Ohsuke Kanoh -- Shutter Chance（シャッター・チャンス）

 

Maybe it's a bit odd that I put up a video from the raunchy anime "Seitokai Yakuindomo"（生徒会役員共）as the article thumbnail, but if you can bear with me, I can explain. The above video focuses on the extremely nosy head of the schools' newspaper club, Ranko Hata, who will not let go of any opportunity to get a camera shot of a compromising situation among the other characters in the show, although a lot of the times, they're able to stop her in time. Although the particular scene is not included in the above montage, I have heard her exclaim "Shutter Chance!" (the Japanese equivalent of the exclamation "Gotcha!" in photography) to signify that she's about to get that great photo.

Yep, and all that "Seitokai Yakuindomo" preamble ramble is for the fact that I wanted to introduce an actual song titled "Shutter Chance" by Ohsuke Kanoh（叶央介）. Who that, you say? Well, you might know his old group, the pop vocal quartet known as Circus（サーカス）which is famous for their 1978 hit "Mr. Summertime"（Mr.サマータイム）.

I found this song on Island Fantasia's YouTube channel, and for the past year and change, he has been contributing articles here on KKP under his nom du blog, HRLE92. According to him, "Shutter Chance" was originally on his 1988 solo album "Ocean" (although J-Wiki says that it was a 1986 release) which is a play on words for his nickname O-shan（おーしゃん）. But it's a well-placed title since "Shutter Chance" definitely has that summery beach weather sensation. In fact, it's one of those Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）tunes that actually isn't a Tatsuro Yamashita tune. Lyrics are by Erina Shima（島エリナ）and music is actually by Ken Harashima（原川健）; no Tats to be seen. Yet, the arrangement is so like Tats with that chorus, the bouncy bass and that sax solo.

One other piece of trivia that I found on Kanoh from the J-Wiki article for Circus is that his interest in music manifested because of a chance meeting with folk singer-songwriter Takuro Yoshida（吉田拓郎）when Kanoh was in junior high school. He took up the guitar soon after and went after the songs of Simon & Garfunkel and Group Sounds band The Tigers（ザ・タイガース）.