Kaori Mizumori -- Akashi Kaikyo（明石海峡）

 

Happy Monday! I may have mentioned this in a past article but I've been subscribed to the YouTube channel Kuga's Travel for a few years. His stock-in-trade is traveling on a myriad of trains and ferries not only within Japan but also internationally and he obviously doesn't skimp on the good stuff. Last night, I caught his latest video which shows him booking the first-class suite on the new overnight ferry, the Sunflower Murasaki, which heads from Osaka to the onsen city of Beppu in Oita Prefecture on the island of Kyushu within about twelve hours. Of course, being the foodie glutton that I am (or was), I was laser-focused on the observation that he only had to pay 2000 yen for an all-you-can-eat buffet onboard and the buffet looks like it has plenty of variety.

Part of the video showed the Murasaki sailing under the Akashi Kaikyo Bridge（明石海峡大橋）which used to be the longest suspension bridge on Earth (completed in 1998) until its record was taken over by the 1915 Çanakkale Bridge in Turkiye in 2022. The light then lit over my head wondering whether there had been an enka or kayo kyoku created regarding the bridge. After all, the Japanese love to make songs about their natural and man-made structures.

Well, it wasn't exactly the bridge itself but the strait. Enka singer Kaori Mizumori（水森かおり）, the Queen of Go-Touchi Songs, had recorded "Akashi Kaikyo" (The Akashi Strait) in September 2009 although it wasn't released as a single. It was actually a song on her album "Kayo Kikou VIII ~ Aki no Miyajima"（歌謡紀行VIII〜安芸の宮島〜...Song Travelogue 8 ~ Miyajima of Aki）. Written by Akiko Shimoji（下地亜記子）and composed by Ryu Morikawa（森川龍）, it's fairly evident that enka singers love to cry into their straits rather than their beer (I guess the salt ruins the taste). Mizumori sings about a lady traveling to the titular strait to muse about a recent romantic breakup. Melodically, it feels like a cooperation among the chanteuse's tender vocals, the dramatic strings and the bluesy saxophone.