capsule -- WORLD OF FANTASY

 

Back in June this year, I wrote up an article on capsule's 2021 "Hikari no Disco"（ひかりのディスコ）that celebrates some of that bracingly nostalgic 80s synthpop, and I found that the music video for the song was a shoutout to an earlier production for the duo of Toshiko Koshijima（こしじまとしこ）and Yasutaka Nakata（中田ヤスタカ）. That particular video was for the title track of capsule's May 2011 album "WORLD OF FANTASY" which sounds like either a Disneyland pavilion or a first-person adventure game.

Yup, Koshijima had driven the cool sports car in Tokyo back then for "WORLD OF FANTASY" as she did for "Hikari no Disco". But little did I know that the basic rhythm for both songs are basically the same (at least, that's how it sounds to me). As I said above, "Hikari no Disco" has the 80s synthpop vibe, but "WORLD OF FANTASY" had the club techno (Electro House as categorized in the Wikipedia article for the album) adorning that rhythm back in 2011, and up to now, I hadn't covered capsule in its absolute techno period since I was covering their Shibuya-kei days up to now. Well, I get my opportunity at last.

As Nakata's thumping electro beats away, Koshijima, who looks like the most formidable hedonist in Roppongi on a Friday night, hops into the Tony Stark-designed car (actually a Lamborghini Gallardo, according to the J-Wiki article for the album) and takes off onto the highways. And I gotta say that whoever thought of just using a simple mirror effect for the cityscape of Tokyo deserved to get a huge year-end bonus. The capital of Japan has frequently been called futuristic but the video basically has literally reflected the megalopolis as a mixture of a "Blade Runner" city, Coruscant and the inside of the second Death Star in "Return of the Jedi". I wonder how tourism exploded for Tokyo after this video got out. Truly a world of sci-fi fantasy. The album, by the way, hit No. 3 on Oricon.