When I posted the "Top 10 Singles for 1961" in the fading minutes of September 30th 2023, I couldn't help but notice the fact that singer Yukio Hashi（橋幸夫）had no fewer than four songs on the list. That was quite the achievement and the last time that I saw a single artist or band with as many as four songs on the Top 10 for a particular list was probably AKB48.
As such, I had to look into and write about at least one of those Hashi hits and so I went with No. 2 on the Top 10, "Nankai no Bishonen" (The Handsome Boy of the South Seas). Released in May 1961 as as his 8th single, when I first saw and translated that title, I envisioned some toned and tanned Polynesian kid having a ton of fun under the sun while wearing a grass skirt. But then, I heard the melody by Tadashi Yoshida（吉田正）and the lyrics by Takao Saeki（佐伯孝夫）, and realized that this was anything but a tale of tropical Nirvana.
Actually, the young man in the title refers to Shiro Amakusa（天草四郎）, a 17-year-old Japanese Catholic leader of the Shimabara Rebellion (1637-1638), the biggest uprising against the Shogunate in Japanese history. Also calling himself Geronimo and Francisco, the rebellion in what is now Nagasaki Prefecture involved fighting back against the policies enforced by the daimyo of Shimabara which included prohibition of Christianity. In the end, the rebellion was defeated and Amakusa and his thousands of followers were beheaded. So, I can imagine the militaristic and mournful melody of this song which has also been given the subtitle of "Shiro Amakusa's Song".
The above has fresh-faced enka singer Shin Aoyama（青山新）performing "Nankai no Bishonen" in front of the original singer himself.
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