Keishi Kawahashi/Kozue Saito -- Yamaguchi Sanchi no Tsutomu-kun（山口さんちのツトム君）

 

On TV Japan, we often get a cute little musical interlude via the long-running NHK "Minna no Uta"（みんなのうた）series of children's songs, and the videos that we see have usually been those released in the last five years or so. However, once in a while, we even get to see some of the really old footage and songs. Incidentally, the above opening sequence is for the series back in the 1990s.

Case in point: one night we saw this twangy tune which first premiered in April 1976. "Yamaguchi Sanchi no Tsutomu-kun" (The Yamaguchis' Tsutomu) is this folksy kids' song about a girl relating the story of her buddy, Tsutomu, who has suddenly become rather distant and mopey for some reason. It isn't made crystal clear in the lyrics by Ranbo Minami（みなみらんぼう）, who also took care of the country-fresh music (a good harmonica goes a long way), but the animation by Keiko Tanaka（田中ケイコ）gives that nudging wink that young Tsutomu has developed more complex feelings for the young lass.

According to the J-Wiki article for "Yamaguchi Sanchi no Tsutomu-kun", the song was performed by Keishi Kawahashi（川橋啓史）, a member of the NHK Tokyo Children's Choir（NHK東京児童合唱団）. That boy's name was a bit hard to track down since there were different readings for both first and last names, but one site has given its romaji so I will go with that. 

The song became a tremendous runaway hit as, according to a 1976 issue of "The Sunday Mainichi"（サンデー毎日）newspaper, NHK was suddenly flooded with tons of postcards asking for requests of it. As a result, no less than 9 record companies put out their own recordings of "Yamaguchi Sanchi no Tsutomu-kun" with different singers including young Kawahashi. The version sung by Kozue Saito（斉藤こず恵）, who was all of 8 years old when she recorded it but is now a blues singer and actress, and released by Philips Records in June that year had the highest ranking of No. 3 on Oricon. This version is in the video immediately above this paragraph. Altogether the different versions managed to sell over 1.5 million records. Puppy love can be so adorable and profitable.