Siegel Clyne,
Well, I'm glad that the Shin-Nisei are leading the way for fluent English in Japan-made songs and anime voice acting. Still, aren't there good schools in Japan that teach you how to speak English fluently and convincingly? I really believe that if a role requires a good amount of spoken English, either the seiyuu should know how to speak it properly, or else an appropriate fluent English speaker should dub over just those lines of the character. It would avoid the problem of a thick accent or elementary vocabulary/grammar errors are very jarring and take away from an anime series.
By the way, is the the same
Yuko Gotou that played Mikuru Asahina in Haruhi? I hear that Gotou studied to become a Japanese-English translator, but if this video is indeed her, apparently she never learned how to sing or speak it fluently.
Another song I'd like info on is the theme song "
Love Suicide" from the game Rule of Rose. That game was unique because there was no Japanese dub (fitting for a story that took place on the grounds of a British orphanage), only Japanese text and subtitles. However, it seems like they couldn't hire a good lyricist to compose fluent-sounding lyrics. What about the singer, though? Does she have a history of singing in English?