C.～Optimum Combination～ is the CD of the opening and closing themes of the I’m in Love With The Villainess anime. It was apparent to me from the credits that some interesting manipulation of the lyrics was going on, so I really wanted the whole CD to get the lyrics.
Well…I’m blown away. Absolutely gobsmacked at the effort put in by everyone involved. From the awesome cover image, you know you’re not getting something generic. I’m not saying I’m burned by the G-Witch drama or anything, because that was merely annoying and somewhat silly, but it still feels real and important to have something like this image being a genuine reflection of the contents of the music.
The music is suitably sticky and I will now sing the choruses to Raise Y/Our Hands!! and O.C. ~ Optimum Combination~ over and over for the next week undoubtedly. But as I sat with the lyrics and listened to the music, I was quite overcome with the sense that the writers really understood the story. I wondered if inori.-sensei had been the writer, but to my surprise lyric, composition and arrangement were credited to TECHNOBOYS PULCRAFT GREEN-FUND. I’m going to give those guys serious praise for the music, but even more for the lyrics.
Most of the OP/ED CDs I bought back in the day had 4 tracks. One each of the OP/ED sung and one each of a karaoke track. This CD has five tracks. The OP, of course and 4 different iterations of the end theme, as we saw on the anime. Both Rae and Claire have their own individual tracks. But as the text bubbles of the ED animation make clear, this is meant to be a dialogue. The first track is O.C. ~ Optimum Combination~ -Side by Side- which remixes Rae and Claire’s verses to respond to one another. The final track O.C. ~ Optimum Combination~ -Side by Side-/reverse (which surely has to be the most punctuation ever used in a title) which remixes the verses *again* for another take on that conversation.
The more I listened to these…the more I liked them.
Serizawa Yuu acquits herself very well, while singing in Rae’s silly voice, with occasional flashes of her real voice, but Nanami Karen is the star here, bringing a lot of varying emotion into very quickly sung lyrics.
So for a series that put lesbians in the top ten rankings for weeks, is still out there giving us a ton of queer rep (I just finished Volume 2 of the audiobook yesterday), even the animation opening and closing themes are worth your time and money!
Ratings:
Music – 9
Lyrics – 10
Art – 10
Overall – 10
