Yudai Suzuki -- Tokyo Mono（東京者）

 

Recently through videos, news footage and talks with friends, I've noticed that since the last time I was in Tokyo in 2017, the megalopolis has been undergoing changes in certain neighbourhoods. Shibuya has gained at least a couple of more skyscrapers so that I'm worried that it may have cost the area some sky. Toranomon seems to be getting a massive commercial complex and the same may indeed be true for the area surrounding Tokyo Station which has already gotten its fair share of buildings going up like bamboo trees. If and when I get back to the Japanese capital, I may need a new map to find my way around.😕

Still, for the better part of two decades, I considered myself someone of the Tokyo area if not from the city proper since I was actually living in Ichikawa City, Chiba Prefecture. Over the past decade and change being back here in Toronto teaching, translating, and yes, blogging, thanks to YouTube and TV Japan, I've still been seeing my old stomping grounds. Indeed, I still miss walking through the many different parts of Tokyo.

Listening to Yudai Suzuki's（鈴木雄大）"Tokyo Mono" (Someone of Tokyo) which is the final track and the title track for his February 1990 album, I've realized that this could be an ideal theme for my feelings of wistfulness regarding one of the largest cities in the world. Arranged by Kazuo Otani（椎名和夫）, written by Taizo Jinnouchi（ 陣内大蔵）and composed by Suzuki, it's a slow and introspective modern urban waltz. Though I couldn't find the lyrics for "Tokyo Mono", what I could glean is that Suzuki is possibly singing that no matter how much a beloved partner wants change, the protagonist can only change so much and that they can only be who they are. Maybe it's part of the title, but I have to admit that I'm straddling the line on whether "Tokyo Mono" is either a pop ballad or a City Pop ballad but that's why I can throw two genres into its Labels.

I know that Suzuki didn't come up with the song thinking about what lay in store for Tokyo in the following thirty years. However, I think that despite all the changes that have come and will come, Tokyo will remain Tokyo at least for the next little while. For me, I hope that means Tower Records and my favourite neighbourhood tonkatsu restaurant under my old subway station will still be there when I visit.