The first time I heard this song, I got the impression that this was some sort of tokusatsu theme song as would be the case for "Kamen Rider" (仮面ライダー) thanks to its marching beat and the kiddie chorus backing up the singer. However, there is no superhero on the poster that you see on the video thumbnail above but a samurai warrior as you would see in a jidai geki series such as the immortal "Mito Komon"（水戸黄門）.
So, what is this interesting hybrid of two well-known Japanese TV tropes? Well, the theme song is for the 1959-1960 series titled "Hengen Mikazukimaru", a Fuji-TV jidai geki show for the children. And apparently, this was a tokusatsu jidai geki series with the hero warrior Mikazukimaru Hengen doling out justice with some of his amazing powers such as parting rivers and lakes just like Moses. It would therefore go that the theme song with the same name would have that familiar old-fashioned superhero theme...just one for a crime fighter from several hundred years ago.
The theme song was sung by Kazuo Ohno（大野一夫）with Toshio Oka（丘灯至夫）responsible for the lyrics while Teiichi Horie（堀江貞一）took care of the proud melody. I could only find one video with footage from the show itself and it was part of a variety program so the panelists were talking over the episode.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Feel free to provide any comments (pro or con). Just be civil about it.