Yoshimi Tendo/Yoshiko Hanzaki -- Osaka Koi Shigure（大阪恋時雨）

With the 70th edition of the Kohaku Utagassen just three days away, I was looking down the lineup on the Red and White teams. One current perennial participant has been Yoshimi Tendo（天童よしみ）, an enka singer that is on my parents' favourite list, and my parents are quite particular about who they like even among the traditional performers.

According to the Red team list, Tendo is slated to perform "Osaka Koi Shigure" (The Seasonal Rains of Osaka Love), her 74th single and her most recent release from June 2019. Written and composed by Yoshiko Hanzaki（半崎美子）, aka The Shopping Mall Diva in Taiwan, I can't really categorize this as an enka tune, though. It's got an old-style Western blues-and-soul tone and it sounds like something that veteran Akiko Wada（和田アキ子）would tackle.

 (shortened version)

However, Tendo's full-bodied vocals are more than up for the challenge. With the liberal usage of the Kansai dialect in Hanzaki's lyrics, "Osaka Koi Shigure" really gives off that robust vibe about the trials and tribulations of love in Japan's second-largest city in terms of area.

Though I don't think Hanzaki herself has released her own cover of "Osaka Koi Shigure", I wanted to show a somewhat more melancholy but no less bluesy performance by the songwriter herself. Will be looking forward to Tendo's take on New Year's Eve. In any case, in that article featuring Hanzaki, I mentioned that perhaps someday she would make her own way to the Shibuya stage for the Kohaku. Well, she won't be doing that this year at least, but in a way, she will have representation due to work on the song.