Haru & Chicchi Kazoku -- O-niku Tabeyou no Uta（お肉食べようのうた）

 

The above is a shot of Radio Kaikan（ラジオ会館）, a literal and figurative institution in Akihabara which had gotten a major facelift by the time I got there during my last trip to Tokyo in 2017. It was appealingly grungy back in the old days but it was then thoroughly modernized. Well in 2024, it looks like it isn't the only major architectural and commercial change happening in the megalopolis' electronics and pop culture district.

Yesterday, I was mentioning that instead of watching the Oscars on Sunday, I had joined my friends in partaking in a dinner with copious amounts of animal protein at a BBQ place called Shinta out in the boonies of my city. Ironically, just before my anime buddy drove us all there, he let me know that the main branch of Niku-no-Mansei（肉の万世）in the form of a mighty skyscraper at the southern end of Akihabara will be closing up shop at the end of this month. The above video from NTV tells it and there is also an article from "Sora News 24".

Niku-no-Mansei was all about the meat (all due respect to Arby's) and when Akiba was just the hangout for the local otaku and electronics geeks and not tourists and couples from everywhere around the globe, it and perhaps the McDonalds at the northern end were the only obvious sources of nourishment in the area. The Niku-no-Mansei tower became the landmark and the gastronomical oasis for those who wanted their beef and other hearty fare at the various restaurants on the many floors of the building. I was there a couple of times myself and I remember going to the hamburger steak restaurant one night for dinner with a friend after some scouring through places like Sato Musen and Yodobashi Camera. 

It'll be kinda weird perhaps no longer seeing that friendly red bull at the top of the building and considering that the tower has been sold to other interests, maybe it will get torn down for something new which is in itself not new in ever-evolving Tokyo. But all hope is not lost. As for the "Sora News 24" article states, there's already a yakiniku restaurant under the Mansei banner just a block away from the old tower and on March 25th, another new Mansei restaurant will be opening up on Akihabara's main strip (loin). 🐄

In commemoration of this major change in Akiba's restaurant landscape, I was wondering whether to find something Akiba-based as a song for this article. Couldn't really find anything too appealing on that theme, but I did find this happy-go-lucky carnivore-encouraging march titled "O-niku Tabeyou no Uta" (The Let's Eat Meat Song) by the group Haru & Chicchi Kazoku（ハル&チッチ歌族...The Haru & Chicchi Song Family）. Consisting of a real-life brother and sister kid combination Haru & Chicchi who were around 6 and 8 at the time, songwriter Don Papa (DON-9) and singer Maa Mama (MADOKA), they've come up with a number of tunes according to their J-Wiki page but "O-niku Tabeyou no Uta" was recorded and played for the travel variety show "Moya Moya Samaazu 2"（モヤモヤさまぁ〜ず2） in 2012 whenever the cast approached any place where meat was the main dish. In a way, this song could have been used as a jingle for Mansei itself. Veteran lyricist Natsumi Watanabe（渡辺なつみ）provided the words with Toshikazu Miura（三浦年一）as the arranger under his pseudonym of Kazutoshi Miura（三浦一年）.