Nobuyo Ohyama & Koorogi '73 -- Doraemon Ondo（ドラえもん音頭）

 

It's been a busy news day on NHK. There was the top segment of Nihon Hidankyo（日本被団協...The Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations） winning the Nobel Peace Prize earlier today and then the latest news on the upcoming Lower House elections on the 27th. 

However, in between those two features was the latest fuhou（訃報）for 2024. Actress, singer and seiyuu Nobuyo Ohyama（大山のぶ代）passed away on September 29th at the age of 90 from old age. Her career as an actress started all the way back in 1956 but her time as an anime voice actor began in 1965 which included a brief run in the beloved 1969 anime adaptation of the manga "Sazae-san"（サザエさん）as Katsuo Isono（磯野カツオ）, the title character's younger brother.

Of course, Ohyama's greatest claim to fame is her portrayal of the iconic earless future cat, Doraemon（ドラえもん）, from 1979 to 2005. There were two other seiyuu who had preceded her and then since Ohyama's departure, there have been a few more voice thespians who have taken on the role but I think a lot of people including myself will always think of Ohyama as the high and raspy voice of Doraemon as he proudly pulls out the latest weird gadget out of his pocket.

So in tribute, I wanted to put up a song from the franchise. With that voice that Ohyama came up with for the character, I figured that there just had to be a min'yo among all of the theme songs and insert songs that had been concocted over the decades for "Doraemon". And it didn't take long to track one down. "Doraemon Ondo" (Doraemon Traditional Folk Song) was released in 1979, just when the second anime iteration had made its premiere. It doesn't seem to be listed as an ending credit theme so I'm assuming that it was a special one-off for a summer festival episode. 

Ohyama is joined by the chorus group Koorogi '73（こおろぎ'73）which had its run between 1979 and 1990 and contributed voices to tokusatsu series throughout the 1970s. The jaunty "Doraemon Ondo" was written by the creator of the original manga, Fujiko F Fujio（藤子・F・不二雄）, and composed/arranged by Shunsuke Kikuchi（菊池俊輔）.

My condolences to Ohyama's family, friends and all of those Doraemon fans out there.