I think I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve decided to take a strictly personal angle on an anime-related topic during my three years of anime writing, but today I’ve got another addition to that particular collection—although I couldn’t tell you why I chose to do so. It just kind of happened. Spontaneously, like a song… in a musical! Whoa.
Anyways, hope you guys enjoy me going a little more introspective than normal (although I’ve snuck in some analytical pieces here and there, teehee).
Mage in a Barrel 
Nice article! I also grew up in a house full of musicals, because my Mom was a massive fan of them. The soundtrack of my childhood was shaped by movies like The Sound of Music, Oklahoma, The Wizard of Oz, and Jesus Christ Superstar. Ironically (or perhaps in reaction to that) I’ve never actually been that big on musicals myself, though there are a few exceptions. Like, Sound of Music is still one of my favorite movies to this day.
A few of my favorite anime insert song scenes:
Pray (Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS, ep. 24)
Katyusha (Girls und Panzer, ep. 8) – it’s such a shame they had to change it for the international releases because of music rights
I Left You (Anohana, ep. 11)
Fude Pen Boru Pen, YuiAzu acoustic version (K-On!!, ep. 9)
U & I (The K-On! Movie)
Start Dash (Love Live, ep. 3)
Snow Halation (Love Live S2, ep. 9)
Inori no Uta (Yuki Yuna is a Hero, ep. 9)
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Ooh, a Rolling Girls picture, the show with lots of fun instert songs that disappointed everyone but me (and one or two others).
A memorable insert song came from a show I don’t hear everyone ever talk about: Kanamemo. It’s a show about cute girls delivering cute newspapers cutely. (Well, for all I now the newspapers are regular newspapers…) The show’s full of the usual sexual jokes, nothing too bad, and has the occasional fanservice shots, but the overall feeling is more of the cute, heartwarming kind. The show is notable for having a really cute lesbian couple, and nobody makes a big deal about it, nor does it seem to be primarily a male fantasy.
[Here be spoilers.]
Anyway, a show like this always has a beach episode, and so when the girls plan a beach outing and go to buy bikinis you’re really not all that excited about what follows (unless beach episodes are your thing). However, the show then throws us a curve ball: the girls realise that they never have off all at the same time (or no newspapers would get delivered), and so they can’t all go on a beach trip together. They then decide (in a bout of wackiness) to deliver newspapers in their new bikinis. What follows is a dilletante but awesomely fun insert song:
Watashi tachi wa hataraku shoujo, hataraku shoujo, hataraku shoujo… (in swimsuits on bicycles). It’s hilarious and stupid and fun, down to the ojousama friend/rival joining in (“Watakushi wa hataraku shoujo…”). (I tried to find a clip, but all I could find was an incomplete one that leaves out the finale and also looks illegal. Kanamemo doesn’t seem to be the most popular show.)
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