Aya -- Happy Train

 

My anime buddy has a number of passions in addition to the obvious one of anime. He has an interest in trains, so Japan is a veritable treasure trove, and he loves photography. The lad has amassed enough equipment to most likely begin his own studio or a small school teaching the subject. As I just said, Japan is a paradise for trains of all types so that is all enhanced for my friend since he can lug over the camera and start snapping away.

I may have found a soulmate for him in the form of amiable railway photographer Seiya Nakai（中井精也）. Usually every week on TV Japan, I've watched his NHK BS Premium show "Nakai Seiya no Tetsu Tabi"（中井精也のてつたび...Seiya Nakai's Railway Tours） which has had the Tokyoite head on rides all over the country while taking those picturesque shots of not only trains but the surrounding areas around the stations. It's all very soothing viewing.

For such a pleasant travel program (which began in 2014), a supremely cheerful pop song would be appropriate as the theme. Singer-songwriter Aya（彩）did come up with such a tune, and that is "Happy Train", a lightly jazzy pop song. Nothing better than a song that can prod a couch potato into taking that train ride anywhere in the country, just for the heck of it.

There's no J-Wiki article for Aya, and her website seems to have disappeared, so I'm not sure if she's still active in the music industry. But on a site called "Motion Gallery", the singer herself did give a description of herself in which she says that music was already getting imbued into her right into the womb as her mother sang to her while she was pregnant. In university, Aya focused on creating background music for television and films as well as studying about composition theory and orchestration. However, she got her foot into pop music through her participation in the band Bloom. In 2010, after Bloom disbanded, Aya then pursued a solo career.