Man, the summer times continue in Toronto. I think that our high temperature yesterday, a record-breaking 29.4 degrees Celsius (normal average for April is about 11 degrees), eclipsed even that of Tokyo, and the surprising heat could stay until Sunday perhaps. Then, the bottom will fall out to seasonal levels and sardonically enough, we might even see some of that final snow later next week. Never a dull moment, meteorologically speaking, in my city.
Well, speaking about Tokyo, this song actually feels more like a welcome to the megalopolis rather than a goodbye. However, I'm not one to quibble about a happy-go-lucky City Pop tune such as "Good bye TOKYO" which was a track on MIO's debut album "Starlight Shower" from July 1984. I've already written about the album's opening track "Morning Bell" which does strike me as a truly cheerful wake-up metropolitan music maker but "Good bye TOKYO" takes things fully into a typical working day.
Koji Makaino（馬飼野康二）was responsible for the bouncy melody while the lyrics were provided by one Rin Iogi（井荻麟）. It was an unusual enough name that I decided to look more into it, and sure enough, it was a pseudonym for someone who I usually don't see in the songwriting business. The person's real name is Yoshiyuki Tomino（富野由悠季）, the man who created "Mobile Suit Gundam", although I cannot really see any of his creations boogying down behind Diver City in Odaiba, Tokyo.
Fireminer here. Ah, good old MIQ. Among the female singers who mecha fans in the West might recognize, MIQ ranks up there with Hiroko Moriguchi and Mari Iijima. I'd recommend you check you here two songs "Time for L-Gaim" and "Labyrinth", two perfect mecha anime anthems decades apart.
ReplyDeleteBut the surprising thing was to see Rin Iogi's name of all people. Tomino usually only wrote lyrics for song appearing in his anime. By his own admission, the first time he did it was because there was no one available to write the lyrics for the opening of Mobile Suit Gundam. He has some good songs though.
Hi, Fireminer. Yeah, I was also caught a little off-guard by Tomino actually penning a pop song. Well, if "Gundam" hadn't worked, he probably would have had something to to fall upon. :)
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