Soran Bushi（ソーラン節）

Once again, the YouTube comment of "(name of anime) sent me here!" is alive and well. I first saw it applied via "Hibike! Euphonium" when the high school band covered Yellow Magic Orchestra's "Rydeen" and The Square's "Takarajima" in respective seasons. All I had to do was check out the original versions of the songs to see the many "Hibike! Euphonium sent me here!" comments. Then, a mere two weeks ago, Episode 10 of Season 2 of "Kaguya-sama: Love is War" pulled one off when the title character tried out some voguing to find her calming ritual, sending rapt fans off to check out Madonna's "Vogue" and leave those famous comments.

Looks like "Kaguya-sama" scored another point last week as the usually fluffy Chika Fujiwara unleashed Gordon Ramsey fury on choreographically-damaged Student Council President Miyuki Shirogane. It was only a surprise that the lass didn't pull out two slices of white bread and slam them on either side of Miyuki's head. The issue was that the President had two left feet when it came to performing the famous traditional dance of Soran Bushi, and considering that Fujiwara had gone through hell and back to teach him the basics of volleyball and singing, the temper finally snapped.

Happily, within a few minutes of some rather unconventional tutoring and arguing between Chika and Vice-President Kaguya Shinomiya, Miyuki finally found his groove just in time for the dance presentation at the annual sports festival.

Of course, probably within a few minutes of the end of that episode, fans clambered over each other searching for that actual YouTube video of folks performing Soran Bushi, first sung by the fishermen of Hokkaido according to the Wikipedia article. The above video here was posted up on 2012 but I can guarantee that viewership and comments for that video exploded in the last six days, probably all of them having to do with Miyuki's education.

Both Chika and the Wikipedia article describe what Soran Bushi is all about with each move in the dance representing the actions in the raucous environment of catching all that fish (herring from what I've read in the J-Wiki article). The Hokkaido minyo itself may have been around for quite a while longer, but apparently 1974 was the year that Soran Bushi got its due nationwide. If anyone can give me an earlier year for its origins, please let me know.

The "Kaguya-sama" version of Soran Bushi had some good pizzazz but I have to admit that all sorts of singers and dancers and musicians haven't slouched when it comes to bringing the dance onstage. I found this video of enka singers Hiroshi Miyama（三山ひろし）and Kouhei Fukuda（福田こうへい）going for the gusto with a small army of dancers.

Compare Soran Bushi with another traditional song that I've written about, Tanko Bushi.