HALCALI -- Otsukare Summer（おつかれSUMMER）

 

A few days ago in the Comments section for Galali's "Clear Summer", I received an anonymous statement about the Okinawan song and dance duo HALCALI getting the "Plastic Love" treatment. Their 22-year-old song "Otsukare Summer" has hit the big time via SNS.

Apparently, the song from their September 2003 debut album "Halcali Bacon"（ハルカリベーコン）(I posted on another track "Electric Sensei"（エレクトリック先生）back in early August) went viral on TikTok over the past number of weeks or months, and though it was one of the relatively rare songs that didn't originally have Halca and Yucali dancing all about in a music video, no problems. Folks around the globe have picked up on that and provided their own choreography such as KanzakiAnna through her YouTube account. 

The love has bounced back to the original recording company, FOR LIFE MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT because just yesterday, they released an animated music video for "Otsukare Summer"! Y'know, I had never heard of a loungy Latin-infused Shibuya-kei rap song before...now my life is complete. We can all thank not only HALCALI but also the songwriters Fantastic Plastic Machine and Masayuki Kumahara（熊原正幸）for providing this classy and catchy paean to the end of the hot season (which is next week).

As for the title, it's a pun on the very common phrase "otsukaresama"（お疲れ様）which literally means "Thank you for your hard work", so it's something that is used by folks in Japan to commend fellow workers or others who have done a great service for them such as furniture movers. I gather that I can also treat the punny title as "Thank You, Summer!". For a lot of the local sun worshippers, they are likely saying the same and lamenting the fact that it's going away so soon.