Fujifabric -- Sakura no Kisetsu（桜の季節）

 

First off, on learning about the earthquake in Taiwan a couple of days ago, I checked with my anime buddy who hails from the country. He assured me that his relatives living in the area are doing fine. Still, I hope that the residents of the affected areas are coping and recovering from the disaster.

Once again, I have to give my thanks to the "Weather Music" segment on Japan's "Weathernews Live" for finding out about this April 2004 major debut single by the band Fujifabric（フジファブリック）. "Sakura no Kisetsu" (Cherry Blossom Season) isn't about the passage of time and/or graduations but it's something on the pain of love and romance. Written and composed by vocalist/guitarist Masahiko Shimura（志村正彦）and produced by Akito Katayose（片寄明人）of GREAT 3, I kinda now detect a bit of that GREAT 3 sound in the song. Before that, when I had heard "Sakura no Kisetsu" for the first time on "Weather Music", I even noticed some feeling of 70s band Off-Course（オフコース）in there, too. Both influences have gotten me to enjoy the song a lot. 

"Sakura no Kisetsu" managed to peak at No. 49 on Oricon and is also available on the band's first album "Fujifabric", released in November 2004. The album did even better by ranking in at No. 17. As for how the band got its name, according to the Wikipedia writeup, it was named after the company Fuji Fabric which had been owned by the father of former band drummer Takayuki Watanabe（渡辺隆之）. Fujifabric has been around since 2000 and as of this writing, it consists of vocalist/guitarist Soichiro Yamauchi（山内総一郎）, keyboardist Daisuke Kanazawa（金澤ダイスケ）and bassist Shinichi Kato（加藤慎一）. Sadly, the original vocalist Shimura passed away in December 2009 at the age of 29.

When I was watching NHK earlier today, the news reported that Tokyo finally had its full cherry blossoms today. I'd suspected that things were coming into bloom a lot later than usual, and I discovered that the blossoms did arrive two weeks later than average which is about the latest that I have ever heard. I figure then that there will be a lot of corporate types carousing under the trees for the next few nights.