Kaori Mizumori -- Hyuuga Misaki（日向岬）

 

Well, we're less than 24 hours away from the 74th edition of NHK's Kohaku Utagassen（紅白歌合戦）. It looks like the schedule has been finally established since the last news from its J-Wiki article was that they just held a dress rehearsal today. But maybe there could be some more surprises in store. Anyways, the show is ready to be PVR'ed on my device.

I've been taking a look at the lineup for the Red and White teams and yep, there is still some inkling of enka left on the show which I'm grateful for. The only enka song being performed on the Kohaku that I have yet to cover is the subject of this article, Kaori Mizumori's（水森かおり）"Hyuuga Misaki" (Cape Hyuuga) which was her most recent 33rd single from January this year. Now I know that as the Queen of Go-Touchi Songs (local or regional songs), she's maybe two prefectures away from completing her run to sing enka representing every prefecture, but I'm uncertain whether Miyazaki Prefecture, where Cape Hyuuga is located, is one of those two remaining prefectures. 

"Hyuuga Misaki" was composed by veteran Tetsuya Gen（弦哲也）and written by Tsubasa Kazu（かず翼）who provided her first set of lyrics to Megumi Asaoka（麻丘めぐみ）in the mid-1980s but then it seemed that there was a lengthy break between that song and her work from the 2000s. Not surprisingly, the setting of the 5 kilometre stretch of coastline is there to provide Mizumori to mourn and reminisce about a romance lost.

Mizumori's appearance on the Kohaku tomorrow night will be her 21st. In the last few years, she had been taking over Sachiko Kobayashi's（小林幸子）tradition of appearing in epic costumes taking over the stage, but it appears that for No. 74, her performance will coincide with a domino-toppling challenge, perhaps along the same lines as her fellow enka singer Hiroshi Miyama's（三山ひろし）annual attempt to break/retain his Guinness world record with kendama. This could be quite the feat.

Anyways, enjoy the view of the cape via YouTuber hanagata mituru.