GWINKO -- Downtown Game

 

I guess when it comes to the gift that keeps on giving, folks who are both into anime and City Pop would feel that "City Hunter" is the motherlode because of its setting of Shinjuku in Tokyo and some of those nifty theme songs by singers such as Kahoru Kohiruimaki（小比類巻かほる）and Yasuyuki Okamura（岡村靖幸）. Hey, walking into West Shinjuku at night will always give me those "Ai yo Kienai de"（愛よ消えないで）vibes.

Commenter Fireminer let me know about GWINKO's contribution to the "City Hunter" discography the other day, and certainly GWINKO has been a singer who has delved happily into R&B and City Pop. She provided the opening theme song for the 1991 edition of the franchise, "City Hunter '91" which ran from April to October of that year. Looking at the opening credits above, it sure looks like Ryo Saeba（冴羽獠）was as incorrigible as ever.

"Downtown Game" was GWINKO's penultimate single to date from April 1991 and perhaps true to the time, there is a drawing of sophisticated pop as well as some New Jack Swing into the overall City Pop, thanks to Masao Kuzuba's（崩場将夫）melody (the translation in the credits has the last name given as "Houba" for some reason) and Nobuyuki Shimizu's（清水信之）sparkling arrangement (he was also responsible for the arrangement of Okamura's contribution "SUPER GIRL"). The lyrics were written up by Goro Matsui（松井五郎）and they seem to be describing the typical adventure of Saeba and Makimura among the bright lights and big city of Tokyo. Although the Bubble was in the process of bursting that year if it hadn't already done so, life in the "City Hunter" world was still so money apparently.