Elephant Kashimashi -- Ore-tachi no Ashita（俺たちの明日）

Hope all of you are having a good weekend. It's been refreshingly cool and not cold today and the rain has let up so I could go out and grab a newspaper. Speaking with my Skype student last night, it seems like there was an unusual amount of snow falling on Tokyo earlier today...probably all melted by now.

This morning after breakfast, I was lounging about watching TV Japan and the NHK documentary series "Mokugeki! Nippon"（目撃！にっぽん...Witness! Japan）came on about a group of middle-aged fellows putting on the gloves and learning how to kickbox. Halfway through the show, an Elephant Kashimashi（エレファントカシマシ）tune came on called "Ore-tachi no Ashita" (Our Tomorrow) as an appropriate theme for the fighters.

Released as the band's 34th single in November 2007, and created by raspy-voiced vocalist Hiroji Miyamoto（宮本浩次）, I learned that it was the singer's shoutout to all of his buddies, past and present, to see if they were doing OK. It was actually used as a campaign song for an energy drink, but under the current circumstances, I believe that "Ore-tachi no Ashita" can now be used as a tune of encouragement for everyone on the planet.

The single peaked at No. 18 on Oricon, and as for the music video higher up, that was apparently filmed on a building rooftop somewhere near Yokohama Stadium. "Ore-tachi no Ashita" was also a track on Elephant Kashimashi's 18th album "STARTING OVER" from January 2008, and that release broke into the Top 10 at No. 7.