Credits

I would like to give credit where credit is due. Videos are from YouTube and other sources such as NicoNico while Oricon rankings and other information are translated from the Japanese Wikipedia unless noted.

Saturday, November 23, 2019

Ninja -- Heartbreak Haru Shigure(失恋春時雨)


Barely remember this Johnny's aidoru group, Ninja(忍者), who had their time in the 1990s. This band of six: Susumu Yanagisawa(柳沢超), Yasunobu Shiga(志賀泰伸), Naoto Endo(遠藤直人), Shinya Masaki(正木慎也), Nobuhide Takagi(高木延秀)and Eiji Furukawa(古川栄司)had their run between 1985 and 1997, although for the first half-decade of their time, they were known as Shigedan(シゲダン)and then Shonen Ninja(少年忍者), a group of back dancers before making their full-fledged debut as Ninja in 1990.


Ninja debuted with "O-matsuri Ninja"(お祭り忍者...Festival Ninja) in August of that year and made it onto NHK's Kohaku Utagassen on New Year's Eve for their sole appearance on the special. However, I'm going to start their file with "Heartbreak Haru Shigure" (Heartbreak Spring Rain) which was a track on their 2nd album "Ninja Hakusho"(NINJA白書...Ninja White Paper) from March 1991.

Sounding like the group on horseback at breakneck speed, Ninja also sounds like their sempai group, Hikaru Genji(光GENJI), and according to the various pictures that show up in the above YouTube video, Yanagisawa and company even had some get-ups which made them appear like ninja by way of Las Vegas. "Heartbreak Haru Shigure" was written by Aki Mana(真名杏樹)and composed by Yasuhiro Mizushima(水島康宏).

During their time in the spotlight, Ninja released 13 singles and 9 albums including a BEST release.

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