[Bright & airy]
No.234 "Romantic Flight" by Yui Horie
Hi. The song we would like to introduce to you today is, "Romantic Flight" by "Yui Horie".
A blight & airy Pop song "Romantic Flight" can make us feel like we are soaring into the sky.
The performing singer is "Yui Horie" who is also well-known as a voice actor acted on the anime series like. "Love Hina" or "PreCure" (Pretty Cure).
And the song creator was a talented singer-songwriter "Ritsuko Okazaki", and you might soon catch the passages or melody lines typical of her.
If you like, please listen to.
Links to the music shops, offering song samples, are located on the bottom of this page.
Some contents have been put away in tabs with "▶" mark in each section, so please click it to see.
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Cover art today
Song data
| Title | Romantic Flight |
|---|---|
| Artist | Yui Horie |
| Album Title | sky |
| Catalog Number | KICS-1023 |
| Track No. | 2 |
| Duration | 3:29 |
| Released | 2003 |
| Publisher | Starchild |
| Lyricist | Ritsuko Okazaki |
| Composer | Ritsuko Okazaki |
| Arranger | Tatsuya Murayama |
About the creators
Ritsuko Okazaki Lyricist & Composer
The lyricist & composer of this song was "Ritsuko Okazaki".
She was a popular singer-songwriter, lyricist, composer, and music producer active from 1985 to 2004.
References
For more details on "Ritsuko Okazaki", please have a look at the references linked below.
Or, if you like, please have a look at our former post "No.213 Rain Or Shine by Ritsuko Okazaki", since the article is referring to her a little more precisely.
-
(Ref: love.life.coocan.jp,
profile)🇯🇵
Tatsuya Murayama Arranger
"Tatsuya Murayama" is a composer, arranger, violist, music producer, and the conductor of his big band "Tokyo Grand Orchestra" active since around the mid '80s.
References
For more details on "Tatsuya Murayama", please have a look at the references linked below.
Song image & Lyrics
Open
Link to the lyrics
Some notes on the lyrics link
Sound impression
Sunny & flying
This song seems to be a sunny, and soaring pop song in a medium fast rhythm.
Bright & festive
The drums, bass, electric guitar, acoustics guitar, percussions, electric piano, brass section, and backing chorus begin a bright and festive introduction. and the main part starts.
In the main part, a simple ensemble of the acoustic guitar, electric piano, and the rhythm section support "Yui Horie"'s cute, but stable, clear, and unconstrained vocal.
And in the bridge, a group of the cello, string section, brass section, and multi-layered rich backing chorus also join, and make the sound really gorgeous.
Reference
About Google translate
About the artist
Yui HorieA popular voice actor artist
"Yui Horie" is a voice actor, singer, and radio personality active since 1997.
She is one of the most popular voice actors at the moment, and well-known by her excellent jobs doing voice-over for major characters like "Naru Narusegawa" (Heroine, Love-hina), "Toru Honda" (Heroine, Fruits basket), or "Cure Magical" (Witchy Pretty Cure!).
"Horie" is also a popular pop singer who is able to pack out a few of Japan's largest concert venues with her fans.
In her official WEB site, "Yui Horie" calls herself a "voice-actor artist", and introducing herself primarily as a singer, and followed by a face of voice-actor, though it is a little unexpected thing.
So, we would like to respect her intention, and maintain our balance on writing in this article.
As a singer, "Yui Horie" debuted in 1997 with a single, "my best friend". Since then, 22 singles, and 11 original, 2 live, and 2 best albums have been released until now.
(Ref: Wikipedia-en, Yui Horie)
Early times
According to some articles on the internet, "Yui Horie" was born in Tokyo in 1976.
One day, when "Horie" was a first-year student of an elementary school, she noticed a class mate, whose name was "Chee-chan", going to the school by taking a same route to school with "Horie".
"Horie" got friendly with "Chee-chan" soon, and they began to go to school together.
It seems they got along well with each other. They spent spent a lot of time together, playing, chatting, studying, or a school club until middle school.
"Horie" and "Chee-chan" went onto different high school & college, and have taken up different careers at the moment.
However, the two still maintain a friendship, and being a good friend each other even now.
Radio drama
Two of them found or created many plays like Roller skating, Volley ball, badminton, or card games, when they were children, and got into them.
Among those, an impressive one they developed was a voice drama play.
Two of them and only few close friends participated in this play.
Someone wrote a scenario, and assign the role. And members acted out each roles, and someone recorded their speaking parts on the recorder.
In a sense, this was an episode can be said as an early emergence of "Horie"'s future career.
And in 1987, a brand new women detective action anime, "Dirty Pair" was began to be aired.
"Horie" and friends soon became a huge fan of it, and became caught up on making voice dramas like the anime.
"Horie" is recollecting that this animation, and making voice dramas influenced by this anime series, really inspired her to think a voice actor as one of the future occupations of her.
Audition
One day in 1995, "Chee-chan", a close friend of "Horie" brought a quarterly issued voice actors magazine "VOICE ANIMAGE" to "Horie", and showed an advertising on the scholarship audition for voice actors, sponsored by "Arts Vision", a reputed talent agency.
"Horie" & "Chee-chan" soon warmed up, and quickly wrote applications forms as if they were continuing the play in childhood.
And send them to the talent agency.
Very luckily for "Horie", she was selected one of five scholarship members from 3000 applicants.
"Horie" was allowed to enter a voice actor school, "Japan Narration Acting Institute" on a scholarship.
And she finally start her career as a voice actor.
But regarding this monumental episode, "Horie" later reflected that she might not able to take this opportunity alone, because of her reserved personality.
So, without "Chee-chan", we have not seen a singer & voice actor "Yui Horie".
Debut
As long as we see, "Yui Horie" developed her career as a "voice actor artist" relatively smoothly.
Already in 1996, she was chosen as one of the supporting cast member for a popular radio program.
And in 1997, she dubbed a computer game character for the first time in her life.
In 1998, it was a bit surprising, but "Horie" was selected as the voice actor for "Haruka", who was the heroine of a new SF anime series "Kurogane Communication" broadcasted on satellite TV.
At the same time, "Horie" was asked to sing an opening theme for this TV series.
The song she sang was aired on the program. And the theme was also released as a single CD under her name!
As a result, it turned out that she debut as a voice actor and a singer in one time.
As a voice actor
Since she voice-acted as the heroine "Haruka" on TV series "Kurogane Communication" for the first time in her life in 1998, "Horie" began to receive favourable offers pretty steadily as a voice actor.
In 1999, she performed the voice of "HMX-12 Multi", a maid robot, at a TV anime series "To Heart", and attracted attention.
And in 2000, she finally broke through as a star, when she participated in a TV anime series "Love Hina" as a voice-actor for "Naru Narusegawa", the Heroine.
Since then, she is constantly voice-acting important roles in various popular anime series like below.
- 1999
- To Heart (As HMX-12 Multi, Robot)
- 2000
- Love Hina (As Naru Narusegawa, Heroine)
- 2001
- Fruits Basket (As Tohru Honda, Heroine)
- Shaman King (As Iron Maiden Jeanne)
- 2002
- Samurai Deeper Kyo (As Yuya Shiina, Heroine)
- Spiral, The Bonds of Reasoning (Rio Takeuchi, one of the main chars.)
- 2003
- Ultra Maniac (As Ayu Tateishi, Heroine)
- 2004
- School Rumble (As Eri Sawachika, one of he main chars.)
- 2005
- Negima! Magister Negi Magi (As Makie Sasaki, one of he main chars.)
- 2006
- The Familiar of Zero (As Siesta, One of the heroines)
- Inukami! (As Yōko, Heroine)
and so on ...
So in a sense, she has been walking the main road as a voice actor since debut.
And, it must be a result of her talent and effort as long as we see.
As a singer
With no doubt, "Horie" is a popular singer in Japanese popular music scene.
How popular she is? In fact she is one of the few voice actor artists achieved to have a concert at the famous big arena, "Nippon Budō-kan" in 2009.
As referred, the first single record of her was released in 1998.
But the initial two singles released from "Pony Canyon" does not seem to be included in the list of single records of "Horie"'s for some technical reasons.
For that logic, the first record she released was her first album, "Mizutamari ni Utsuru Sekai" (The world reflected in a puddle) launched in 2000.
And "Love Destiny" went on sale in 2001 becomes her 1st single.
Since then, "Horie" has released 22 singles, and 11 studio albums quite constantly until now.
The most of her singles and albums were ranked top 20 in the chart. And some of them even won the top 10.
Because, the pop song related to Anime culture is already a mainstream in the Japanese Popular music scene, and "Yui Horie" has been a favourite name for fans since debut.
But they say, "Horie" had not particular intention to be a singer in the beginning.
However, already in the late '90s, particularly young female voice actors tended to be treated as a kind of idol stars.
In that vein, "Horie" was asked to launch some records from her agency.
But it seems she had a talent for singing, and that may be why she is being a popular singer for a long time.
At the live concert, "Horie" was applying a unique solo musical like style until quite recent. she sang and acted with music and dancers, and asking the audience to be a part of the show.
It was perhaps because of her preference since childhood, and actually was quite popular.
And it was often called "Gekidan Horie" (Theatre group Horie).
But in 2020, "Horie" changed her style of concert more orthodox, in other word, hiring a backing band, and just sing in front of the audience.
Seemingly, it was a fresh surprise even for "Horie", and she is continuing that style at the moment.
As a radio personality
"Horie" is also popular as a radio personality.
In 1996, even before debuting as a voice actor, "Horie" was selected as one of the assistants for a popular radio program for young.
And started her career as a radio personality.
Since then, "Horie" has taken part in more than 10 radio, or web radio programs as a main, or one of the the main personalities until now.
Among them, one of the most popular, and the longest lasting programs is "Horie Yui no Tenshi no Tamago" (Yui Horie's "Angel's egg") or "Ten-tama".
This half-hourly midnight talk variety show was began to be aired in October 2002 as a weekly program featuring a rising voice actor "Yui Horie" at that time.
Since then, it's been lasting more than 20 years until today, and in November 2021, the program achieved memorable one-thousandth on-air.
This is clearly proving "Horie"'s talent for this job.
By the way, today's song "Romantic Flight" is well-known as the second generation opening theme of this program.
Actually, we also first listened this song from this radio program.
We have put a link to a Youtube version of this program on Youtube section. If you like please listen to.
Crafts person uses a voice
"Horie" often reveals that she is not confident enough, and feels she is still under developing as a voice actor.
Or, she perceives that she is so far an amateur, or "thing like voice actor", and not yet being a professional voice actor up to her standard.
We guess one-third of her such comments would be her public stance, since those humbleness is always appreciated in our society.
But we imagine the large part of such comment might be a real feeling of her.
Because in other interview, she also commented that the jobs like voice actor, singer, or radio personality are works have to use voice really well.
In other word, she has to be a "Crafts person uses a voice".
In this sense, she still believes that she has a long way to go to be a real crafts person.
Objectively speaking, "Horie" is one of the leading, and most visible woman voice actors at the moment, and has a reputation in the industry.
But she might grow further as a professional if she is thinking like that.
References
For more details about "Yui Horie", please have a look at the references linked below.
-
(Ref: horie-yui.com,
profile)🇯🇵
Video clip
Lastly, we would like to introduce a music clip of today's song "Romantic Flight" by "Yui Horie".
Fortunately, a music video seems has been uploaded by her official channel.
If you like, please listen to.
And as mentioned in section 6, we would like to put a link to a Youtube version of "Horie"'s radio program, "Horie Yui no Tenshi no Tamago".
Because, it is the origin of today's song, and we also think you can feel the personality of "Horie" though this.
If you like, please also listen to.
Music Samples
2
(試聴する)
AD: Listening samples (Free)
Amazon JP(en)
recochoku.jp
music.apple.com (Track No.2)
Japanese Letters
| Song Title | Romantic Flight |
|---|---|
| Artist | 堀江由衣(Yui Horie) |
| Album Title | sky |
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