Credits

I would like to give credit where credit is due. Videos are from YouTube and other sources such as NicoNico while Oricon rankings and other information are translated from the Japanese Wikipedia unless noted.

Wednesday, April 15, 2015

BON-BON BLANCO -- Namida no Hurricane (涙のハリケーン)



As I've mentioned a number of times when I've inserted an anime-related article, my friend and I have something called The Routine which is our biweekly Sunday get-together for food and anime. Consider it something akin to what happens on the sitcom "The Big Bang Theory" but with fewer people. The Routine involves brunch followed by a couple of hours of the latest anime viewings which is then followed by an hour or so listening to various anison from the past few decades.

Last Sunday, my friend played a song from a few years ago as sung by one of the myriad characters from "The Idolmaster" franchise, Miki Hoshii(星井美希) , as voiced by seiyuu Akiko Hasegawa(長谷川明子). It was a pretty high-energy spicy number titled "Namida no Hurricane" (Hurricane of Tears) that sounded vaguely familiar, and when I made that "vaguely familiar" face, he told me that it was sung by Hideaki Tokunaga(徳永英明). The strange thing is that I recall hearing Tokunaga singing this some years ago (April 16 2015: And yet perhaps this may have been the figment of our imagination....tried looking for any sign of Tokunaga's involvement with this song on YouTube and J-Wiki...didn't see the song covered on any of his many cover albums).



But when I dug a little bit into the history behind the song, I discovered that Tokunaga may have sung the song but it was most likely a cover version. "Namida no Hurricane" (which sounds like a title of an 80s aidoru tune by my estimation) was actually the 4th single of  the teen pop group, BON-BON BLANCO. Like the song, the name of that band sounded vaguely familiar. I figure that the group popped up on "Music Station", "CDTV" or any of the music video channels during the 2000s when they were active. Watching the official video above, they were probably part of that wave of singing and dancing girl groups that proliferated during the late 90s and into the early part of the next decade spearheaded by The Super Monkeys and SPEED. BON BON BLANCO did them one step better by handling their own percussion instruments...reminded me of the old days of Sheila E.

The song was written by keyboardist-lyricist Miwa Sasaki(佐々木美和)and bassist-composer Akihito Tokunaga(徳永暁人)for release in February 2003. It peaked at No. 19 on Oricon.


Never saw or heard of the anime until I did my research, but the original "Namida no Hurricane" was the second ending theme for "GetBackers".  The show was about a group of young folk who operated a service of finding anything and everything lost for a fee....interesting premise; I'll have to ask my anime buddy about that one.


To finish off on a weird European tangent, the general beat of "Namida no Hurricane" was reminiscent of a song from an old Boney M. album, "Rasputin".  I knew the group far better for their 1978 hit "Rivers of Babylon", a tune that seemed to take up permanent residence on the AM dial of the radio. Ah...those disco days of yore.

Not exactly a tearful hurricane...

2 comments:

  1. Great blog. I LOVE kayoukyoku too, so I've been having a good time discovering old favorites and new on this blog. I remember Namida no Hurricane from Getbackers, but I had no idea Tokunaga Hideaki ever did a cover. It doesn't seem like the kind of song that would go with his soft voice, but I guess it's fun to play against type too. And yes, it's definitely inspired by Boney M!

    Keep up the good work!

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    Replies
    1. Hi, Animefangirl. Good to hear from you and thanks for the comments. I saw your site as well...would like to read some more. Yeah, I'm gonna have to make sure about Hideaki Tokunaga covering this...but I swear that I did hear him cover this one.

      By the way, I saw your article on "Kotoura-san". Yeah, my buddy and I caught the first episode of it, and I just found it almost painfully sad about what happened to the main character...ended up not continuing on with it. The funny scenes up on YouTube are amusing, though...but my friend said that there was simply too much pathos for him to enjoy.

      By the way, what kind of anime are you catching this season?

      Take care and keep on reading!

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