Midori Oka -- Kami no Tsuru（紙の鶴）

Kawagoe Station

Ahhh...yes, that familiar scene of a salaryman filled with drink and food slumped into slumber at a small watering hole in Japan. Apparently, it's always nice to have the motherly master of the establishment nudge you gently awake to let you know that it's closing time. I've had a few such folks as students inform me that they've ended up sleeping it off on the subway of the evening and completely overshoot their home station to end up somewhere deep in the boonies. The spouses were of course far from pleased.

In any case, before I end up overshooting the premise of this article myself, allow me to present Midori Oka's（丘みどり）most recent single, her 10th, "Kami no Tsuru" (Paper Crane) from February 2019. With plenty of violins, plucky guitar, and accordion (?) to fill an enka-loving soul with grateful nostalgia, Oka sings about an unrequited love for someone (perhaps an old customer) who has since gone away. In the video (which has unfortunately been taken down and replaced) she seems to have acquired a certain amount of contentedness as if she's happily resigned that the fellow has most likely found his own love of his life while she continues to pour drinks in her nomiya.

Daizo Saito（さいとう大三）was behind the bittersweet lyrics while Tetsuya Gen（弦哲也）provided the gentle melody. I found out about the song while watching an episode of "Uta Kon"（うたコン）a while back.

Speaking of "Uta Kon", I had heard over various episodes that Oka used to be known as an enka aidoru, and during her early days, she was famous for performing while wearing a tight midriff-bearing get-up.

Well, what I hadn't known is that in the early 2000s, Oka was once the third-generation member of a Kansai-based aidoru group known as HOP (Horipro Osaka Paradise) CLUB until she graduated in September 2003 after a year there and started to walk the path of enka. At that time, she had used her real name of Misato Oka（岡美里）. Not sure if she's actually in the video above. HOP CLUB had their time between 2001 and 2012.