Ayase feat. Miku Hatsune -- Yuurei Tokyo（幽霊東京）

 

One of my students cottoned me onto this aspect of Japanese culture and interest when I was still living in Ichikawa, and I believe that I may have mentioned this before in a past KKP article, but there are folks who have this great curiosity over abandoned buildings and structures. I'm not saying that haikyo（廃墟...ruins） is a purely Japanese phenomenon; I'm sure that other nations have some small parts of their population who are into researching and observing the once-living and now-dead infrastructure, but it was in Japan where I first learned that there was a hobby surrounding haikyo.

The above video uploaded by Channel Tama is of a ghost town in the Toranomon district of Tokyo. It was quite flabbergasting to discover that there was haikyo smack dab in the middle of one of the more vibrant areas of the largest city in the nation, not far away from the Diet buildings or the luxurious Hotel Okura. Actually, I used to go to Toranomon weekly since I gave lessons at one of the companies in the area and had my Starbucks drinks nearby right across from the famous Toranomon Hospital. During that time, I had no idea of the existence of such a ghost town.

But all that preamble ramble was for me to introduce "Yuurei Tokyo" (Ghost Town Tokyo) featuring Vocaloid's premier Miku Hatsune（初音ミク）. It's the title track on singer-songwriter and Vocaloid producer Ayase's first EP, released in November 2019. Not that "Yuurei Tokyo" is about haikyo like that Toranomon neighbourhood, it's actually all about a songwriter trying to make it big in Tokyo and initially being euphoria-struck by the bright lights before realizing that life in the megalopolis is not all that it's cracked up to be. Basically, it's going through culture shock within three minutes and change.

It's not mentioned in the J-Wiki article for "Yuurei Tokyo", but I've found that there are melodic passages in the song that reminded me of Barry Manilow's "Copacabana", as crazy as that might seem. Not sure whether Ayase is even cognizant of the famous disco tune but Manilow's lyrics also have to do with the main character starting off as fresh-faced and vibrant but ending up spiritually wrecked by the end.

As for Ayase, he's also one-half of the pop duo YOASOBI which has had a couple of appearances on the Kohaku Utagassen already. I'll have to see some of their hits soon enough. Oh, by the way, if you're interested, here is the haikyo site that my student introduced me to all those years ago. When I showed another student this site, he politely asked me to get it away from him ASAP, so you've been warned.😁

Toranomon skyscrapers