Porno Graffitti -- Hitori no Yoru（ヒトリノ夜）

Yup, crazy as it sounds, it's been almost 4 years since I put up a Porno Graffiti（ポルノグラフィティ）article here on KKP. I say crazy since these guys from Hiroshima Prefecture have created some of the hookiest songs that I've heard in Japanese pop/rock. And vocalist Akihito Okano（岡野昭仁）has some great pipes.

I was actually listening to an album of their best hits a couple of days ago when I heard one song that I realized I hadn't covered before on the blog. And I remembered it from the "lonely, lonely" lyric that Okano sings out.

What I hadn't known was that Porno Graffiti's 2nd single "Hitori no Yoru" (Lonely Night) from January 2000 was the theme song for the second half of the popular manga-turned-anime "Great Teacher Onizuka". I remember the manga as well since it had also been adapted into a live-action series starring Takashi Sorimachi（反町隆史）before the anime.

Good heavens, that opening credits sequence is one of the best that I've ever seen in anime, and "Hitori no Yoru" simply works wonders with it. Again, it's Okano's voice and the hooky melody by ak.homma with lyrics by Haruichi（ハルイチ）that does it for me. The song seems to reflect the lifestyle of the great teacher himself. The song managed to reach No. 12 on Oricon, getting Gold status. It ended up as the 103rd-ranked single of the year.

In my career and surrounded by teachers all the time, there was a running gag among the students at the time when "GTO" was hitting the airwaves where the kids would identify their favourite teachers by stating the title of the manga but replacing the "Onizuka" with the last name of the teacher or simply the initial. Looking back, I guess I should be grateful that I was included in the joke although I countered the compliment by pulling out my wallet and rolling my eyes and saying "OK...do you prefer cash or credit card?"