I just noticed that there’s been a ton of Babymetal-related traffic lately, and I’ve been a bad host in not keeping up with what new folks looking for. Bad Maniac!

In penance, I hereby offer the last (videoed, at least) performance of what’s for my money one of Babymetal’s all-time most fun songs, “Answer for Animation with You” (“Kimi to Anime ga Mittai”).

This is from Black Night, the second of the back-to-back performances at Nippon Budokan in March 2014 (that is, not the one with Yuimetal falling off of the stage and Moametal doing a faceplant and barely finishing the set). It’s an interesting song in that it’s the only cover they’ve ever officially recorded (unless you count one-offs at various Legend concerts), the flipside to their early collaboration with Kiba of Akiba wherein each covered one another’s song, KOA doing “Doki Doki Morning” and Babymetal covering “Anime” here.

The Official Policy of Homicidols.com* is that covers are rarely worth the trouble; if you can’t either improve the song or make it totally yours, you should just leave well enough alone. In this case, not only did Babymetal preserve the dignity of their own song by not butchering a still-crowd-favorite, they dramatically improved Kiba of Akiba’s.

And now that “No Rain, No Rainbow” has been promoted to a full studio version and released as a track on Metal Resistance, maybe Amuse will agree to eat some royalty costs and give us an updated version of this very fun song, a girl basically trying to deal with her over-eager male acquaintance’s attempts to romance her with anime (the original is from the boy’s perspective, fwiw).

*There is no such thing.