I remember buying these "Perfect Manuals" for the "Uchuu Senkan Yamato"（宇宙戦艦ヤマト...Space Battleship Yamato） series back in the 1980s at Silver Snail, a beloved comic book emporium on Queen West. That was when Japanese goods were still available to be bought physically. Not to say that they were cheap, mind you, but I just had to get my hands on those copies.
Anyways, I was just watching NHK's "Sarameshi"（サラメシ）program on lunching earlier today when this piece of music was played while Japan's Blue Impulse aerobatic demonstration team within the nation's Air Self-Defense Force was doing their thing. It was a natural matchup between music and scene.
The music was "Cosmo Tiger" by Hiroshi Miyagawa（宮川泰）, the maestro behind the soundtracks for the aforementioned iconic space adventure series. And basically it was like Captain Kodai of the Yamato suddenly asked his Tiger squadron "Hey, men, how about strafing the bad guys to some disco?". Of course, Squadron Leader Kato would answer "Uh...what's disco?".
Miyagawa has been no stranger when it comes to merging the orchestral with the disco in "Yamato", You have to check out his disco versions of his themes for Desslar and the Comet Empire during the second season of the TV show. But I guess with a wholesale change in characters and situations beginning with the made-for-TV movie "Uchuu Senkan Yamato: Arata naru Tabitachi"（宇宙戦艦ヤマト 新たなる旅立ち...Yamato: The New Voyage） in 1979, the legendary composer must have thought it was time for some new background music.
And he came up with an epic piece with "Cosmo Tiger". Usually when the predecessor Black Tigers and then the Cosmo Tigers of the Yamato went into battle, the music would be very urgent and warlike. But Miyagawa's "Cosmo Tiger", which I think made its melodic debut in "Arata naru Tabitachi", hit me hard when I saw the video and basically embedded itself into my memories as one of the standout themes in the franchise. It's major-chord upbeat and it is that percussive disco march into battle. In fact, it's almost a pity that it has been used in battle scenes since I think it's more for happy Cosmo Tigers soaring and flexing their wings in blissful flight.
This isn't the scene that I saw on "Sarameshi" but it does have the Blue Impulse flying to "Cosmo Tiger".
The powers-that-be even brought back the old "Cosmo Tiger" for the 2012 remake of "Yamato" with a bit of extra spice.
In the 1980's at least in country I lived in Japanese comics and others good were not easy to find unless you lived in a city with a Japanese expat community. Back in the 80's there was a called 大道(DAIDO) /日販大道 about 5 minutes from where I lived and they had groceries, rice cookers, and small selection of books. When, I was in elementary I watched a fair bit of Yamato, but I liked Macross and 機甲艦隊ダイラガーXV more.
ReplyDeleteBy chance, were you living on the West Coast back then? The Toronto Japanese-Canadian community is quite small compared to the ones in San Francisco and Los Angeles so examples of pop culture were even harder to find here.
DeleteNot, the west Coast, but I did live in what was the wild, wild, wild west and the city I lived in does have a port. I lived in Houston, Texas back in the 1980's.
DeleteI have a friend who has been down to Houston a couple of times. Enjoyed it a lot. And he's mentioned that everything really is big down there.
DeleteActually, the former blogger (Jonathan) who introduced me to this blog is also from Houston.
DeleteSpoke with that same friend last night. Lot of talk on BBQ and sweet tea. :)
DeleteIced tea is served at basically every restaurant in Houston. Before, coming to Japan I thought I did not like tea simply because I did not like lipton iced tea.
DeleteOne question from me regarding sweet tea is whether it was really that sweet. My friend told me that it was so sweet that it could make one's teeth shiver.
Delete