Kaela Kimura -- Happy na Happi（Happyな半被）

In recent months, there has been a bit of a schedule change on TV Japan's Friday night lineup. It used to be the fact that "VS. Arashi" held the 9 pm slot and our family is a big fan of the show. However, it's now appearing on alternate Fridays in tandem with an NTV variety program called "Sekai no Hate made ItteQ!"（世界の果てまでイッテQ!...Let's Go To The Ends of the World!）which seems to be, for fans who know their history of Japanese variety shows, a mix of "Naruhodo The World" and one of those Beat Takeshi programs in which his kohai end up getting involved in a number of hilarious and torturous games. Basically, a handful of tarento head to various spots around the planet to take part in some of the more unusual activities that humanity has to offer.

One of the current regular tarento is Daisuke Miyagawa（宮川大輔）who has the regular duty to participate in some of the world's weirder festivals. If I'm not mistaken, he's entered a frog-jumping contest in the States and some sort of oyster-eating competition. I saw the one featured above a couple of weeks ago in which he had to search for the elusive porcini mushroom in Italy. That was one of the less stressful challenges that he has had to endure.

Usually Miyagawa's segment begins with a show producer coming into his room and telling him about the next visit...usually to Miyagawa's chagrin. This time, though, there was a more pleasant twist in the visit (at least to us viewers...the tarento looked rather bemused at best) in that perky singer-songwriter Kaela Kimura（木村カエラ）suddenly popped out of his locker like a sprite.

Songs are often performed for Miyagawa, I assume, to get him to agree to the challenge and put his war face on. In Kimura's case, she sang the ever-so-sweet-and-jaunty "Happy na Happi" (Happy Happi Coat). I'm not sure whether she had created the tune specifically for Miyagawa and his festival trips but it certainly seems that way. Not surprisingly, the song has that Japanese festival atmosphere but it can pretty much fit into any songbook for elementary school children at the same time.

In any case, "Happy na Happi" was the bonus track on Kimura's 9th and most recent album "PUNKY" released in October 2016. The album did reach No. 9 on the Oricon charts. Kimura came up with the lyrics while AxSxE of the hardcore/free jazz band Natsumen came up with the melody.

Come to think of it, I wonder whether Miyagawa would consider coming by to take part in the annual busker festival here in Toronto. Heck, maybe even Fan Expo.