Ryokuoushoku Shakai -- Alright!!/Character（キャラクター）

 

As I've often said, one can throw a figurative rock through the Japanese TV zeitgeist and the odds are that it'll hit a food-based show whether it be a cooking program or something on visiting the trendiest restaurants in town. The national broadcaster NHK is no different in that regard and we've certainly seen our share of them via TV Japan, including "Umai!"（うまいッ!...Delicious Japan!）which currently runs during the noon hour. 

The current hosts for "Umai!" are comedian Hiroyuki Amano（天野ひろゆき）and NHK announcer Ai Tsukahara（塚原愛）with guest reporters ranging from young budding tarento to members of any of the alphabet aidoru groups such as AKB48. "Umai!" has the reporters visiting the local farms and ports to check out the edible flora and fauna before they're either put out on sale or used in the usual scrumptious dishes.

"Umai!" also has its own theme song and to be honest, when I first saw the credits for the song "Alright!!" and its band, I was a bit intimidated about how to pronounce that name since it was a fairly long 5-character string of kanji. Well, getting over my laziness, I found out that the band's name is Ryokuoushoku Shakai (緑黄色社会...Green-Yellow Society) and it's a pop-rock unit hailing from Aichi Prefecture. "Alright!!" was a coupling song for their debut single, "sabotage", back in November 2019 and it peaked at No. 32 on Oricon. True to those spring colours in their band name and the happy synthesizers in the song, it fits the happy and optimistic nature of "Umai!". There's nothing like enjoying your food with the right emotions.

The reason that I finally got onto the blog for Ryokuoushoku Shakai was that the band had appeared a couple of nights ago on "Uta Con"（うたコン）, and with that spring theme in mind, they performed a track from their most recent album "Actor" from January 2022 which has hit No. 4 on the charts. "Character" is another bouncy and smiling number about yelling out that one is truly loved and missed for their character. My first thought was that it was the theme song for an anime but it's actually the tune for a supplement jelly commercial. I've enjoyed the early 70s-style wacka-wacka guitar in there.

Ryokuoushoku Shakai is currently a 4-piece band consisting of vocalist/guitarist Haruko Nagaya（長屋晴子）, guitarist Issei Kobayashi（小林壱誓）, keyboardist peppe, and bassist Shingo Anami（穴見真吾）. Nagaya and Anami were behind words and music respectively for "Alright!!" while the entire band worked on "Character". The band had also included drummer Yasuchika Sugie（杉江泰周）until his departure at the end of 2015. They first formed within the light music club of Chukyo University High School in Nagoya in 2011 with them getting 2nd Prize at the Senko Riot rock festival for teen musicians.

With five CD singles, six download singles, and three albums among other releases under their belt, the band has already provided a ton of songs associated with commercials and other TV shows. As for their name, according to the J-Wiki article for them, Ryokuoushoku Shakai came about when guitarist Kobayashi noticed vocalist Nagaya drinking vegetable juice and blurted out "ryokuoushoku yasai?" (green and yellow vegetables). The other members misheard what Kobayashi had said and said "ryokuoushoku shakai" (green and yellow society).