Shouta Mitsuoka -- Hassha no Bell ga Nagasugiru（発車のベルが長すぎる）

 

Recently on both NHK's kayo kyoku and J-Pop programs, "Uta Con"（うたコン）and "Hayauta"（はやウタ）, I've been seeing this relatively new singer. Enka singer Shouta Mitsuoka（三丘翔太）has been singing professionally since 2016 but it has just been within the last few weeks that I have actually seen the man on TV.

It isn't just the Shizuoka Prefecture native's fashion that makes him look like as if he walked in from several decades ago. Listening to his latest single from October 2022, "Hassha no Bell ga Nagasugiru" (The Departure Bell is Taking Too Long), his vocal style also reminds me of a band that Noelle Tham has often mentioned, Tokyo Taishu Kayo Gakudan (東京大衆歌謡楽団), whose vocalist's stentorian delivery is a reminder of a time just before the Second World War and after it. 

Hideo Mizumori's（水森英夫）melody though takes things some years afterwards as I treat it as something very Mood Kayo, a song that I would hear to describe the bars and the other drinking establishments of the 1950s and 1960s. Lyricist Kaisei Kishi*（岸快生）also brings back an old kayo trope of setting the song at a train station where the protagonist has just broken up with his girlfriend and is slumping in his seat on the express wondering where he will go and where his former flame will go. He just wants the bell to finish ringing so that the train will leave the source of his heartbreak.

"Hassha no Bell ga Nagasugiru" peaked at No. 48 on Oricon. Thus far, Mitsuoka has released 8 singles and 2 albums. His career got started when in 2009 as a high school student, he entered the amateur singing contest on NHK "Nodo Jiman"（のど自慢）and won that week's competition right in front of guest Saburo Kitajima（北島三郎）. Right after that, he was scouted by the aforementioned composer Mizumori at a karaoke contest and went right into training. Mitsuoka has yet to get his opportunity to sing at the Kohaku Utagassen but he's apparently such an otaku-level fan of the Heisei era editions that he has devoted a talk segment on his regular radio show to the New Year's Eve special.

*That first name for the lyricist has a couple of other readings and I couldn't find any definitive way to read it properly. As such, I have gone with the first reading that I saw at Jisho.org. If anyone can confirm or correct me on the proper reading of the name, please let me know.