Anime music brings people together in Chennai
CHENNAI: The crowd gathered at the courtyard pulls out their phones and records the band performing on stage excitedly, singing along with the vocalists. What makes this scene different from any other show is that the band on stage is a cosplay band.
The four members from Daisuki, a Bengaluru-based cosplay band, donned colourful kimonos — the drummer, bassist and lead guitarist wore the primary colours with matching wigs to represent the three legendary birds from the Pokemon series, Articuno, Zapdos and Moltres.
“When we tell people that we are a cosplay band, they tell us that they’ve never heard of such a thing. We think it’s great because it helps spread Japanese culture,” said guitarist Abhishek Harish.
The band began in 2015 as a duo with vocalist Anushruti Saha and Harish, and eventually expanded to include their bassist, Shrey Sinha, and drummer, Sougata Hari. Their performance at Phoenix marked the first time the band has performed with their current line-up.
Opening for Daisuki was city-based Segments, a month-old band formed by Vyshnavi Narasimhan. It was their first cosplay performance, and it marked the realisation of a year-long dream.
“I’m a huge anime and music fan. I came last year for the Phoenix Gaming Expo, and I saw a school kid singing songs from an anime. I wanted to do that as well, so I formed Segments with just our keyboardist Kaushikan M. We played at a bunch of open mics and now, we’re here,” smiled Vyshnavi, who is pursuing her Masters in Social Work.
But anime music is not the only genre that brings the band together. “We know each other as we all studied in the same music school Taaqademi in Bengaluru. I had never watched anime before meeting my band. I became interested because I was interested in the music. There’s a certain musicality to the genre that drew me in,” said Sinha.
The songs were performed in Japanese, and Anushruti explained that she learned the language to sing better. “But it’s not just about the language. Look at all the people here — they don’t know the language either, but they are still watching the shows, playing the games and listening to the music,” she said.