Saturday, May 23, 2026

A Life Truly Alive

Allow your dreams to dance
Upon the earth that you walk on
Strike and break the mirror
That shows your hatred in the reflection
Chase after all your dreams
Even though you are not adept
Feel the strength of life
With your entire body and spirit
-- "Alive A Life", Rica Matsumoto (interpretive translation)

After Ash's supposed "special day" this year, I want to cover this actually long overdue topic. A couple of years ago, I brought up a song about "life" as a tribute to the new Pokémon anime, and I titled it in a way that it referenced another song about "life" with closer Pokémon ties yet still quite far off. That referenced song is now the focus of this post, and given the lyrics (the first chorus, specifically) as quoted above, those ties are rather evident.

Several years ago, I also alluded how Rica Matsumoto is well-known beyond Pokémon, and the song above is one of those aspects. It's a song for a tokusatsu series - one that involves heroes in suits and riding motorcycles, I trust fans know which one - and it's the opening theme for an iteration of that series. Given the interpretive translation as above, it can be seen how it might be a little "dark", as I've said before above - particularly with the word "hatred".

Yet after giving the song a listen and following that up with many more since the first one, I remain under the impression that Ash is singing it, and not just because the singer is the voice talent. The timbre of the voice is very close to Ash's and is almost indistinguishable in that regard. Certain other fans familiar with the artist might share the same viewpoint, even if yet others may still dispute that by maintaining that the song belongs in its different realm.

Faithful readers will note that I've performed the song (through Ash himself) on two occasions some two years ago, the former non-competitively and the latter competitively, but I've yet to perform the song again since then. It may be a good time to bring back the song at some point, something that I'll decide at a later time and when the opportunity presents itself as good enough for that purpose - in summary, it'll be a "good point" in life.

It may be considered that any life worth living has its ups and downs, for which this other Rica Matsumoto song seems to suggest, and extremely at that. The same could also be considered for Ash during his time appearing on the Pokémon anime, and this song would then carry over as such by virtue of the voice talent singing it almost with the same mannerisms. That then would make that, as indicated by this post's title, a life that's really and truly alive.

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