I was figuratively crawling in my skin when I listened through Aki Toyosaki's cover of "Hey Jude," now on Youtube. It's not so much a murdering of a classic Beatles piece as much as hearing your average anime seiyuu pinching it up a notch in a way few dub actresses can ever hit. Those high notes! Not even Paul or John in their prime could've hit them.

More importantly, what do you think of it? 2ch and the rest of the world have been hating on it since yesterday, with over 8000 dislikes on that video. I mean covering the Beatles is always sort of just a thing people did, largely because of the love and respect they have for their music, and never expecting to come close to how good the original Fab Four did it.

Besides being a popular anime voice actress behind characters like Yui from K-ON! or Fam from the new Last Exile, Toyosaki is known for her wide taste in music, especially towards western-influenced fare. On her own radio show she even curates a little corner where all sorts of indie or western stuff gets a piece of air, broadening the horizon of your average otaku who would listen to a seiyuu radio show. For example, this 60s-inspired band got played on her radio show last week. It's no coincidence that she likes the Beatles, and I thought as much as ear-bleeding the cover was, there was some heartfelt emotion in it. So let's tone down the hate a little, maybe?

Okay, maybe it's a lot worse if I wasn't imagining that it's just Yui singing the Beatles classic, bumbling around like you expect she would.

[Via Kotaku]