Hoshikuzu Scat -- Hanzonmon Cherie（半蔵門シェリ）

 

Due to the natural weirdness of my working hours as an English conversation teacher in Japan, I never had any regular TV programs or regular viewing times during the weekdays at least. The weekends were better because I was gradually able to get Saturdays and Sundays off for the most part. For me though, perhaps the most interesting time period for Japanese television watching was between 4 and 6 pm between Monday and Friday. The reason is that there was truly quite a bit of variety in the programming itself. Depending on the channel, there could be the late afternoon information variety show, a rerun of a drama or an old anime, the first part of a multi-hour news broadcast, a travelogue, a video game analysis show and so on. But even when I did have my rare time at home at sunset, I wasn't usually watching TV since I was in the kitchen cooking dinner.

Living in Ichikawa, Chiba Prefecture, we did get the local Chiba and Tokyo channels, one of which was Tokyo MX. Usually these days here in Toronto, I hear the name of Tokyo MX because my anime buddy tells me that a fair share of the late-night anime have been broadcast from there, but that's about it. Still, when I was a resident of Ichikawa in my humble little 2K, I did my share of channel surfing and sometimes I came upon this information variety show on Tokyo MX which had this more intimately local but still professional atmosphere.

Titled "Go-ji ni Muchuu!"（５時に夢中！...Crazy About 5 O'clock!）, it is a show that stars a share of free television announcers and a motley and lively crew of tarento, and from what I've seen of the lineup on their website, these celebs have been known for their "tell-it-like-it-is" attitudes and very acerbic tongues. The J-Wiki article regarding the program has stated that its overarching theme is absolute freedom of speech, so I can assume that the fur has often flown with panelists including Matsuko Deluxe（マツコ・デラックス）and Mie Nakao（中尾ミエ）.

As would be the case for any Japanese TV show, there are theme songs and for "Go-ji ni Muchuu!", The Jackson 5's "ABC" is the opening theme but the ending theme for the hour-long program is a more homegrown affair since one of the members of this trio singing it is also a regular commentator. Along with Matsuko Deluxe, Mitz Mangrove（ミッツマングローブ）has been a very popular tarento on Japanese TV for years and is a member of Hoshikuzu Scat（星屑スキャット）.

Hoshikuzu Scat consists of three drag queens: Mitz Mangrove, Gallantique Kazue（ギャランティーク和恵）and Meili Mu（メイリー・ムー）and the group has been around since the mid-2000s. In July 2017, they released their 4th single, "Hanzonmon Cherie" which I think has that dance clubby feeling; perhaps there is some Eurobeat in there, too. In any case, I do get that late 1980s feeling from it and there are some nice harmonies among the trio. Mitz took care of words and music while Takeshi Nakatsuka（中塚武）handled the arrangement. I last wrote about Nakatsuka late last year with one of his early 2000s techno Shibuya-kei tunes from his QYPTHONE project. As for Hanzomon, it's not only the name of the purple subway line in the Tokyo Metro network but it's also the neighbourhood in Tokyo where I believe "Go-ji ni Muchuu!" is based.