dela – Kettakogu (けったこぐ)

Today I finally received the CD J-Canuck sent to me after his last visit to Japan (yeah, Brazil's post service can be very slow).

The CD is a compilation of songs performed by aidoru groups. But they’re not only aidoru groups, but local aidoru groups from Nagoya (名古屋市), which makes things even more interesting. So, as local aidoru’s songs are quite hard to find online, this CD was a true jewel for an aidoru fan like me.

Someone new to the subject may ask: what is a local aidoru? Well, local aidoru is, normally, a low budget act that exists to entertain a small-to-medium audience consisting of people from a limited region or, more specifically, home prefectures. Sometimes, local aidoru acts turns into nationwide sensations, as happened with now-Techno pop unit Perfume, three girls that started their careers in 2002 as what I personally call Hiroshima’s (広島県) version of Mini Moni (ミニモニ, a subunit of Hello! Project), and Negicco, a trio of girls from Niigata (新潟県) that started their careers in 2003 promoting the yawahada negi, a variety of green onion from their home prefecture. Even Yasushi Akimoto’s (秋元康) brand of aidoru groups, such as AKB48, SKE48, NMB48, etc., started as local aidoru groups before becoming the biggest CD sellers of the country in the last five years.

For another example of local aidoru, a couple of days ago I talked about Tochiotome25, which is a local aidoru group from Tochigi (栃木県) that, just like the aforementioned Negicco, loves to highlight their prefecture’s gastronomical particularities. In their case, strawberries and the great Tochigi Wagyu.

Back to our compilation, which, by the way, is called “idol wave”, one song that quickly grabbed my attention was dela’s (デラ) “Kettakogu”.

From what I could find, “Kettakogu” first appeared in dela’s debut mini-album “Nanairo no Uta” (ナナイロのうた), which was released in November 2013. I wasn’t able to find if it was released as a single before or not, but that isn’t an important information right now.

Thing is, “Kettakogu” delivers a nice impression from the start with the playful Techno synths. Then, the girls finally appears singing while this bouncy and deliciously repetitive song starts for real. The energy is so great that, after the first listen, I was literally singing “Kettakogu! Kettakogu! Morikogi morikogi kettakogu!” (けったこぐ! けったこぐ! もりこぎもりこぎけったこぐ!) with the girls while waving my head from one side to another.

I listened to it so many times today that I’ll probaby have some trouble sleeping with this amount of saccharine in my blood.

The “idol wave” compilation was released in January 2014. Lyrics for “Kettakogu” were written by Yukimura (雪村), while music was composed by Kaoru Kondou (近藤薫). As for the arrangement, HASSE was the responsible.

idol wave