JAM Project -- Omoide wa Okkusenman! (思い出はおっくせんまん!)

Happy Monday to everyone out there. We've got another article via contributor and commenter Fireminer.

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Despite the celebration of Kyu Sakamoto’s Sukiyaki, the Japanese record industry has had a difficult time exporting their products. We can go as far back as Pink Lady’s ill-fated expedition to America, which culminated in a truly terrible variety show. J-Pop and Japanese music in general haven’t gathered the same amount of international cache when compared to K-Pop and, to a lesser extent, Cantonese Pop. Things are changing for the better, though. From the anecdotes of friends and relatives living overseas, it seems like the Japanese record industry is banking on anime and video games to popularize J-Pop. It is more common now for Japanese singers to perform at anime conventions or Japanese cultural festivals in countries such as South Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, etc. while ani-songs and game musics are being made available on day one on multiple streaming platforms.

It is baffling to see how long did it take the Japanese record industry to realize all of these. As far back as the late 70s and early 80s, when anime in America was still mostly the purview of chop-up syndicated TV animation and VHS tapes being passed around C/FO members, anime fans had already clamored for the music they heard from the shows. There were anime albums sold in limited quantities at specialty shops in America. But the Internet supercharged things. The widespread popularity of Vocaloid, MMD, Bad Apple!!, vaporwave, etc. in the West, as well as the revitalization of City Pop, had a lot to do with kids being able to just go to YouTube and explore the world of Japanese music.

So let’s us remember an early viral hit of that era, Omoide wa Okkusenman! (思い出はおっくせんまん!) which can be translated as “110 million memories!”. The original song was composed by Capcom’s former sound designer Takashi Tateishi (立石 孝) as the background music for Doctor Wily's Stage in Mega Man 2. It was rearranged and had lyrics written for it by Japanese YouTubers in early 2007. And then it blew up when the vocal versions were uploaded to Nico Nico Douga (NND) -- and there were multiple of them. Omoide wa Okkusenman! had already become a meme by the time it spread on YouTube. It also inspired another NND hit based on Mega Man 2 music called Air Man ga Taosenai (エアーマンが倒せない).

The original Mega Man 2 music is an earworm alright, but Omoide wa Okkusenman!’s lyrics go perfectly with it. It’s a reminiscence of youth, of someone who had gotten tired of adult life and so looked back at his innocent childhood fondly, only then to realize that he could not go back to those days and instead chose to use his sweet memories as motivation to keep going forward. This universal message is the primary reason why the song connects with so many people. Screaming “Ultraman! Ultraman Seven!” -- two Japanese cultural institutions -- on top of his lungs also helped.

Jam Project   Omoide wa Okkusenman!

The most famous “official” cover of Omoide wa Okkusenman! is arguably the one by JAM Project, which appears as the bonus track in the album Nico Nico Douga Selection: Sainō no Mudazukai (ニコニコ動画せれくちょん～才能の無駄遣い～). It gives out the arena rock vibes here, and the keyboard in particular reminds me of that period in the mid-70s, before arena rock became really bloated and bands were still experimenting with electronic music.