Toshihiko Tahara -- Romanticist de Ii janai（ロマンティストでいいじゃない）

 

Well, I guess it wasn't just Shingo Katori（香取慎吾）, formerly of SMAP, who wanted to embrace his inner jazz in 2022.

Some months ago, I saw 80s high-kicking aidoru Toshihiko Tahara（田原俊彦）put on the dapper suit and hat to do his own swing number on the NHK stage on "Uta Con"（うたコン）. This was his 73rd single "Romanticist de Ii janai" (It's OK To Be A Romantic) released in June 2022.

Y'know...it's been some decades since Toshi-chan was entertaining fans with his teenage song and dance, but the lad at 61 (62 at the end of February) can still hoof it up a notch and his vocals haven't really changed since the 1980s (I'm guessing that he's not a smoker). But it's him taking on jazz now and watching him go at it on the floor with his older visage and clothing has made me believe that he's an old kayo kyoku guy from that venerable NHK comedy-variety program "Yume de Aimashou"（夢で逢いましょう...Let's Meet in Our Dreams） somehow brought through the time stream to show how it was all done old-school.

Composed by Hiroki Aoba（青葉紘季）, who has usually provided melodies for the alphabet aidoru groups such as AKB48, and Seifuku Ohyama（大山聖福）with arrangement by Motoki Funayama（船山基紀）, the lyrics were written up by veteran Goro Matsui（松井五郎）. They read like a dandy date in a Golden Age Hollywood musical-comedy with tony Toshi tripping the light fantastic with the love of his life on a makeshift New York street. Perhaps movie studios ought to have come up with a movie to surround this song as in the old days which managed to peak at No. 20 on Oricon.

(short version)