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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.

Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Water -- Kotoba ni Dekinai Omoi (コトバにできない想い)


I never really got into the tokusatsu series "Genseishin Justirisers" (幻星神ジャスティライザー) as a young, tokusatsu/Power Ranger-loving little girl. I suppose after watching the horoscope-based "Chouseishin Gransazers" (超星神グランセイザー) with 12 heroes of every colour on the colour wheel to choose my favourite from, "Justirisers" just couldn't match up to that. They only had a quarter of the protagonists and they were literally less colourful - red, blue and black only. However, I must add that in terms of music, the "Justirisers" soundtrack seemed to have a larger impact on me than the "Gransazers" one.

Anyway, I watched a number of episodes, lost interest in it for a short while, then started again about midway through the series too see what had went on. By then they had introduced a new, powerful character in white (a combination of all 3 of the Justirisers, I think) and a purple morally ambiguous fellow, so it got more interesting - the shape-shifting robot the white "ranger" had was a huge, double-headed dragon! And it was at that point in time in the series where the ending theme had changed.

I did not know who had sung the song, all I knew was that it was a woman singing it and I did remember liking this fast-paced song a lot, and I had looked forward to hearing it at the end of the later episodes. Over the many years since "Justirisers" had ended, this particular song had popped up in my head on occasion, just the chorus bit, but somehow it never occurred to me to look it up, or even when I wanted to, I did not know how to search for it. It was only until recently (last year into this year) that the idea of just typing in "Justirisers ed 2 or 3 (I knew it wasn't the first)" in the YouTube search engine came to mind. I managed to find it and listening to it after such a long time brought back some pretty good memories from way back then. I did finally uncover its name and the artist behind it, of course, through the J-Wiki page for the show. The song is called "Kotoba ni Dekinai Omoi" and it's sung by this music unit I'm not familiar with, Water.

I've tried doing some research on Water, but there doesn't seem to be much on them. They had debuted as a unit of 3 in 2004, with Rieko Kobayashi (小林理恵子) as the vocals, Meiko Saito (斉藤芽衣子) as the lyricist and Tomohiro Ando (安藤友洋) as the composer. Together, 3 singles were made and then Kobayashi went solo from there - 2006 onward. The group's catchphrase was "Mizu no yoni pure na uta goe" (水のようにピュアな歌声... A singing voice as pure as water).


"Kotoba ni Dekinai Omoi" served as the 3rd ending theme to "Justirisers" and was Water's 2nd single, released on 27th April 2005, and written by MIZUE and composed by Ando. The song was also in Kobayashi's first album from 2008 "Water colors" with a slightly different, smoother arrangement that I prefer. It's in the link above.

Not as colourful... Still pretty cool though.
www.fami-geki.com

3 comments:

  1. Hi, Noelle.

    My time with tokusatsu ended in the mid-70s with Go-Rangers, so I never caught up on the theme songs accompanying them. Things certainly changed from the military anthemic songs that I used to know back then. On first hearing "Kotoba ni Dekinai Omoi", I thought the arrangements and the vocals were just like those of ZARD. It's a pretty uplifting tune and I'm sure the kids must have loved it!

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    Replies
    1. Hi J-Canuck,

      My tokusatsu stint mostly ended almost a decade ago... I think before I turned 11 or somewhere around there. It was with this show called "Sazer X", slightly more colourful than "Justirisers" but it had an annoyingly high number of sidekicks. Then recently, when Singapore had introduced a new Japanese channel besides "NHK Premium" called "Hello Japan", I began watching "Ultraman" for a while to humour myself with its laughable special effects - they never improved it over the years and the monsters were so rubbery!

      Yeah, the current day tokusatsu shows (or at least during the time I watched it) aren't so military-like. They're more Pop-like instead, but they still get your blood pumping (especially the opening themes) and I'm sure the meanings behind both types of songs are still the same, good overcoming evil, the good guys will save the day, stuff like that.

      Now that you mention it, "Kotoba ni Dekinai Omoi" does sound like a ZARD song.

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  2. Kotoba ni dekinai omoi ga kimi wo sagashiteru
    Utsumo kigachini sure chigau kisetsu no nakade
    Futatsu no kagega yori sotta yuu geru n ni ori
    Ima mo ma ga wasure ra re suni
    Tsuitachi do maru

    Shuumatsu de nigi wa u hite no nami Kimi ni nita waraigoe
    Ki no seidato wakatte iru no ni
    Kitai shiteta fuimuiteta
    Aenai hibini naeta wa sudemo munega toki doki itamu no

    Kotoba ni dekinai omoi ga kimi wo sagashiteru
    Utsumo kigachini sure chigau kisetsu no nakade
    Futatsu no kagega yori sotta yuu geru n ni ori
    Ima mo ma ga wasure ra re suni
    Tsuitachi do maru

    Kimi no wasa omo wa nu tokoro de mimin shite moe kashii
    Te o kore no kimochi se wo mukete hanareru kedo aruku keredo
    Anohino futari ichibyou goto ni tooku naru no gako wanai no

    Kotobani dekinai omoi ga ai wo moto meteru
    Wasureta hazuno un meriwo yobi mo desu youni
    Sayonara sae moi e naide mitsumeta keshikiwa
    Ima mo mada niji nda mamade
    kokoro yurasuno.

    Kotobani dekinai omoi ga ai wo moto meteru
    Wasureta hazuno un meriwo yobi mo desu youni
    Sayonara sae moi e naide mitsumeta keshikiwa
    Ima mo mada niji nda mamade
    kokoro yurasuno.

    ReplyDelete

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