H2O -- HELLO VIBRATION

Hello and good weekend to you! It's been a good long time...perhaps around 4 years since I put up the last original H2O article onto "Kayo Kyoku Plus". That's because when it comes to seeing any of the duo's presence on places like YouTube, it's almost always centered on their most famous song "Omoide ga Ippai"（思い出がいっぱい）, a song for graduation ceremonies everywhere in Japan.

Well, last night, I was able to find something different by Kenji Nakazawa and Masaki Akashio（中沢賢司・赤塩正樹）at last in the form of "HELLO VIBRATION" from July 1982. This was their 4th single and the one preceding their hit "Omoide ga Ippai", and it's an interesting one since it starts out sounding almost like a contemplative number on the level of Taeko Ohnuki（大貫妙子）from the same period. But then, it breaks out into a mellower quasi-Beach Boys pop song out on the surf.

If you are well-versed on the Beach Boys' oeuvre, half the title for this song pretty much gives away the game about what the songwriters were going for, and they were not Nakazawa or Akashio. Actually it was Tetsuya Chiaki（ちあき哲也）on words with Katsu Hoshi（星勝）coming out with the music. "HELLO VIBRATION" was also a track on their 4th album "Pool" from October 1983. And although it wasn't used as one of the theme songs, it was inserted in one of the episodes from the 80s anime "Miyuki"（みゆき）, a show that was quite happy to have H2O's presence in there.