Shiori Tomita -- Ramen'uoaini（ラーメンウォーアイニー）/Kohmi Hirose -- Ramen Chikyuu-go（ラーメン地球号）

 

Since ramen truly hit the ground running in Toronto a little over a decade ago, we have had quite the battle among the franchises for many years with brands such as Kinton, Santouka, Sansotei and Touhenboku throwing us the noodles, karaage, gyoza and other such goodies. Well, it seems as if Touhenboku may have thrown most of its towel earlier this year with perhaps two of its three shops closing up for good including the only branch that I used to frequent in uptown Toronto. It's too bad, but there are still a number of independent ramen shops opening up.

A week ago, I posted a 2012 ramen-based song titled "Ramen no Uta"（ラーメンの歌）by singer-songwriter Toshihide Baba（馬場俊英）which had that wistful and coming-of-age flavour and aroma. Well, since then I was able to encounter a couple of more similarly noodle-connected tunes of which both are considerably more upbeat.

The first one came out a year ago in June 2023. "Ramen'uoaini" (Ramen, I Love You) was recorded by TV personality and singer Shiori Tomita（トミタ栞）as a very bubbly synthpop tribute to that bowl of ramen. In fact, Tomita's appearance in the music video automatically had me thinking 1980s Hitomi Ishikawa（石川ひとみ）and all of the Golden Age of Aidoru. It was written by Tomita and Takuma Manmoni（マンモーニ拓磨）and composed by Sasuke Ishikawa（西川サスケ）and the arrangement is also reminiscent of the music of Ginger Root.

The Gifu Prefecture-born Tomita's claim to fame was her time as one of many hosts on the TV Kanagawa music program "saku saku" which ran from 2000 to 2017. Her time was between 2012 and 2015. A previous host had been punk pop/rock singer-songwriter Kaela Kimura（木村カエラ）.

A year after Tomita's love letter to ramen, singer-songwriter Kohmi Hirose（広瀬香美）brought pen to paper to create her own tribute to the noodles all over the nation in the form of "Ramen Chikyuu-go" (The Ramen Globe). I only saw its "Minna no Uta"（みんなのうた）cartoon on NHK only a few days ago as the super-dynamic chanteuse really lets go with her vocals and synths in one major techno-funky way. It's just too bad that the YouTube video of the song is truncated.