Tetsuji Hayashi -- Main Theme from "Jungle"（ジャングル）

About 18 months ago, I wrote on this smooth Omega Tribe-esque ballad titled "Long Way To Love" by singer-songwriter Masayuki Kishi（岸正之）that had served as the B-side for the second season opening theme of a late 1980s cop show, "Jungle"...or as it was officially called "New Jungle". Well, I found some clips from the first season. The main character was a maverick detective played by Takeshi Kaga（鹿賀丈史）, who would become famous internationally some years later for his grandiloquent performance as the Chairman of the Kitchen Stadium in "Iron Chefs".

Two other notable things for "Jungle". One was that it also starred a couple of singers who have entries on "Kayo Kyoku Plus": Masahiro Kuwana（桑名正博）and Miyuki Kosaka（香坂みゆき）. Secondly, unlike my usual image of the police procedural in Japan back then, not everyone seemed to get along in the large corps of detectives.

Then, there is the theme song for that first season of "Jungle" by Tetsuji Hayashi（林哲司）, one of the 1980s songwriting masters of City Pop/AOR. That theme starts off nice and slowly before it suddenly rumbles and explodes with downtown action synthesizers and percussion reflecting the decade. Plus the main melody line rather illustrates what I've always envisaged in a typical 1970s~1990s Japanese cop show's opening credits: a lot of fiery police officers on a major running spree throughout the concrete jungle that's Tokyo. Just try to imagine them doing that in summer in those suits...their training at the academy must have been on Army Ranger level!

February 16th 2024: Jackie Lin & Par Avion sung their own version of the theme song.

This is the city...