On another one of my YouTube browsings, I encountered another Yung Bae video which brings together all that Vaporwave or Future Funk to a really sparkly song that goes well with all of those images of planes. Well, I mean that lyric "Fly away" helps out, too. Plus, with that cheerful synthesizer that sounds like a horn section arranged by 60s music whiz DeVol, it really kinda makes me want to take off to Japan again...and I've not liked air travel in a long time. In a way, I guess it really gets me into that aesthetics mood....or perhaps I should say A E S T H E T I C S!
The song hooked me but I had to dig deep to find out what the original title was and who the original singer was. There was no mention of either for the top video so I had to go with what lyrics I could hear and understand. Well, a few tries through the Yahoo Japan search engine finally got me the answer I needed. And I was somewhat gobsmacked.
It wasn't any sort of City Pop or any late 1980s champagne synth-imbued urban contemporary tune but merely an opening theme to a 1988 anime. The anime in question was titled in Japanese as "Don Don Domeru to Ron" (どんどんドメルとロン) based on the original French-Belgian comic series "Cubitus" with the anime being broadcast to the United States under the title "Wowser".
And before I forget, the title of the flashy opening theme is "Fly Away ~ Yume no Hikouki" (Plane of Your Dreams) by veteran singer Mitsuko Horie（堀江美都子）. I've heard her name bandied about in the anime and tokusatsu fields for years but I had no idea that she has been around for such a long time. Born in 1957, she started out as a singer in 1969 and then took on a second gig as a seiyuu which has been going on since 1978.
My impression is that "Fly Away" is to "Don Don Domeru to Ron" as that iconic theme by Hoyt Curtin is to "The Jetsons". Mind you, I think "The Jetsons" has the longer legacy but my point is that "Fly Away" just adds some extra warp drive to the launch of the show every week. As I intimated at the top, I had assumed that this was some sort of paean to all things City Pop, especially with that title.
In any case, that's another brief mystery solved!
Well this woke me up :) Reminds me of the mid-60's; my dad flew from New York to Osaka a number of times each year on business. He'd be gone 2-3 weeks at a pop because the travel time included NY-LA, LA-Hawaii, Hawaii-Osaka stopovers. Still have a JAL flight bag he brought home (hmmm, worth anything?). Thanks for the anime links - I was never into that except for Bubblegum Crash, so your blog is doing double-duty ;)
ReplyDeleteHello, T-cat.
DeleteI would probably hold onto that JAL bag...may indeed be worth something, especially with that iconic logo. My Dad may still have his ancient Nikon camera.