Minako Honda -- Oneway Generation

Yesterday, I got to see "Batman v. Superman" with some friends downtown. Yep, I did hear about all of the negative reviews so my expectations were about as high as a caterpillar's belly which actually did help me to enjoy things a bit more. It wasn't quite a disaster but I thought it was severely lacking in humour. Perhaps if there were a good dollop of it from the above parody with comedian/talk-show host Jimmy Kimmel, we would have been happier, although there were other issues to fix.

I had the same feelings when I first saw and heard the late Minako Honda（本田美奈子）back in the 1980s. I may have remarked to Marcos V. for one of his Minako articles on the blog that I hadn't been too impressed when I saw her performing on either "The Best 10" or "The Top 10" and her voice was all over the place. In retrospect, though, I may have been a bit harsh since she and her dancers were flying about at the time, but still, even as an aidoru, she didn't exactly show some of that prowess that would later come out when she became a stage musical actress.

Still somewhat wary of "1986-nen no Marilyn"（1986年のマリリン）which was one of her earlier releases but looking at her 9th single, "Oneway Generation" from February 1987, I was pleasantly surprised that she sounded a bit more stable on TV...I will have to listen to the original recorded version someday. And of course, the refrain has been the one meme of Minako that has stayed in my head all these years.

Written by Yasushi Akimoto（秋元康）and composed by Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）, "Oneway Generation" has an inspiring message about those young folks who might be feeling stuck in terms of what to do for their future: just plod ahead with those dreams and not listen to any negativity. Mind you, passing those university entrance exams is one big wall, though. The single managed to get as high as No. 2 on Oricon and became the 23rd-ranked single of the year.

"Oneway Generation" was also the theme song for the TBS serial "Papa wa Newscaster" (パパはニュースキャスター...Papa is a Newscaster) starring Masakazu Tamura（田村正和）who would take on a far more iconic role in the next decade.