B'z -- Ultra Soul

Well, we're almost through the first week of the Pan Am Games in Toronto, and Canada has been reaping a Golden harvest. As amazing and wonderful as it sounds, the home of J-Canuck is so far on top of the medal board...yep, even ahead of the United States. I guess something has to be said about home country advantage. And even more importantly, it looks like Torontonians have finally gotten into the swing of things after a lot of us (yep, me included) had been grumbling big time about the costs and the potential inconvenience for everyone in the GTA (still, I'm not sure how successful those HOV lanes on the highways have been).

Anyways, I found out that B'z's 31st single, "Ultra Soul" from March 2001 has been quite the darling song for Japanese sports programs and a competition. It was apparently first used as the theme song for the 2001 World Aquatics Championships held in Fukuoka in July of that same year, and then producers all over the air waves were so tickled by the usual B'z explosive brio that it started getting used in other TV sports shows, especially when they dealt with swimming.

Can you imagine being a competitive swimmer walking out into the pool area while hearing "Ultra Soul"? You could probably feel like taking on Michael Phelps himself. It's all so classic B'z with Koshi Inaba's（稲葉浩志）booming vocals and Takahiro Matsumoto's（松本孝弘）distinctive guitar blasting away at the water.

"Ultra Soul" hit No. 1 and stayed there for 2 consecutive weeks but just missed cracking the Top 10 Songs for 2001, ending up in 11th place. It went Triple Platinum and it was a track on the duo's 12th original album from July 2002, "Green". That album also hit No. 1 and became the 7th-ranked release for the year.

Another part of the reason for putting this up is that I saw a parody version of "Ultra Soul" performed on "The Disappearance of Nagato Yuki-chan" by the character of Kyon at an onsen. I believe the title in that universe was "Gira Gira Shake". However, as we all know, the song goes:

ULTRA

                          SOUL

                                       HAI!