Little Glee Monster -- Sekai wa Anata ni Waraikaketeiru（世界はあなたに笑いかけている）

Earlier today, "Kayo Kyoku Plus" contributor Larry Chan and I got together for our semi-annual lunch and we went to our usual favourite Japanese restaurant Kingyo. Actually, the photo above is from the Xmas dinner with my fellow translators at Kingyo last year, but suffice it to say, the food at lunch is still darn good. Larry had the tonkatsu set (with really thick pork) and I had the mabo dofu set. Yes, I know, I know...mabo dofu is a Szechuan dish, but it is truly beloved in Japan. Plus, the wonderful thing is that several hours have passed and the mabo has yet to dissolve my intestines. Good, mabo, good!🙆

Of course, one of our topics was the blog and the music. The two of us conversed about the fact that the Japanese reign period will for the first time in a few hundred years change over due to an abdication/retirement of a sitting emperor rather than his death. So we know that the Heisei Era will end next year on April 30th, I believe. And I figure that in the months to come, there will be some sort of assessment on what the music was like between January 8th 1989 and April 30th 2019.

With the change over to a new period next year, I also expressed some hopes about what Japanese pop music could be like. For one thing, I hope that there can be an even bigger influx of some good old-fashioned soul to the proceedings.

(short version)

Tonight, I caught the first "Uta Kon"（うたコン）after a brief summer hiatus, and the vocal group Little Glee Monster appeared. My memory then reminded me that I said that I would write up an article about one of the group's singles after having mentioned them in "Hey Wa"（Hey和）last week. But I am new to the LGM oeuvre so I had wondered which song I would sample.

It looks like I didn't have to wait too long. The song was right there and then on the program tonight. Little Glee Monster performed their latest single (their 12th) "Sekai wa Anata ni Waraikaketeiru" (The World is Smiling at You), and I realized that there was some nice light soul in that tune.

Guitarist/music producer and former member of the band SUPERCAR, Junji Ishiwatari（いしわたり淳治）, and singer/songwriter Manabu Marutani（丸谷マナブ）came up with the lyrics while Marutani also composed the happy and funky melody. "Sekai wa Anata ni Waraikaketeiru" was released this month and was also used as the commercial song for Coca-Cola. Well, if we can all teach the world to sing, why wouldn't it smile at us?

Little Glee Monster started up in 2013 and has a current lineup of five women (with three ex-members): Serina, Asahi, MAYU, Karen and manaka. Along with the 12 singles, there is a digital download single which is a cover of the song "Jupiter", a mini-album, and 3 original albums.