Naoya Matsuoka -- 2500-nen: Takeru no Ai（2500年 - タケルの愛）

 

Usually the fifth article on Urban Contemporary Fridays is set aside for the weekly Yutaka Kimura Speaks translation, but I did want to put this one in (no worries...Yutaka will still be getting completed tonight) since I actually referred to him earlier today in the MASH article.

Yup, the late Latin jazz musician and arranger Naoya Matsuoka（松岡直也）was also involved in the anime project for Seizo Watase's（わたせせいぞう）"Heart Cocktail"（ハートカクテル）in the 1980s. In fact, Volume 2 of the soundtrack series for the show is under his purview. Specifically, he brought in the music for this episode in 1987, "2500-nen: Takeru no Ai" (The Year 2500: Takeru's Love). This time, "Heart Cocktail" takes us far into the future for a sci-fi story where love and City Pop still co-exist apparently. 

I didn't quite get all of the story but the main character of Takeru lives in a society where emotions are literally non-existent within a person until one becomes old enough to handle them in a more civilized fashion or they're just kept suppressed for a certain period of time. On the eve of his surgery to get those emotions back, he has some hint of something for the pianist in his favourite bar and the pianist appears to oblige him with a date the next day immediately after his surgery. However, he finds out from his buddy that it was all a ruse by the pianist who's been "processed" in what might have been a "cruel-to-be-kind" strategy to get a lock on his newly-recovered emotions as he also gets a Dear John message via future Skype from the lady. Was she a replicant? Did she end up getting dismantled after fulfilling her final mission? Inquiring minds want to know. 😕

As much as I was left a bit confused by what had happened in the vignette, I really did like the accompanying music which also has the same title of "2500-nen: Takeru no Ai". It's got plenty of variety: a classical streak in there for some Fashion Music, the technopop to represent the future, and maybe some of that City Pop sheen. Unfortunately, the recorded version on "Heart Cocktail: Vol. 2" doesn't have the brief vocals that were displayed while the vignette was playing out. All in all, it's a beautifully enigmatic piece by Matsuoka.