Hiroshi Wakagi, The Blessin' Four and Misuzu Children's Choral Group -- Thunder Mask（サンダーマスク）

 

Yup, earlier today I met up with my good friend Danny for lunch and then to catch the latest Marvel entry "Thunderbolts*". And indeed, although I had already gotten some buzz that the movie was actually pretty darn good, I was still surprised to see, hear and feel a beating heart under all those special effects, intra-team sniping and gaudy uniforms. Maybe there is some hope for the MCU at last.

Well, I was kinda wondering how I could somehow connect that movie with anything to do with Japanese music. "Thunderbolts*" didn't come up with any assigned J-Pop song when the movie was shown in Japan. However, a bolt was struck within my cobwebbed memories. Decades ago, when I was perusing those thick manga especially meant for the kiddies, I found this one tokusatsu hero called Thunder Mask. Broadcast as a TV series in 1972, Thunder Mask was another one of those acrobatic sweep-kicking ministers of justice that was so tour de force in the 1970s. I just read that the God of Manga himself, Osamu Tezuka（手塚治虫）, was impressed enough with "Thunder Mask" the show that he even made a manga adaptation of the series at around the same time. So, perhaps what I saw in the manga back then was the Tezuka original.

Of course, you can't have a tokusatsu hero show without a rousing opening theme sung by an exhorting male singer accompanied by a children's chorus or a vocal group. In this case, "Thunder Mask" had both the kids' chorus and a vocal group. Indeed, the Misuzu Children's Choral Group（みすず児童合唱団） and The Blessin' Four（ ザ・フレッシング・フォー）joined Hiroshi Wakagi（若木ヒロシ）to perform "Thunder Mask" as this typically proud march for the fans. Kazumi Sada（佐田一美）was the lyricist while Takeo Watanabe（渡辺岳夫）took care of the melody.