Arisa Mizuki -- Kotoshi Ichiban Kaze no Tsuyoi Gogo（今年いちばん風の強い午後）

 

Scott put up his latest "Holly Jolly X'masu" podcast in the past few days and the theme for this new episode is on summer-themed Christmas J-Pop. Hope you can give it a try. It did spark some wonder from me since I've observed that Japanese singers and songwriters do have that predilection of improbably connecting the hot season with the Yuletide, one famous example being KUWATA BAND's "Merry X'mas in Summer" from 1986. 

But I have heard of other similarly themed tunes, and Scott has been kind enough to provide his list. I've wondered why this whole thing came about although knowing for a long time that Japanese pop culture can be very whimsical. To be frank, I can only theorize that the common denominator is love and romance. Summer via that setting of the beach has been a popular one for flirtations and affairs; meanwhile, the Yuletide in Japan has been treated as a second Valentine's Day. Musically speaking, it could be a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup in that the naturally upbeat music of summer can be meshed with the often-but-not-always upbeat feeling of a J-Xmas without all of those jingle bells.

The first song on Scott's podcast was quite the pleasant surprise. It was Arisa Mizuki's（観月ありさ）"Kotoshi Ichiban Kaze no Tsuyoi Gogo" (The Windiest Afternoon of the Year) which served as the singer/actress' 5th single from May 1993. There is nothing Xmas-y about the title and of course the release date was more than 7 months away from December 25th. Yet, it has that happy-go-lucky melody and arrangement by Yumi Matsutoya（松任谷由実）and Masaaki Omura（大村雅朗）respectively which could befit a summer beach and a winter ski slope (love the chorus and percussion, by the way). Incidentally, Yuming（ユーミン）was going under her songwriter's pseudonym of Karuho Kureta（呉田軽穂）which is about the latest that I've observed her using it since I had been accustomed to her using it in the early 1980s for the teenybopper singers back then like Seiko Matsuda（松田聖子）.

Another thing that takes away the usual image of pine trees, sleighs and mistletoe is the music video itself. "Kotoshi Ichiban Kaze no Tsuyoi Gogo" begins with two minutes of young Arisa traipsing around what looks like subtropical Okinawa before the music finally chimes in. Knowing her all these years in her roles as either a long-running goofball nurse or a tough-as-nails detective, it's nicely refreshing once more seeing her back then as that lanky teenager. Despite the southern travelogue, Yuming's lyrics profess of a young lady pining for a fellow during the beach summer and dreaming ahead to a potentially romantic Christmas.

I also have to note that Mizuki sounds really great behind the mike which is saying something since I had been so unimpressed with her performance of her previous single "Too Shy Shy Boy!" on television all those years ago. It's about as fresh-faced a delivery that I've heard from any aidoru of the 1990s. The song is so positive and bubbly that I figured that it probably had to have been used for some TV ad. Sure enough, it was...Kirin's Chasse soda (which had "Too Shy Shy Boy!" as a campaign song as well). The song hit No. 8 on Oricon.