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.

Monday, September 8, 2014

Hiroshi Ueki & Honey Knights -- Mirror Man no Uta (ミラーマンの唄)




Back during our tokusatsu-loving days, the Ultraman and Kamen Rider franchises were first and foremost in my mind. And as such, my brother and I were happy when Mom got us that 33 1/3 maxi-single of 4 tokusatsu theme songs which included the kickass theme for the original "Kamen Rider" and the epic march which started every episode of "Ultra Seven".

However, there were a couple of other theme songs that still resonate in my memory. One of them is "Mirror Man no Uta" (The Mirror Man Song) which was, of course, the title song for the tokusatsu hero Mirror Man (1971-1972). I can honestly say that I barely remember watching any episode of the series but the title march has that memorable kid-friendly beat that I stomped to in the living room.

Commercial jingle singer Hiroshi Ueki(植木 浩史)was the lead vocal here with the chorus group Honey Knights which has participated in a number of tokusatsu songs. And keeping on the "It's a small world" theme, Kyoichi Azuma(東京一), who helped write a number of the Ultraman songs, also provided the lyrics while Toru Fuyuki(冬木透)composed the music.

Although my memory of the series is hazy, I did read some of the manga version of "Mirror Man". One of my favourite points in any tokusatsu hero episode is the henshin (transformation) scene, and I gotta say that the lead character of Kyotaro Kagami鏡京太郎...his last name means "mirror")had one of the niftier ways of changing into his superhero mode...all he needed was some sort of shiny surface. And reading the J-Wiki article on Mirror Man, he also had enough battle tricks up his sleeve to make even an Ultraman swoon.


No comments:

Post a Comment

Feel free to provide any comments (pro or con). Just be civil about it.