Opinions don’t need to be set in stone.

Especially if you were wrong about someone or something. It happens, and there’s no shame in acknowledging that. That’s how we grow and mature as people, as well as how we evolve our mindset. Not by rejecting new ideas because they go against certain beliefs we hold one-sidedly, but by looking at both objectively. Or, well, I would like to think so at the very least 😛

Hello and welcome back to the J-Music Exchange/Rate; your monthly source of Japanese music album reviews! If you already know the drill then you know to skip ahead of this next paragraph here, but if you happen to be new to the blog and you’re not quite sure what this is ー

The Exchange/Rate is a tandem album review series conducted every month by yours truly alongside my good friend and fellow Japanese music fan Al (from Omunibasu). Each month we decide on a specific theme with which our reviews would revolve around. We then pick out albums from our respective libraries which we think best coincides with that theme. We will then give the album we chose to the other person and vice versa (exchange), after which we then listen to and subsequently review the album we were given (rate). This project has not only allowed us to explore music beyond our libraries, but it provides an opportunity for us to see our favorite albums from a different point of view. It is our hope that this series is able to do the same for you and that you either find a new artist to try out and/or we offer you a fresh take on one of *your* favorite albums 

It’s my turn to decide on a theme for this month’s album reviews, and to be honest, this is one I’ve had in my mind pretty much right I listened to the album that made me think about it in the first place. Way too often (at least in my personal experience) we get caught up with our our first impressions and preconceived notions about bands or artists after hearing only one or two songs from them where it affects whether or not we continue listening to them. Sometimes we end up being right about them and they end up being just how we thought, but just as often they’re also able to convince you otherwise and that you actually had the wrong idea about them. Hence, this month’s theme is about albums that changed our initial perception of a band/artist.

In recent memory I had that experience with Natori’s Gekijou, which Al will be going over with you guys at Omunibasu (check out his review of the album here). Over here though we’ll be talking about an album that, funnily enough, is by a pair who I *also* ended up having some preconceptions about with regard to their sound.

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harmoe (stylized as 𝒉𝒂𝒓𝕞𝕠𝕖) is a two-member Dance Pop unit comprised of fellow seiyuus Iwata Haruki and Koizumi Moeka, with their unit name is a portmanteau of their first names. Prior to forming harmoe, the two had already had experience working together voicing characters from the same projects, notably including: Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight (as the voices of Tsuyuzaki Mahiru and Daiba Nana, respectively); as well as D4DJ (with Iwata playing the role of Hanamaki Towa, and Koizumi playing the role of Sasago Yuka Jennifer)

＜Ｉｔ’ｓ　ａ　ｓｍａｌｌ　ｗｏｒｌｄ＞
(＊Spotify link to the full album)

CDJapan Affiliate Link(s):
It’s a small world [Regular Edition] / harmoe
It’s a small world [w/ Blu-ray, Limited Edition] / harmoe

＜T ｒａｃｋｌｉｓｔ＞

０１・一寸先は光/issun saki wa hikari 
０２・harmony to the West
０３・アラビアン・ユートピアン/arabian utopian
０４・SKIT1 〜DRIVE〜
０５・HAPPY CANDY MARCH
０６・雪のかけら/yuki no kakera
０７・空想エスケープ/kuusou escape
０８・ククタナ/kukutana
０９・SKIT2 〜VOYAGE〜
１０・きまぐれチクタック/kimagure tic tac
１１・マイペースにマーメイド/my pace ni mermaid
１２・セピアの虹/sepia no niji

Ａ　ｌ　: Having been an avid follower of Japanese voice actors and their musical endeavors, I always get excited whenever multiple seiyuu I’m familiar with team up to create a vocal tandem. It’s a good way to see how these VAs perform outside of their lovable fictional character personalities and most of these units do end up becoming ones that work out pretty well + gain a good amount of popularity (e.g., TrySail, Sphere, DIALOGUE+, NACHERRY, Walküre, etc). So when I first heard that fellow Revue Starlight and D4DJ seiyuu Iwata Haruki and Koizumi Moeka would be forming a music duo back in 2021, I was definitely looking forward to seeing what they’d bring to the table, given their already close chemistry and relationship through those two aforementioned multimedia projects. And while their debut release in “Kimagure Tick Tack” was cool, I admittedly didn’t think much of it at first; other than it being a catchy and fun song that also showed off the interesting distinction/mixture between Iwata and Koizumi’s vocals.

But once they started to release more and more music, the overall concept and idea that they’re trying to convey started to become clear, as all of the songs on It’s a small world are actually inspired by and/or based on well-known fairy and folktales (especially ones that have been popularized by the Disney animation films). As you’ll probably recognize, songs like “Arabian Utopian” relates to Aladdin, “HAPPY CANDY MARCH” with Hansel and Gretel, “harmony to the West” interpreting the story of Journey to the West, and so on and so on. And given that all of these tracks are showing off a variety of tales, they also convey their own sounds and paces that appropriately fit with each theme. I really enjoyed the marine vibes within “My Pace ni Mermaid”, as heard within the upbeat steel drums and lyricism that exemplifies the summer season in a great way. Same can be said about “Yuuki no Kakera” with its super nice winter-y atmosphere throughout. While I’ve mentioned in the past that albums with such varying genres and styles within its tracks can be a bit jarring, I will say that harmoe does execute it in a pretty neat way that makes total sense (primarily due to them having one main music producer in Tomggg). In no way am I trying to tout this as some sort of ‘revolutionary’ album but I’ve always enjoyed the direction that this duo is going towards with their releases, since it’s clever, different, fun, and they’re honestly doing a solid job sticking with this intriguing concept for a musical unit.

＜Ｓｏｎｇｓ　ｏｆ　Ｉｎｔｅｒｅｓｔ＞

０１・一寸先は光/issun saki wa hikari 
We begin, as we ever so often do, with the first track of the album Issun Saki wa Hikari. The title roughly translates to “an inch ahead is light”, and is a derivation of a Japanese proverb “issun saki wa yami” which, in turn, roughly translates to “an inch ahead is darkness”. Now, I don’t typically tend to go over things like this whenever I review an album, but I wanted to make this one of the few exceptions that I do simply because I like the intention for it. The original proverb is a cautionary reminder that no one can foresee the future, and that we should always be wary of what might lie ahead. However, as you might notice, by referring to the unforeseen as “darkness” the perspective is a little pessimistic. The title here replaces it to “light” instead, and all of a sudden it’s a song with a very positive outlook that turns that feeling of wariness into excitement. The song itself is also a reference to Japanese fairy tale figure Issun Boshi who notably, much like what’s depicted on the PV, goes off on a journey by boat, braving whatever comes his way.

I found all of this, the wordplay with the proverb and the fairy tale reference, to be immensely fitting to be used in an album opener here. For one, given that the overarching theme of the album as per its namesake is traveling many different parts of the world, it gives you this feeling of embarking on a voyage as you traverse through the succeeding tracks of the album without fearing the unknown. The song can also be seen as representative of harmoe, with this being their maiden voyage, and how they too are bravely treading uncharted waters for the first time as a vocal unit. All in all, it really goes to show just how much thought went into this track, and for brevity’s sake (so that I don’t go over each song and what they are in reference to in as much detail) I do want to extend that to the rest of the songs on the album here now as well. I mean, amidst all of that, we didn’t even get to talk about how this song was produced by yuigot.

０６・雪のかけら/yuki no kakera
Of course, I didn’t *have* to go over the references primarily and I could’ve just talked about it being a yuigot-produced track if I really wanted to, but as I said, I do like they way It’s a small world implements its themes for the most part and the amount of effort that went in these songs in regard to them I would think is enough to warrant the attention. More on this later as, funnily enough, it actually ties into my overall thoughts on the album. For now I’m gonna skip on over a couple of tracks ahead to Yuki no Kakera here which, speaking of themes and references, if you guessed this to be about Frozen, then you would be right!

If you were expecting to hear an Electronic Ballad like this based on the songs that came before it though well, good on you (XD). If not, then we’re in the same boat as this track definitely caught me by surprise. Granted, this being a release by a seiyuu vocal unit always lends itself to the possibility of what we call in the Exchange/Rate a “grab bag”; which is a phrase we’ve taken to refer to for an album becoming an assortment of different styles by virtue of there being a multitude of different composers and producers working on the tracks for it. In that sense there was always a chance songs like Yuki no Kakera would be different relative to the other songs on the album, but this actually isn’t just that. Going beyond just the songs found on this album I would argue that this song (and really most songs on It’s a small world) is more so anomalous within that whole seiyuu album archetype because of *who* specifically produces it. If you were at all privy to the YouTube Remix scene and/or are big into Japanese EDM you might be able to recognize this song as the handiwork of one Kirara Magic. Why I think this to be an anomaly from the usual seiyuu album grab bag song (and this goes for yuigot producing Issun Saki wa Hikari as well) is that these are producers who rarely if at all work with seiyuu in the first place.

０７・空想エスケープ/kuusou escape
Don’t get me wrong, this is more than likely not necessarily by choice, I should add. Like, I don’t think composers/producers like yuigot and Kirara Magic are out here turning down opportunities to work with seiyuus and talents from within the anime/anime-adjacent side of the Japanese entertainment industry, just that based on their existing body of work they don’t really have much prior history of having done so. More over, with the exception of songwriter Yashikin specifically who was responsible for harmony to the West and Tanaka Hidekazu who composed and arranged Kukutana, most of the tracks on It’s a small world were by people who are better known in dance music circles.

Why is that worth noting you might ask? If you follow Japanese EDM I can’t imagine this venture not being an exciting one for the genre and everyone involved (especially too if you’re fans of their work) as it does shine a fair bit of light on these producers which expose them to an audience that they might not have reached otherwise. Outside of that, if you’re more familiar with the J-Pop music offerings of seiyuus (or just that side of J-Pop in general), their involvement here in my opinion does provide a whole new soundscape that fans might not be used to which in turn might create potential opportunities for discovery. I mean, where else within this music sphere have you heard a breakdown like in 00:49 of Kuusou Escape? I rest my case. This one comes to us courtesy of one KOTONOHOUSE (which is a boss name for the kind of sound he makes ngl) who first came to prominence as a SoundCloud-based producer in 2016, and is now widely regarded as a producer who will lead the next generation of Japanese dance music.

１１・マイペースにマーメイド/my pace ni mermaid
Though perhaps the most important contributing collaborator in this whole venture, as well as its unofficial lead producer, is none other than Tomggg who actually composed four of the twelve tracks (technically ten since the “skits” count towards the track listing) on It’s a small world. Arguably the most popular of the bunch because of his name value, Tomggg is also another producer who has very sparingly worked with seiyuus and anime/anime-adjacent projects in the past and is more so someone who breached into the J-Pop scene just purely through his work as a composer and producer, having first made a name for himself on SoundCloud much like KOTONOHOUSE. What’s funny is if you go check what seiyuu/anime-related things Tomggg has in his resume, it’s purely with *just* harmoe, which actually surprised even me as I thought he’d have a couple more under his belt.

My Pace ni Mermaid would be one of his creations here and, as you might expect from someone who has worked the most with the duo, Tomggg achieves the best balance out of all the producers we’ve named thus far. Not to say that the rest didn’t do a good job, but as you’ll hear here in this song and the other ones that he worked on (Arabian Utopian, Kimagure Tic Tac, and Sepia no Niji), the track never really tries to take over as much as it does in the songs we talked about. Rather, he notably does a lot of pure beats without a lot of noise and minimal synth in the background, giving his tracks a very wide feel with tons of room to work with. As a direct consequence to that, Haruki and Moeka’s singing just comes through that much better, making for a cleaner sound on the whole. As an added bonus for My Pace ni Mermaid here specifically, especially for all you Love Live! fans out there, if you go check who wrote the lyrics for this, you might be surprised to find out that it’s by Suzuko (Mimorin) Mimori. How about that for a last surprise, lol.

＜Ｗｈａｔ　Ｉ　ｔｈｉｎｋ　ｏｆ　Ｉｔ’ｓ　ａ　ｓｍａｌｌ　ｗｏｒｌｄ＞

Coinciding with this month’s theme, allow me to preface my concluding thoughts by saying that I think It’s a small world can be a bit of a… misleading album at first glance. Though I guess, rather than it leading you to believe something contrary to what it truly is, it’s more about how the album gives you an impression of harmoe as a unit that (in my opinion) obfuscates what I personally consider to be the more interesting aspect of their overall sound. I find this to be no fault of their own, apart from maybe how It’s a small world and the songs in it were initially being marketed as, where I do see it more as just an unfortunately missed opportunity. What I mean by that is, I think harmoe might have leaned *too* much into the whole fairy tale/Disney-theming they have going on, so much so that it ends up taking away from what they’re doing music-wise.

Again, I thought the implementation of the themes in terms of the visuals and the song-writing was actually pretty well done in my opinion, and in isolation do genuinely like the idea of creating songs with an overarching theme like this. However, after now hearing its execution from a sound perspective and after seeing the kind of producers they pulled to turn the vision that they had for harmoe into an auditory experience, what we ended up getting was something else entirely. Or at least, had it not been for what it was already made into initially. Here’s an experiment: try to forget all about the fairy tales for just a second and give the album (or at least some of the songs) another listen. This time around though, you instead now possess the knowledge that the people that worked on the album are mostly from the Japanese EDM scene.

When I did that, a question popped up in my head. Should harmoe just been billed simply as a unit that collaborated with different EDM producers with Tomggg at the helm rather than go all in on the fairy tale/Disney-theming? You might ask in reply, what difference does that make? Admittedly, not a whole lot. But the little that it does change I think might end up mattering in the long run. That is to say, while the implementation of themes is largely on point, I do see it as a bit of a novelty. One that ever so slightly detracts from what I think should have been the main appeal for the unit from the start, and that’s them being uniquely positioned to be a Electro/Dance Pop unit. I mean, they literally are one, at least according to their own words in their official artist bio… but you wouldn’t think that they were calling themselves as such. And that’s the point.

＜Ｍｙ　Ｒａｔｉｎｇ＞

３.７５ ｏｕｔ ｏｆ ５

＆

７.５ ｏｕｔ ｏｆ １０

The themes are cute and enjoyable, and one can just as well argue that that’s where harmoe’s charm lies, which is totally fair. I honestly just think that sort of stuff has a ceiling, which they realistically shouldn’t have to even worry about when they easily blow the roof off just with their sound owing to the people they have making tracks for them. In that sense I do feel that It’s a small world could have utilized these producers better by having harmoe lean towards a more EDM sound. If we were just gonna have these two do conventional J-Pop then what was the point of having them on in the first place? Like, I wouldn’t have even known that yuigot produced Issun Saki wa Hikari if didn’t happen to just see him listed in the song credits in passing. I see this as an opportunity cost which I do hope the team behind harmoe realize as for what it’s worth I do find potential in this project.

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What are your guys’ thoughts on harmoe’s It’s a small world? Let us know in the comments! Likewise, lemme know too which albums changed *your* initial perception of a particular band or artist?

Before you go; don’t forget to check out Al’s review of Natori’s Gekijou over at Omunibasu if you haven’t yet!

Happy Listening!