Kami Takada Shonen Gasshodan/Zone -- Theme from Tetsuwan Atomu （鉄腕アトムのテーマ）



Oftentimes, when I got together to watch a movie and/or have dinner with the gang in Shinjuku or Ikebukuro, a few of us would take the JR Yamanote Line to take us partway home. In my case, I got off a couple of stations away from either of the two city centres at Takadanobaba Station since that was the connection for my home subway line, the Tozai Line. And every time I got onto the platform, the station theme would come on like this:

For you classic anime fans, do you recognize it? Of course you do. It happens to be the theme song for "Tetsuwan Atomu", aka "Astro Boy". The manga magnum opus by The Father of Manga, Osamu Tezuka（手塚治虫）, was set in this very neighbourhood. A lot of very cheap and ramshackle apartments for university students are still there along with a thriving café-and-restaurant life.

As a kid growing up in Toronto, I sometimes woke up to an instrumental version of the famous theme for the updated version of the series on TV. However, the original sung version had been a good 2 years before I was even born. Back then, the heroic theme, written by Tatsuo Takai（高井達雄）, had been sung by the Kami Takada Shonen Gasshodan (The Kami Takada Boys' Choir), a group consisting of students from Kami Takada Elementary School in Nakano Ward, Tokyo. From the 1950s to the 1970s, the choir had been recruited to sing a number of TV program themes and commercial songs, but I can guess that the "Astro Boy" theme is one of the, if not the, most famous song they've done. I think even among the kids today, the theme is still eminently recognized and recognizable.

And that's no surprise when singers and groups have been covering the song for decades. One such example was the Sapporo-based girl band, Zone, which released their first single, "Good Days" in 2001. At the time, the group consisted of four members: Miyu Nagase（長瀬実夕）, Mizuho Saito（斉藤瑞穂）, Maiko Sakae（栄舞子） and Takayo Okoshi（大越貴代）. Zone's ska-tinged version was used in the 2003 edition of the anime.

(Sorry, the video has been taken down.)

This is the full 2:26 version of the song done by The Columbia Yurikago Kai（コロンビアゆりかご会....Columbia Cradle Club), back in January 1963.

Of course, Goodyear knew a good thing when it saw one, and the company even recruited Atomu himself into the ad. Maki Watase（渡瀬マキ）, the lead vocalist from the rock band Lindberg is taking care of this version.

Mention this song or hum a few bars here or over in Japan....you will be happily joined in song! I can also bet that quite a few commuters do the same thing at Takadanobaba Station.