Kokoro Umetani -- Himitsu no Hana（秘密の花）

 

I heard this on a recent episode of NHK's "Shin BS Nihon no Uta"（新BS日本の歌）, and I found it quite lovely and old-fashioned. Teenage enka singer Kokoro Umetani（梅谷心愛）is making her way up the ladder in the music world and she released "Himitsu no Hana" (Secret Flowers) as her 2nd single from April 2025 earlier this year.

Remembering her from her debut single "Ban'etsu Sai Sen Hitori"（磐越西線ひとり）a couple of years back, Umetani was rocking an appearance that was a hybrid of traditional enka singer and 1920s flapper girl. So it's pretty refreshing to see her in the video looking like a typical young lady who's just celebrated her Adulthood Day ceremony (although she's still 17 as of this writing) and as someone in regular garb taking a walk along the beach. Speaking of mixing, what got my ears with "Himitsu no Hana" is not just the enka part but also the arrangement which comes across as being quite kayo kyoku, as if it were Mizue Takada（高田みづえ）singing back in the late 1970s. Maybe it has something to do with the songwriters. Kohei Miyuki（幸耕平）was the composer and he's done plenty of contemporary enka but the arrangement was handled by Mitsuo Hagita（萩田光雄）who I've frequently associated with pop songs going back decades. Masao Urino（売野雅勇）was behind the lyrics for this one which managed to reach No. 13 on Oricon.