That one belated green room update I do once every few months: July 2020 Edition
As is tradition, I've neglected my green room for far too long and now have to spend ages on getting it up to date. And as is also tradition, I'm going to try and be brief with my write-ups, only to fail horrendously...
WV121: Yuki Kajiura - Point Zero
Not
quite as much to say on this one; I already talked a bunch about Point Zero back when it first won the NF, so check back there if you're for some reason still interested in seeing me gush about that and give some context for it. But I will at least say: wooo, 8th place! Qualifying itself is already a success for me, so getting into the top 10 left me thrilled.
Ideally I'd like to manage some higher scores with something that
isn't heavily Pot-F-feeling for once... so far over 60-ish editions I've only ever reached the top 10 with sad Pot F music (and one English pop song that I sent as a kinda-filler-entry only to be very pleasantly surprised when it managed 8th.
). But hey, I do still love my instrumentals and other sad stuff, so I guess I can't complain too much if I'm at least getting through with that!
WV122: N/A
I forgot to send an entry in time because I am a dunce. (>-_-)>
WV123: Masayuki Suzuki feat. Airi Suzuki - Daddy! Daddy! Do!
And so I returned from my accidental one-edition break with this beautifully-titled song. Which ended up flopping... but honestly, 16th/22 in the semi is higher than I was expecting for this! It's better than my average score for silly pop songs, at least.
Regardless of the score, I got to share a 63-year-old
icon with a hot slice of funk pop and even hotter dance moves. And at the end of the day, isn't that what WV's really about?
WV124: Yuuhei Satellite - Daphne's Illusionary Song
I'm required by law to send a Touhou cover (original song
here) of some sort about once every 20 editions, so Yuuhei Satellite was brought in to represent Japan for a third time. I knew going in that loud, hyper Eurobeat would be a hard ask at WV, so the NQ wasn't a huge surprise here either (even if 21st in the semi did hurt a tad for what I think is a royal bop).
With this, Yuuhei Satellite now have the unenviable record of having entered three times – each with a quite different genre – only to NQ each time. I'd really love to see them make it through one day... well, fourth time's the charm, right?
WV125: Goose house - Hikaru Nara
I'd been saving Hikaru Nara in my back pocket since I first joined WV; I adore the harmonies, and it's got one of my favourite ever pop chorus melodies. So when I saw that someone had finally found a copy of the music video and uploaded it to YouTube (I hadn't been able to find one before), I knew I had to send it. Said music video
did apparently get deleted some time after the edition had ended... but at least I was able to get it saved, so hopefully the image above links to a working mirror of that now
For a song I love so much, and which I'd hoped might have more mainstream appeal, 20th in the SF was obviously a pretty disappointing result; it's not quite so easy for me to pass that one off with an "oh well, I knew it'd flop anyway". But at the end of the day, I guess you can't win 'em all; and at least I managed to send it and get some support!
WV126: Milktub - Naru ga Mama Sawagu Mama
After the slightly unexpected flop with Hikaru Nara, I headed back to familiar territory: the "I know this will NQ but dammit I want to send it anyway" flop! Quoting from
@anaraqueen , to whom I'd linked the song a few editions earlier when I sent it as a backup entry:
i'm three seconds in in your backup and YES it would flop
Three seconds is an impressive level of floptitude. Is that a word? It is now.
Anyway, this is another entry that I found from an anime soundtrack; specifically, it was used as the
opening theme to the brilliant second season of Uchouten Kazoku, which would have to be one of my favourite shows from recent years. (Also, the visuals for that opening theme are great, combining animation with photography in a really effective way... I'd recommend checking out the video even if the song's not up your alley!) Funnily enough, the same show's soundtrack gave us
Dakara Ore wa Kaeru ni Natta, which is about as different as possible both musically and in terms of results – it actually remains my best-ever WV result, having placed 3rd back in WV101.
As for the song itself - it's not exactly high art, but
damn it's fun to just get into some corny rock-pop once in a while. And how many other music videos include a literal example of wigs flying off? Yeah, that's what I thought.
WV127: Sayuri Ishikawa - Amagi-goe
Now for my latest entry, Amagi-goe. Surprisingly, I think this is the first song I've ever sent from the previous century; it's about time I got around to that!
My first time hearing Sayuri Ishikawa's music was actually when
@esc87fan sent
Tsugaru Kaikyo Fuyugeshiki back in WV89 (I don't think this is the exact video she used, but that one seems to have been taken down and there are dozens of other performances uploaded, so I've just linked one of those). It got my 12 at the time, though I didn't end up looking into her other songs.
Then a couple of weeks ago, I was watching a livestream by a virtual YouTuber (TL;DR, they're like regular livestreamers but use motion-capture and live-animation technology to show themselves as an animated avatar), and part of the stream was just her doing a karaoke session of sorts. That included her
performing one song that I quite liked the sound of, but hadn't heard before... and looking it up, it turned out to be Sayuri Ishikawa's Amagi-goe.
There were plenty of performances of that original on YouTube, but at first I couldn't really find any that I loved. However, I
was able to find a different and moody
cover that I really liked, from a singer named Midori Oka. So I was right on the verge of sending that as my entry for this edition... and then as I was rewatching it again, one of the recommended videos was a performance from Sayuri that I hadn't seen before. I loved it right away – the drama, the staging, the vocals – and so ended up going with that performance of the original for this edition. Sorry, Midori!
As for the song and singer, Sayuri Ishikawa is pretty much a legend in Japan; she's been a household name since the 70s, is one of the country's most famous enka singers, and still gets brought onto major entertainment shows all the time. She's had a lot of success, but two big hits in particular. One of which is Tsugaru Kaikyo Fuyugeshiki, released in 1977... and the other of which is Amagi-goe, released in 1986. I still don't know which of the two I prefer; all that's left now is to find out what WV thinks!
WV128: Hopefully an NF?
(if I can get it planned out by the end of the weekend)
Also, I'm happy to see my votes in this NF wouldn't have made a difference. The winner felt on the first listen a 7-ish number and Madder Sky I might have given a 9 (sounds like it could be from a Soulcalibur soundtrack). That's the right kind of epic for me 
Until then, good luck in the final!!
)
), repeats and half-points allowed, and you’re done!
So let's try that again with less people at once (apologies if the earlier one -did- work for any of you and this ends up double-pinging or something)!
