Ranma Record Project II
Prizewinner of “Lyrics Contest”!!
Sung by Kodachi! Black Roses for Valentine's Day (Valentine ni Kuro-bara o)

Translation by: Toshiaki Yamada and Harley Acres

We collected the lyrics for the Ranma 1/2 singles album in Movement magazine and have decided on the winner of the contest. ^[1] The winner is a thirteen year old junior high school student. On this occasion, she met Saeko Shimazu, the voice actress who does Kodachi’s voice, at the recording studio.

We advertised for lyrics in Movement magazine's September edition, for the second album following “Ranma Teki Kikaku Onban" (Hot Songs Contest). ^[2] The winner, Akie Yamaguchi (山口晃枝) (13), is in the second year of junior high and is from Tokyo. Pony Canyon’s production director Masato Suga and Kitty Film producer Yoko Matsushita consulted with one another and Yamaguchi-san’s lyrics were chosen. ^[3]

It seems that the idea of Kodachi and tango attracted their attention. At the recording studio, singer Saeko Shimazu and Yamaguchi-san met up and Shimazu-san gave her an autograph card and a compatible LD player list.

We interviewed the flattered Yamaguchi-san with the surprise news alongside the singer Saeko Shimazu.

How did you get the idea of Kodachi and tango?

Yamaguchi: First of all I thought about which character I would write lyrics for and thought Kodachi was easy. I thought it should be musical one... and then, all of a sudden I hit upon the idea of Kodachi dancing the tango with a black rose in her mouth.

What did you think when you heard that you were chosen?

Yamaguchi: I thought “Why!?” Even though my leg was severely injured at that time, I jumped for joy (laughs).

Shimazu-san, what was your impression when you first listened to this song?

Shimazu: Yeah, I was thinking about clothes for some events! (laughs) Before recording my voice, I listened to the demonstration of its introduction and I thought “It’s interesting!” (laughs)

Coincidentally, the release day of this album will fall on Yamaguchi-san’s birthday. If you have a chance, please listen to this new album in which Kitty Animation Circle's members’ ideas are used.

A Word From the Director

This year's "Ranma Record Project" is "Utamaro" (1991 edition). The songs are sung by each character from January to December. When I saw Yamaguchi-san's work, I was impressed by her brilliant point of view of making Kodachi sing a tango. I was amazed at how well the phrasing was, it was as if it was written by Kodachi herself. Unfortunately, I could not use some of the lyrics as it had to go with the theme of the month. I added "Valentine" to Yamaguchi-san's work and applied it to Kenji Kawai's song.

This is how the second song on the album, "Black Roses for Valentine's Day," was composed. This time I was able to use many ideas from other people's works for this album. If you listen to the lyrics carefully, you may find a phrase that you wrote.

Pony Canyon Production Director
Masato Suga (須賀正人)

A Word From the Producer

Thank you very much for all the submissions to our call for lyrics. The lyrics were about Ryoga, who is lost, and Ranma and Akane, who want to say something, but can't. Most of the entries were based on the love stories of Ranma and Akane, but The winner was Yamaguchi-san, who came up with the exquisite combination of "Kodachi" and "tango". This is not so much a matter of lyrical perfection as it is a matter of ideas. "Genma's Painting Song" (玄馬の絵かきうた/Genma no Ekaki Uta) by Suzuki-san and Inohara-san's of "A Day at the Tendo Dojo" (天道道場の一日/Tendo Dojo no Ippi) were also interesting, but ultimately Kodachi's tango was excellent. I was very impressed with the way the images came to life in "Kodachi's Tango". Congratulations to Yamaguchi-san!

Kitty Film Producer
Yoko Matsushita (松下洋子)

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Footnotes

• [1] The contest allowed fans to submit lyrics for one of the character themes that was going to be released in 1991. Saeko Shimazu sang Black Roses for Valentine's Day (バレンタインに黒バラを/Valentine ni Kuro-bara wo) which was released January 21, 1991. Decades later Saeko Shimazu would discuss singing these songs and how professional working with Masato Suga was.
• [2] The "Ranma Teki Kikaku Onban" (乱馬的企画音盤/Ranma Record Project) label is a confusing and rarely used appelation that preceded the proper name of many of the musical releases of Ranma 1/2, essentially denoting albums released by the cast. The category was numbered with Roman numerals with "Hot Songs Contest" being the first, the "1991 Music Calendar" (which collected the character singles mentioned in this article) being second, "DoCo First" being third and "Fighting Songs Karuta" being the fourth.
• [3] Kitty started life as a music company before getting involved in anime and later film which is why they were calling themselves "Kitty Film" by this era. They also were the publishers of Movement magazine which was the official fan club publication of their company. For more on the history of Kitty please see our article.

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