I was in Japan for just a month into my long stay and I was still getting settled in my new digs in Ichikawa. Of course, being December, the Christmas commercials were starting to pop up, especially those for Tokyo Disneyland (just a stone's throw away from the apartment). At the same time, the ski resorts were also powering up for the season, and the Japanese just L-O-V-E to ski (ski suki, see?....terrible oyaji joke). So Alpen, a famous winter sporting goods company, started throwing their ads on screen. Their sonic spokesperson? Leather-lunged Kohmi Hirose（広瀬香味美）.
It was the first time for me to hear this lady with this powerful voice as she sang a portion of her latest hit, "Shiawase wo Tsukamitai"(I Wanna Grab That Happiness) on the Alpen commercial. There was that one note in the refrain where I thought she was gonna crack the ceiling. As usual, it's a funky uptempo song which probably has attracted a ton of the young folk onto the slopes over the years as a Pavlovian response. Written and composed by Hirose herself, her 5th single peaked at No. 6 on Oricon.
However, being someone who would like to give as complete a song as possible, here is a karaoke video of someone trying the song. Speaking of karaoke, on TV Japan, via NHK, for the past several weeks, the singer has also put on a teacher's cap as she teaches a trio of students (two tarento and one university student) on how to excel in the karaoke box. Hirose-sensei is very much the nurturing den mother here. As for me, if I ever attended her class, I'd probably end up with a dunce cap in the corner.
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