Mami Kingetsu -- SHOW TIME

Looking rather sludgy out there. With an increase in the temperatures and then a system coming through the area, we're getting socked with rain so unfortunately, it's not exactly looking like Christmas anymore. I may just want to stay home all day tomorrow.

However you want to rate 2021, even folks like me who aren't supremely into baseball have to realize that this was the year of Japanese phenom ace pitcher and ace hitter Shohei Ohtani（大谷翔平）of the Los Angeles Angels. Even before this year, he was already getting hypercaffeinated yells from the baseball announcers such as "BIG FLY, OHTANI-SAN!". But into 2021, it's been "SHO-TIME!" or "SHO ME THE MONEY!" all the time as my family got to see the highlight reels on both Japanese and North American telly. The Angels didn't make it into the playoffs but Ohtani still reeled in a ton of awards so that he probably now needs an extra room in his home in Iwate Prefecture to hold them.

I'll have to cover this song sometime fairly soon but I found out that Ohtani's theme tune while he is coming up to the plate is Japanese hip-hop band ALI's "Lost In Paradise" featuring AKLO. Actually, I wrote one song by them back in the summer titled "Staying in the Groove".

However, the target for this article is just to be cute with the puns. I have here "SHOW TIME" by late 1990s seiyuu/singer Mami Kingetsu（金月真美）, which was her 7th single from December 1997. Only getting up to No. 91 on the Oricon Singles chart, "SHOW TIME" still has got lots of energy with all of those natsukashii synthesizers from the turn of the century. Written by Kyoko Kishi（岸恭子）and composed by Mari Konishi（小西真理）, I'm not sure whether Ohtani would ever consider making a switch in his walk-on song to this one but then again, he was only a little over three years old when this premiered.

Incidentally, back in June this year, I did write up Kingetsu's first article for her "Twilight Avenue"（トワイライト・アヴェニュー）, a cover of the Stardust Revue favourite, so have a gander at that one as well.