I've been a fan of Japanese popular music for 40 years, and have managed to collect a lot of material during that time. So I decided I wanted to talk about Showa Era music with like-minded fans. My particular era is the 70s and 80s (thus the "kayo kyoku"). The plus part includes a number of songs and artists from the last 30 years and also the early kayo. So, let's talk about New Music, aidoru, City Pop and enka.
Credits
I would like to give credit where credit is due. Videos are from YouTube and other sources such as NicoNico while Oricon rankings and other information are translated from the Japanese Wikipedia unless noted.
I'm hoping that Yokohama has been able to enjoy sights like the above in the Minato Mirai 21 area. I always liked this part of the famed international port. Plus, hey, there's a lot of foodie opportunities there, too. I still remember that all-garlic restaurant in one of the towers. My friend and I were absolutely guaranteed of seats on the train back home.🧄
Well, it's time for another Yokohama-based song and this time, I have singer-songwriter Yuko Tomita's（とみたゆう子）February 1986 single"Yokohama Kaze no Station" (Yokohama Windy Station). Just judging from the cover of the fetching Ms. Tomita in her black party dress and the overall design, I figured that this particular song was also a track on her album from the same month "Moulin Rouge".
Last year, I covered Tomita's final track from "Moulin Rouge", "Silk-Hat-Club" which was this light and happy techno jazz tune, and it seems as if the synthesizers were out to party as well for this album. "Yokohama Kaze no Station" appears as the second track on the A-side and indeed the keyboards are in play here as well, but the style is more 1950s or 1960s pop love song (like the crystalline instrumental bridge, by the way) as sung by Connie Francis, thanks to Mitsuo Hagita's（萩田光雄）arrangement.
Recently, thanks to the success of "Project Hail Mary", I've been reminded of my latent fascination for exobiology. Seeing the adorable Rocky the Eridian have a fine relationship with Dr. Grace has made me wonder what life would be like on very different planets from Earth.
I doubt that Yoshifumi Niinuma（新沼好文）, the man behind the project known as Sympathy Nervous, was thinking about exobiology when he came up with the track "Sympathetic Nerves" for his self-titled album of 1980. Still, listening to this song which lasts almost ten minutes, it's hard for my roving imagination not to come up with the premise of two digital life forms interacting with each other; one's a rather large and belligerent fellow while the other guy is a small but pesky blip. Then again, I can also imagine this being a rather dark version of a soundtrack to any of the video games that were getting popular with teens like me back in the late 70s and early 80s like Pac-Man and Asteroids. One more theory is that "Sympathetic Nerves" may actually be good for your sympathetic nerves. Only ten minutes a day!😀
Japanese television loves to use its fair share of musical cues within programs such as variety shows. For example, if there is an instance where a couple of celebrities are about to come to a screaming match or physical blows (mostly joking...mostly), Tomoyasu Hotei's（布袋寅泰）famous "Battle Without Honor or Humanity" roars in like an oncoming storm.
Well, I think another song intro which is much older than Hotei's classic could have been another perfect shredding guitar cue, and I have to admit that I have to give myself another Gibbs slap upside the back of my head since I had unintentionally omitted it from the pages of KKP for years and years. When it comes to Momoe Yamaguchi's（山口百恵）"Zettai Zetsumei", her 23rd single from August 1978, I put it up there with her "Imitation Gold"（イミテイション・ゴールド）and "Playback Part 2"（プレイバック・パート２）as the 70s aidoru'ssongs of fury...as in "Hell hath no fury than a woman scorned".
"Zettai Zetsumei" can be interpreted as "desperate situation" or "stalemate", and both definitions can set the scene described by Yoko Aki's（阿木燿子）lyrics of irate showdown and her husband Ryudo Uzaki's（宇崎竜童）hard rocking confrontation music. You see, we have a love/hate triangle at a cafe somewhere in which at least one of the women has finally had enough of the status quo, and she and the other woman are giving the ultimatum to the guy they share. Who will win? Who will lose? And are there any sharp utensils nearby? You'd be surprised at how much damage a butter knife can do.
Even the cover of the single has Momoe looking terrifying. She looks like she's saying "Oh, really? THAT'S what you're going with?". Ay, carumba! "Zettai Zetsumei" peaked at No. 3 and ended up as the 34th-ranked single of the year. It's also a track on the singer's September 1978 15th studio album"Dramatic"（ドラマチック）which went as high as No. 6 on Oricon.
Takajin Yashiki（やしきたかじん）left quite the legend behind when he passed away about a dozen years ago, and evidently, anyone who has ever met him knew where he/she stood with him fairly quickly. Of course, there was the whole thing about him not liking Tokyo or Tokyoites, but as I mentioned in my first article on the late singer "Yappa Sukiyanen"（やっぱ好きやねん）, I think it was more that he disliked certain media corporations in Tokyo and their ways rather than a blanket hatred for the city.
Speaking of his signature "Yappa Sukiyanen" from 1986, which seems to be the one song of his that still gets performed by some of his friends such as Yoshimi Tendo（天童よしみ）, I was surprised to realize that his April 1993 20th single"Tokyo" was his biggest hit, according to the song's J-Wiki entry. I actually first heard it last night on the weekly episode of "Shin BS Nihon no Uta"（新BS日本の歌）, and my eyebrows soared up on seeing the title and who the singer was considering what I noted in the first paragraph. However, I reminded himself that Yashiki didn't have any particular axe to grind when it came to Japan's capital itself.
Written by Neko Oikawa（及川眠子）and composed by Akihiko Kawakami（川上明彦）, Yashiki seemed to grab onto the words and music like a football and run to the end zone with it. It's quite the Latin-tinged pop song of greatly regretting that lost love in Tokyo, although going through the Kansai dialect-friendly lyrics, I sometimes wonder whether the protagonist was actually heartbreakingly lamenting no longer being in Tokyo anymore.
"Tokyo" got no higher than No. 52 on Oricon and initially, sales weren't all that brisk. However, over the next few weeks, the requests to radio stations started flooding in and pretty soon, Takajin got noticed once more not just in the Osaka area but all throughout the nation.
Frankly speaking, I can count the number of Akira Kurosawa（黒澤明）movies that I've seen on one hand. I've heard about a lot of them but I've only watched "The Seven Samurai" and his final work "Madadayo" in 1993. I've also seen clips from "Ran" and "Ikiru", but that's about it. I have yet to see "Rashomon" but its storytelling device has become so influential that I've seen it being used in TV shows ranging from "Happy Days" to "Star Trek: The Next Generation".
You can imagine my surprise then when on a recent episode of "Shin BS Nihon no Uta"（新BS日本の歌）, enka veteran Fuyumi Sakamoto（坂本冬美）appeared on the stage to sing a song titled "Rashomon". I wondered whether Sakamoto had been intending to pay tribute to the Kurosawa classic.
Written by Souko Niimoto（新本創子）, composed by Keisuke Hama（浜圭介）and arranged by Kei Wakakusa（若草恵）, this was actually released as Sakamoto's 33rd single from June 2006. "Rashomon" launches with an intro that I thought was going to make this a classical/enkafusion thereby having this land into the genre of New Adult Music but then as the song goes on, the compass takes things into full enka. However one listens to it though, it is dramatic right down to Sakamoto's kobushi. As for the music video, I thought that this was more "Kill Bill" than "Rashomon" the movie. The song peaked at No. 29 on Oricon.
For the purposes of this song, I had been searching for any bloopers from any of the famous cooking shows on Japanese television. I distinctly remember that there was one such program with former aidoru hosts Ikue Sakakibara（榊原郁恵）and Miyuki Imori（井森美幸）getting themselves into a pickle in the kitchen one time, but alas, I couldn't find it on YouTube. However, I can settle for the above video of a lady cheerfully admitting to carbonizing her gratin. Well, at least, it has one thing going for it...it sounds delightfully crispy.
A YouTube commenter noted that "Kitchen Shock" by the technopop unit Plus-Tech Squeeze Box has an intro that sounds as if it should have been made into a theme song for a cooking show on Japanese TV...perhaps a comedic one. But instead, this happy-go-lucky number of techno-Shibuya-kei skippiness was placed onto a December 2004 compilation titled "Contemode V.A. 2". "Kitchen Shock" itself doesn't appear on any of the unit's own albums.
The video below is from YouTuber Orange Glider who gives his take on what makes Plus-Tech Squeeze Box tick. Enjoy!
The weather is improving so bicycles are coming out once again here in Toronto after a long winter. I'm sure the same thing is happening in Japan depending on the area.
But over there, I've heard that a rash of new bicycle regulations have come into force which could earn those unaware the dreaded blue ticket and fines. And according to NHK, there are probably many who are in the dark about how intricate some of those new laws are.
Coincidentally, on one of the NHK music shows, I recently heard a pretty rustic song called "Jitensha ni Notte"(Getting on the Bicycle). It was something that I hadn't listened to before so I looked into it. This was the May 1971 5th single by folk singer-songwriter Wataru Takada（高田渡）and it sounds like something that reflected a typical ride through a friendly town neighbourhood. It's short, sweet and the melody line during the singing of the verses reminds me of the old kids' song "I've Been Working on the Railroad".
Takada was born in Gifu Prefecture in 1949 in a family that had been rich due to their lumber merchant grandfather, but their fortune was wiped out because of a massive earthquake and stock market failures. After the death of his mother, Takada's father ended up taking him and his brothers to Tokyo with no particular destination in mind and they all lived in poverty in the Fukagawa district. In the 1960s, he would pick up the ukulele and start getting into folk music. His career would begin in earnest in 1968 and several singles and albums would be released. He passed away in April 2005 at the age of 56 from heart failure.
Just for fun, I punched into the Bing Image Creator, "A dangerous premonition in the style of Picasso". The above is what I got and well, ugh! Maybe it's a good thing that this not be seen past midnight in a dark room. But feel free to psychoanalyze it all you want.
Fortunately, the song that has that very title "Hiromi: Kiken na Yokan"(Hiromi: A Dangerous Premonition) sounds a lot more benign...almost to an aidoru level. This was recorded by actress-singer Nobuko Sendou（仙道敦子）as her 2nd single in October 1984, and though I haven't bothered to dig deep into Yuko Murakami's（村上悠子）lyrics, the melody composed and arranged by Ken Sato（佐藤健）is brisk and pleasant if somewhat urgent. I don't know who this Hiromi is, but she might need some help from the Equalizer.
The first time I posted a Nobuko Sendou article, it was back in late 2024 for her 1987 "Umi no Mieru Mado"（海の見える窓） and I compared her singing style to Miki Imai's（今井美樹）vocals. Imai herself was also coming up the ranks as an actress and singer, so to speak, at around the same time. Even with this early sophomore single, I can still make the comparison between Sendou and Imai since I think "Kiken na Yokan" could have also been sung by the latter lady early in her own career.
The above video shows a variety of entrance ceremonies for the new recruits at various companies throughout Japan, including All Nippon Airways at 1:55. Yes, it is April and so the corporate entities are throwing out the red carpet and all of the rigamarole to welcome the fresh newbies
I was watching the NHK morning news earlier tonight and there was a feature on the ceremonies, and the reporters did an interesting thing by showing the evolution of the corporate entrance ceremony throughout the decades from the 1960s to the 1990s, and for each decade, they put up a representative pop song. Just out of my sense of whimsy, I'm going to put these up here, too.
(1960s) Yukio Hashi and Sayuri Yoshinaga -- Itsudemo Yume wo（いつでも夢を）
(1970s) Koichi Morita and The Top Gallants -- Seishun Jidai （青春時代）
Now, the above were selected by NHK so they wouldn't come under Author's Picks. That label is for us KKP writers. However, I am throwing in my lone choice for an inspiring song to help encourage the new workers.
(1990s) Daiji Man Brothers Band -- Sore ga Daiji （それが大事）
A few nights ago, I was wondering about all-night radio after having taken another look back at my article on my fantasy radio show. I then punched in "All-Night Radio" into the YouTube search engine. I'd been expecting at least a few excerpts on how the DJs sounded back then on their midnight-6 am shows, but I got nothing. Instead, though, I did get a lot of videos featuring singer-songwriter Ado and something "All-Night Radio".
Well, this was interesting, I thought. Up to now, I've always seen her as the enigmatic rock chanteuse who can soar up and down the vocal range like an express elevator powered by a ramjet. But with "All-Night Radio", which was released as her October 2023 single, it actually sounded like a very perky and upbeat pop tune that was ready-made for radio. In fact, it came across as a disco-inflected Neo-City Pop song that could have a lot of nightcrawlers cheerfully turning up that dial. Mind you, it may be a little too upbeat for the beginning or middle of a 6-hour all-night broadcast. Perhaps this could be the song to finish it off just when the sun peeks over the horizon in the morning.
Created by Mitchie M., "All-Night Radio" was used as the theme song for some sort of stage play on the Nippon Broadcasting System radio station, and its lyrics happen to be about getting ready for that radio show. There's even a shoutout to Mood Kayoand Frank Nagai（フランク永井）. The song reached No. 12 on Oricon.
Looking over the file for Rie Ida（井田リエ）& 42nd Street, I was somewhat shocked to see that all of the six songs that I've featured on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" have been from 1980 such as "Star"（スター）. I'm not sure if I'd had some sort of fixation on that year.
Allow me to expand on her discography, temporally speaking, by going back to their 1977 debut album"Street Talk". The track that starts it off is the wistful "Koi no Arashi" (Love Storm). Written by Hikari or Kou Kurashiki（倉敷光）and composed by Yoshihiro Yonekura（米倉良広）, it's a pleasant slow simmer of disco and soul which certainly doesn't come across as something that Ida was trepidatious about. Her breathy vocals, the silvery strings and the sax solo give a good sign about the next few years in 42nd Street's career. I will always appreciate a song which brings images of enjoying a beer at the top of a New York brownstone at the end of a day.
I visited Jamaica only once and that was during our cruise several years ago. It was plenty sunny in the town of Falmouth and we had a nice walk around the area. No hint of rain at all.
That brings us to the late jazz singer Tamaki Sawa（沢たまき）. I first mentioned her back in 2023 when I introduced her 1966 "Bed de Tabako wo Suwanai de"（ベッドで煙草を吸わないで）which was her first single for Victor. It was quite the comfortable Latin-tinged Mood Kayo.
Well, cue ahead the better part of two decades and here I have Sawa's final single for Victor which was her December 1984"Ame no Jamaica" (Rainy Jamaica). The Latin is there but the Mood Kayo has been replaced by a more down-home and classy City Pop arrangement although the vocals by the singer here are very much in the jazz chanteuse vein. And I don't really hear anything of Jamaica here; this sounds more like a calm cruise down the Riviera via Tokyo.Takashi Matsumoto（松本隆）was responsible for the lyrics while Yoshitaka Minami（南佳孝）took care of the music.
I found this through DJ Notoya's"TOKYO 1980s Victor Edition (The Compilation) Boogie, Funk & Modern Soul from Japan" from 2018, and the man's been coming up with some of those smooth City Pop and AOR tunes from yesteryear. And they're not the usual suspects either; there are some pretty obscure tracks as well for which I am grateful.
One such number is the band Kangaroo's lead track from their debut album from 1983"Steppin'", "Sunshine Bright On Me (Cub)". I mentioned that album in the last Kangaroo article since it also contained the track "The Far East". Back then, Kangaroo was more for letting the instruments talk rather than have anyone sing although "Sunshine Bright On Me (Cub)" does have vocals but they sound more like background vocals. It's quite the jazzy set that also reminds me of a typical "Lupin III" stylish soundtrack. As for "(Cub)", I have no idea; baby kangaroos are known as joeys, after all.
After all of these decades of seeing Tom Cruise as the world's most amazing counterintelligence agent doing all that daring stuff such as hanging off a plane or flying a helicopter into a mountain (I was almost convinced that he was going to have a fight with a villain on the International Space Station in the last couple of "Mission: Impossible" movies), my earliest memories of him still evoke that iconic dance in "Risky Business" back in the 1980s. At the time, little did I know that this fellow was going to become the No. 1 box office guy.
Well, I was reminded of Cruise cruising on that smooth wooden floor when I watched the video for Kirinji's（キリンジ）"Room Dancer" which came out as a digital single on Halloween 2025. No rock n' roll here, though. It's a young lass who's tripping the light fantastic in her apartment but then takes it out on the road as far as Antarctica, and it's all to the familiar smooth and refined Kirinji beat (perked up with some Motown feeling). They're all joined by singer-songwriter Tomomi Oda（小田朋美）who made her first appearance on KKP through a more Gundam route. Both Takaki Horigome（堀込高樹）and Oda worked on words and music.
Initially, when I took a gander at the video, I'd thought that it was Wild Child SUZUKA from the song and dance group Atarashii Gakko no Leaders（新しい学校のリーダーズ）who was dancing all about. However, as it turns out, the young lady here is Miki Ayane who is a model and a staffer at a vintage store in Harajuku. "Room Dancer" can also be found on Kirinji's latest album"Town Beat" which came out in January this year.
"He was active in Japan for over a decade, and was pretty popular in Osaka because of its large Zainichi Korean population!"
"I see. I only just found out about this singer today, though."
"You idiot... I have his fan club articles - I'll give them to you."
And that's how I got to know about the existance of South Korean trot* and enka singer Na Hoon-a (羅勲児/나훈아), or Nafuna (ナフナ).
From 好っきゃねん！！羅勲児, the compilation of the Japan Na Hoon-a fan club's (Ara Club 我羅 倶楽部) publications
I had never been up to score on the activities of Korean enka singers. I knew there was an influx of them in from about the late 1970s to the 1990s, which seemed to begin with the immense popularity of Cho Yong-pil's (조용필) Pusan Ko e Kaere (釜山港へ帰れ). I also was aware of the spunky Kim Yon-ja(김연자) and her hearty vocals, since she was a constant fixture on kayo shows like (Shin) BS Nippon no Uta (日本のうた) and Kayo Concert (歌謡コンサート) back when I watched them religiously. But that was about where my knowledge ended... I should probably not tell that enka enthusiast this, lest he actually give me a knuckle to the head. In my defense, digging real deep into the 70s to 90s enka realm hadn't been my biggest priority. But I was aware that it was high time I went beyond my standard boundaries of the likes of Hachiro Kasuga and try something new. And what's newer than a Korean trot-enka singer I had completely no idea about?
The first song by Na that hit my ears had been Nidoto Koi Nado (二度と恋など), an electric kayo bop. The enka enthusiast had sung this at a karaoke recital I'd watched some weeks ago for want of something better to do that day, which was how I got around asking him about the Korean singer. After that, I went about sampling more of Na's works on YouTube and Spotify - mainly the Japanese tunes first, because I didn't (and still don't) know a sliver of Korean. That was when I stumbled upon Minato Koi-uta.
Minato Koi-uta (Harbour Love Song) - as far as titles go, that's as enka as it gets. Acoustic guitar and accordion in the intro - yup, that's that quintessential 70s and 80s enka arrangement. But cutting through the rustic do-enka feel is the electronic beats and wavey effects that give the song a modern, almost new music edge. That interesting fusion arrangement, courtesy of Nobuyuki Sakuraba (櫻庭伸幸), alone was enough to perk my ears up.
From what I gather from Na’s Wikipedia page (in English), Minato Koi-uta was released in February 1985. Written by lyricist Yoko Yamaguchi (山口洋子) and composed by Kosho Inomata (猪俣公章), both highly renowned enka-kayo songwriters in the second half of the Showa era, this seemed to have been Na’s first fully Japanese single. Yamaguchi writes the song in the perspective of a woman who pines for her lover, who's a sailor (or fisherman) and rarely returns to terra forma. While Yamaguchi's words paint a pitiful image of our protagonist, it's Na's impactful, heart-wrenching delivery that really drives home how much she is in love with the man.
Na in Nidoto Koi Nado sounds rather measured, but one can feel the pent up emotion bubbling just under the surface. Minato Koi-uta, perhaps in simply being a do-enka, had the guy pulling out all the stops - it's as though his heart was being twisted and ripped out by loneliness, frustration, and helplessness. Na's sudden-explosive-bursts-of-anguish singing style is contrary to what I've been listening to for several years, and it actually reminds me a little of Kiyoshi Maekawa (前川清), which is probably part of why it commanded my attention. Combined with the lower register he tapped into for this song... it's kinda hot. And, I mean, Na is also kinda hot, so there's that.
Anyway, as far as I know for now, Na was born Choi Hong-gi in Busan (South Korea) on 11 February 1947. He began his career as a singer-songwriter in Korea in 1966, finding great success. However, he had only broken into the Japanese market in late 1984 after a concert in Osaka of that year, and released Minato Koi-uta with Teichiku Records the following year. Na would appear on Japanese media fairly regularly, fostering Korea-Japan cultural ties, and would even sing some of his works in both Japanese and Korean. He'd even been a guest on one of Hachi's radio shows, Kasuga Hachiro no Jinsei Banzai (春日八郎の人生バンザイ) in 1987. Apparently, the enka veteran had a good time discussing enka and trot, as well as sharing experiences in songwriting with the tenacious younger singer, who did both. On that note:
"Y'know your Tadaharu Nakano draft - Adding Butter to Miso Soup?"
"Yeah?"
"It reminded me of [Na] comparing trot and enka to kimchi and takuan."
"Oh, yeah, they are (can be) both made of radish."
What I really meant by saying that at the time was that indeed both genres have their differences, the major one being the country of origin, yet having striking similarities, so I think I know where Na was going with the comparison. What a cool allegory! I did notice that several Korean trot-enka singers like Na sound a lot more dramatic and emotional, and thus sound more aggressive, than a lot of the popular local Japanese enka singers. I don't listen enough to trot to know if that's the norm, or if the likes of Na and the abovementioned Kim Yon-ja just roll that way, but it certain feels like that chili spice in kimchi that takuan lacks.
I can be quite stubborn when it comes to picking up music/book/film recommendations if they don't seem to align with my tastes on first glance. Na's style is quite intense and overwhelming, so I don't find myself going too far down the Na Hoon-a rabbit hole, but I like him more than I'd expected myself to. Fair play to you, enka enthusiast. Oh - if wasn't already apparent, the enka enthusiast had been a big fan of Na's since at least 1984, and did a lot to facilitate his activities in Japan.
*Trot, simply put, seems to be South Korea's answer to enka. Similar themes, highly dramatic and emotional singing styles, and somewhat similar-sounding melodies.
P.S. There was a theory that enka had originated in Korea - considering the similarities trot has with enka, it was inevitable. That became sort of a point of concern for the "Enka is the music of the Japanese" claim. However, that was eventually debunked by answers that go somewhere along line of, "The 'Father of Enka' Masao Koga only began to make enka (its prototype) when he returned to Japan," among other answers.
Welcome to the regular weekly Reminiscings of Youth segment on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" where I provide one of the songs that gladly adorned my childhood and adolescence in the 1970s and 1980s. And now...back to the countdown. Wait! That's not my line...that's Casey Kasem's line when he was hosting "America's Top 10". Whenever I could catch it on TV, I did so to see what was hot and cool on the charts and one group that was doing that a lot on the show was Hall & Oates. In fact, they're up above as well at No. 7 on the charts in this November 1983 episode.
In fact, I remember their October 1983 single "Say It Isn't So" taking up near permanent residency on those charts for months on end, and it didn't take long for the song to make it to local radio stations. And it soon became one of my favourite songs by them during their dance-pop days in the 1980s. I especially liked the extended version (great sax solo by Charles DeChant) that played through the official music video below (and yeah, that beat makes it a great walking song). For both versions, Hall really liked to take advantage of those vocal effects especially the one where he seems to yell from one speaker to another.
In Canada, "Say It Isn't So" reached No. 18 while in the United States, it hit No. 2 on Billboard. Meanwhile, what was also hitting the record stores in October 1983?
Another one of those songs that I couldn't classify at first, "Margarita Girl" by Yoshimi Iwasaki（岩崎良美）is still a pretty refreshing cocktail of a tune. I gather that along with 1976, 1982 was a darn fine year for music since it's currently the year in Labels with the second-largest number of articles.
"Margarita Girl" was Iwasaki's 10th single from July 1982. One of three musical creations that year that had been made for the 80s aidoru by the husband-and-wife team of lyricist Kazumi Yasui（安井かずみ）and composer Kazuhiko Kato（加藤和彦）, it starts off sounding a bit City Pop but then it transitions into a more old-fashioned pop standard direction with strings (maybe even a bit Fashion Music?). Moreover, some Latin feeling also infuses itself by the chorus. I guess it wasn't just the girl that was getting margarita-ized. You can ask arranger Nobuyuki Shimizu（清水信之）.
The single managed to peak at No. 41 on Oricon, and it became a track on Iwasaki's 5th album from June 1982, "Cécile"; that album got as high as No. 22. One of those other Yasui/Kato collaborations for Yoshimi was "Aishite Mon Amour"（愛してモナムール）.
The city of Urayasu（浦安）, Chiba Prefecture is right next door to my residence city of Ichikawa（市川） in the same prefecture. Both cities gave me some strong impressions. Both of them are bedroom towns for Tokyo but whereas Ichikawa spread out so widely that there was no way I could explore all of it even within a few days, Urayasu struck me as having a dual personality.
For me, there was Old Urayasu around the Tokyo Metro Tozai Line's Urayasu Station (refer to the above video) which I was far more well-acquainted with. It was the usual conglomeration of fast-food restaurants, izakaya, pachinko parlors, one major department store, supermarkets and apartment buildings. I used to teach at a juku some fifteen minutes walk away from the station so I often made use of the local Starbucks, KFC, the family restaurant and the MUJI store there.
But then there was Shin-Urayasu or New Urayasu as you can see below. And it was like comparing night to day. The new development looked like a southern California resort community by the sea. There were palm trees, wide boulevards, a lot of spiffy new condos and attractive shopping malls. Of course, all that was probably started when Tokyo Disneyland began operations there in 1983. I could get to the area by a bus that actually began its route in front of my subway station, Minami-Gyotoku（南行徳）, just one stop east from Urayasu on the Tozai (why it didn't start from Urayasu itself is beyond me). It was a half-hour ride one way to Shin-Urayasu Station. Mind you, unless I had friends come over from abroad to head to the Mouse House, I never really frequented the Shin-Urayasu area. It appeared and most likely still is too expensive for my blood.
I knew that Urayasu had its humble beginnings as a small fishing town but I never really saw that side; Urayasu has always been that bedroom town/condo community for me. But I got that historical reality put into my brain while listening to Yoshitaka Minami's（南佳孝）single from 1978"Shiokaze Douri no Uwasa"(Rumours of a Sea Breeze Avenue) because it was the theme song for an NTV drama of that year called "Kaigara no Machi" (貝がらの街...Seashell Town) which took place and was actually filmed in Urayasu when it was a whole lot smaller and sleepier. It's a pity that I can't find any footage from the drama.
Unlike Minami's familiar City Pop stuff or his 50s/60s twangy material, "Shiokaze Douri no Uwasa" is quite the softer song. For one thing, he had nothing to do with the actual creation of the song which was handled by lyricist Keisuke Yamakawa（山川啓介）and composer/arranger Yuji Ohno（大野雄二）. The result is something that sounds quite early 70s Carpenter-esque but then again, any languid tune with an oboe in there will always remind me of Karen and Richard Carpenter. Again, there is no sign of the drama on YouTube but from the song itself, I can imagine that "Kaigara no Machi" was a pretty down-home TV series with plenty of that smalltown Urayasu atmosphere.
Commenter Robert B. informed me of a kayo singer that he enjoyed by the name of Masami Urabe（浦部雅美）. He asked if I had heard of her before but I couldn't say I did. However, that family name reminded me of our family's old insurance agent since she had the same last name.
In any case, there's no J-Wiki file on Urabe but we've been able to glean some information about her. For instance, according to Discogs, she was born on Christmas Eve 1959 and hails from Abashiri, Hokkaido. At the very least, she did release seven singles and two albums between 1977 and 1982.
Her debut single from September 1976, "Sukoshi Tōde wo Shitemimasen ka"(How About Taking a Short Trip?) is a friendly country kayo kyoku which seems to follow the rhythmic pattern of John Denver's "Take Me Home, Country Road", one of the most well-known non-Japanese pop songs of all time in Japan. Written by Tsuzuru Nakasato（森田公一）and composed/arranged by Koichi Morita（森田公一）, Urabe sings about inviting the boyfriend for a nice little journey somewhere to get some fresh air and perhaps some fresher love. The Hokkaido lass has a pleasantly deeper voice which reminds me a tad of the vocals of Momoe Yamaguchi（山口百恵）.
After half a century as an enka performer, Takashi Hosokawa（細川たかし）doesn't really have anything left to prove. He's looked very dapper in his suits but for the past several years, he's been appearing in more formal and traditional garb perhaps to illustrate his status as an elder stateman of the genre.
However, it also seems as if he's been willing to not only show the epic-ness of his music but also to poke a little bit of fun at his image with the help of AI and/or CG. He did this for the music video of his July 2024 85th single"Otokobune"（男船）and now he's gone even further for his most recent single, "Kamui Misaki" (Cape Kamui), which was released in January 2026.
There is an actual Cape Kamui in West Hokkaido but the music video would have you know that the song isn't really about a geographical feature on Japan's northernmost island; it's about Hosokawa as a determined ninja (who somehow got access to Captain America's Super-Soldier Serum) while being assisted by his crack team of cats. Yes, it's a rather Dadaist presentation. But as written by Ayako Fujibayashi（藤林綾子）and composed by Akihito Masuda（増田空人）, it does sound like a manly man enka with that piercing heroic trumpet and an arrangement that would make the Grand Old Man of Enka himself, Saburo Kitajima（北島三郎）, swoon.
It's another Hump Day here on Kayo Kyoku Plus, but I have to admit that it's looking really nice outside although the temperatures are still below seasonal. Anyways, let's a little whimsical with another Author's Picks, and this week, I just wanted to give my tribute and congratulations to the astronauts aboard Artemis II (along with Nutella) who are now en route back to Earth after doing that whip around the Moon.
Back in September, I'd already done my first batch of Moon Songs commemorating the autumn lunar festival, so this will be Moon Songs 2, but I don't have quite enough moon-themed songs that I know off the top of my head (although some of them may have already been posted on the blog...my memory isn't that good anymore). As such, I've cordially invited some other tunes with titles of a planetary nature within the Sol System.
This article can probably come down under the banner of "Don't judge a book by its cover". Years ago on KKP, I posted an article on somewhat obscure singer-songwriter Kaoru Nakahara（中原薫）and her refined love song "Sabishigariya Futari Bocchi"（淋しがりやふたりぼっち）from 1995. As I mentioned there, I bought the CD single based on what I heard nightly on the late-night docu-vignette "Rooms" on Fuji-TV. It is basically the only song that I know of her and so my impression has been that Nakahara was a singer of ballads.
Well, twelve-and-a-half years later, I've gotten my education. Nakahara also released one (and perhaps her only) album in June 1996 titled "Dolce". It not only has "Sabishigariya Futari Bocchi" but it has this very upbeat track called "Mou Ichido Ai Shitakute" (I Want to Fall in Love Again). Written by Nakahara and composed by Yasushi Suzuki（鈴木康志）, it feels like a night out on the city set to a dance club rhythm. I even got some Cathy Dennis vibes.
In the midst of writing up this article, I also got a bonus in terms of information and music. For one thing, according to one Ameba blog, Nakahara had once been known as aidoru Hiroe Sato（佐藤弘枝）about a decade previously. It's possible that Sato only released one single titled "Sepia Iro no Natsu"（セピア色の夏...Sepia Summer） in May 1985. Written by Hitoshi Shinohara（篠原仁志）, composed by Eiji Takino（たきのえいじ）under his pseudonym Hifumi Roku*（緑一二三）, and arranged by Makoto Kawaguchi（川口真）, the vocals by Sato/Nakahara are certainly very familiar and similar, and the song stands out for the use of a soprano sax and a galloping beat that sounds like something the late Eiichi Ohtaki（大滝詠一）would use.
Apparently, soon after the release of "Sepia Iro no Natsu", Sato pulled a disappearing act and wouldn't return for several years until she made her re-debut as Cola Hazuki（葉月コーラ） (she was singing for Coca-Cola ads at the time) in 1991. And then two years later, she changed her name to Kaoru Nakahara.
*That family name has a number of readings, so my choice is a guess. If anyone can confirm or correct me on the reading, please let me know.
A few days ago, I wrote about Yasuyuki Okamura & Kento Nakajima's"Shunpatsuteki ni Koi Shiyou"（瞬発的に恋しよう）, the opening theme for the currently running anime "Ganbare! Nakamura-kun!!"（ガンバレ!中村くん!!...Go for It, Nakamura!）. Well, in an interesting parallel, there's another case of a stylish anime this season whose opening theme is sung by another Japanese music veteran. And like Okamura, this guy also recorded another anison several years ago.
"Akane-banashi"（あかね噺...Akane's Story） is a tale of a young woman who decides to go through the trials and tribulations in becoming a top-grade rakugo storyteller. The only anime that I've seen with a rakugo theme has been "Joshiraku"（じょしらく....Girls In Rakugo) from over a decade ago which is a Seinfeld-esque comedy. I've got a feeling that "Akane-banashi" is probably a whole lot more serious.
But as for that opening theme, singer-songwriter and Southern All Stars leader/vocalist Keisuke Kuwata（桑田佳祐）is the man behind "Hitotarashi" which is his 4th digital single that was released a few days ago. The CD version will apparently come out at the end of June. I was wondering why the title has been illustrated in both its kanji and hiragana forms, and then I looked up the definitions for "Hitotarashi" and discovered something interesting. One meaning is "someone of respect" and "charismatic person", while another is "con-man" or "scammer". Considering what I've read of the synopsis of "Akane-banashi", this could be rather significant.
In any case, Kuwata is still living life large at the age of 70, and he's recorded "Hitotarashi" as this brisk flighty number which feels like the song itself is on the lam from someone or something. It's got the usual Kuwata/SAS twang in the arrangement but at the same time, there is something that sounds like an accordion which reminds me of the French gentleman thief Arsène Lupin since I am thinking about those two definitions of the song title. It was easy for me to identify Kuwata's wife and fellow SAS member Yuko Hara（原由子）as one of the backing vocals, and I read that Makoto Saito（斎藤誠）was both on the electric and acoustic guitars.
Several years ago, I posted an article for aidoru Atsumi Kurasawa's（倉沢淳美）April 1987 penultimate single as a soloist, "Genki desu ka"（元気ですか）which was a slightly more 50s/60s-ish tune helmed by the tenderhearted vocals from the former member of Warabe（わらべ）.
Well, let's go back a few years to October 1984 when Kurasawa released her 3rd single "Kiken na Yume" (Dangerous Dreams). A tune with a pretty urgent beat, Ichizo Seo's（瀬尾一三）arrangement of Tsunehiro Izumi's（和泉常寛）melody sounds like something from a decade previously brought over to the 1980s that Hiromi Iwasaki（岩崎宏美）could have sung in her early days. Masao Urino's（売野雅勇）lyrics talk of a girl having these disturbing yet intriguing dreams of a man she can't identify but simply can't ignore. So, the chase is on! Try to make an "Inception" movie out of that. Not surprisingly, Kurasawa's vocals, when compared to her singing on "Genki desu ka", come off as being more innocent and rawer.
Nice to have aidoru group Negicco back in the KKP saddle again after a few years away. I think the last article I posted about them regarded their "Gozen Rei-ji no Sympathy"（午前0時のシンパシー）from 2020. That has some nice City Pop twist there and my impression has been that the group has enjoyed dabbling into the urban contemporary genres now and then.
I'm going a bit further back in their discography to bring out their single "Anata to Pop With You"(Popping With You) which made its debut in June 2012. I first found about this one when I was perusing kinuzure's "Tamaranaku, AOR Kayo"（たまらなく、AOR歌謡...Irresistibly, AOR Pop） blog. I don't really think that this particular song is in the Neo-City Pop or J-AOR vein despite the presence of some synth brass but it's still an upbeat and fun song for summer. There seems to be a faint reminder of what was going on with Eurobeat back in the 1980s.
Wasn't quite sure about the presence of a "white" Negicco and a "blue" Negicco in the music video. I'd assumed that it was about the good and evil dichotomy with Negicco the White looking rather forlorn while Negicco the Blue were ready to party down. However, the Blue happily won over the White. "Anata to Pop With You", which was written and composed/arranged by singer-songwriter connie, peaked at No. 41 on Oricon. It's also a track on the group's July 2013 album"Melody Palette".
Ever had a food you disliked and actively avoided for as long as you could remember, but one fine day you decide to give it another chance, and you end up liking it? For me, that’d be spring/green onion. As a child, I found its green presence in what I thought would’ve been the perfect dish highly offensive. But the aforementioned process occurred somewhere along the line, and now it’s something I actively want in my food. It’s such a strange phenomenon, isn’t it?
In the kayo context, my spring onion is what is commonly referred to as Hachiro Kasuga’s (春日八郎) signature sound. It’s a dark and plaintive sort of melody on the minor key of the yonanuki (pentatonic) scale that adds a layer of foreboding to Kasuga’s already forlorn tone. Generally speaking, I was never really keen on this sort of melody as I was of the mind that listening to stuff like that would dampen or exacerbate my poor mood. My picky taste thus had me avoiding such Kasuga Bushi, which ironically, were the bulk of Kasuga’s hits. Writing my thesis and joining the Kasuga Enka Denshokai made me accept the “enka” in the “enka singer”, but the greater exposure to Hachi’s vast discography did little to change my preferences. Then one day just this year, something in my brain chemistry must've changed, but I became more open to the Kasuga standards I'd been actively avoiding. There were days when my usual selection just didn't sit right with my mood - neither sad or happy - but these darker numbers were able to just about compliment it. Their haunting melodies and their arrangements suddenly became so fascinating and hypnotic. Nothing represents this change I had better than Izakaya.
Izakayais a constant in Hachi's compilation albums and recitals, and seems to be a fan favourite. It was released in January 1958, and written by lyricist Hiroshi Yokoi (横井弘) and composed by Toshiyo Kamata (鎌多俊与). Its somber atmosphere and theme of moping at a bar would become key enka genre attributes, but I couldn't understand its appeal. My initial enka-kayo pickiness had me dismissing it as a boring mood dampener, and in later days, just one of the representative enka prototypes.
However, I was quite recently doing something that had me picking an enka-like Kasuga Bushi that encompasses someone very enka and very Hachiro Kasuga. The first song that popped into my head, for some reason, was Izakaya. At the time, I had only just begun to appreciate the dark, minor key tunes and their magnetic arrangements, and Izakaya rarely if ever came up on my radar until that moment. Still, I was satisfied with my choice, and I think that was when I began to savor the flavours Toshi-san had created in this beloved hit: bitter, heavy, dry... But highly addictive. For something I disliked, it did a great job for getting stuck in my head. I could've sworn I listened to it at least twice a day for the past couple of weeks.
It also goes without saying that Hachi's mournful warble blended perfectly with the haunting melody. It makes the protagonist sound like he's struggling to hold back tears of anguish from falling into his drink. Yet, Hachi is also fantastic at conveying hope and empathy in the midst of despair, and so the consoling, emotional warmth our protagonist gets from his go-to bar cuts through the song's overall melancholic tone.
So, is this what folks mean when they say "Kasuga Bushi", or rather, "Kasuga Enka"? I think I'm starting to get it.
Speaking of which, by some mind-bending coincidence, the aforementioned enka person later sang Izakaya while representing the Hachi club at a karaoke recital. I also have reason to believe that it's one of their cherished Kasuga Bushi, although I didn't know that when I affixed the song to them. Weird. I suppose that just affirmed by intuition.
Hachi would re-record Izakaya on stereo in 1970 with a different arrangement (the above video). While his more matured, slightly lower voice accentuates the song's inherent sadness, the haunting atmosphere of Toshi-san's original arrangement is what I can't get enough of... Sorry, Toshi-san, you really did cook with this one - I was the clown for not seeing it this whole time.
Anyway, Izakayas are not my kind of place. I bury my head in my favourite singers or surround myself with nature when depressed. So, in that respect, I don't think I can resonate completely with the concept of moping in a bar over alcohol as in the likes of Izakaya. That said, slowly coming around to enka style tunes/enka/Kasuga Bushi of this sound feels like quite the big milestone in my enka journey I'd never thought I'd reach. And that took me like, what, 12-ish years?
"You'll understand enka when you're older." This is a phrase often used to explain enka's older fan base. I had even been told that several times - in fact, that very enka person had even said that I'm still too young to fully comprehend enka and its emotional depth. Admittedly, I took some offence to that, and just took it as a generalizing statement. After all, everyone goes through different things, and thus a listener can interpret and resonate with a song in different ways. But after this Izakaya episode, I'm inclined to believe that there's some truth to this saying, one way or another. I suppose it is really like acquiring the taste of spring onions.
P.S. J-Canuck did a writeup on Izakaya several years ago, so you can check it out here.
P.S.S. Izakaya was theme song of episode 8 on the first radio show Hachi hosted, Kasuga Hachiro noShinmiri Enka Daizenshu (春日八郎のしんみり演歌大全集) in late 1982. The episode had the great Yokoi on as a special guest, and they talked about the results of a kayokyoku survey held by the Nihonshu Center (日本酒センター) that featured postwar kayo with themes, titles, and lyrics related to alcohol released between 1950 and 1981. To my mild surprise, Hachi claimed the top spot for being the singer with the most number of said songs: 26. Yokoi came first in the lyricist category, while Minoru Endo was first in the composer category.
Y'know...I assumed for all these years that I'd already posted about Hiromi Iwasaki's（岩崎宏美）4th single"Fantasy" since it was one of her earliest tunes and I'd been pretty dedicated about writing about those, such as her sophomore release "Romance"（ロマンス）. However, going up and down her discography on KKP a few times when I was writing up a recent ROY article, I realized much to my chagrin that it was simply not the case.
Well, one Gibbs slap later, I've gotten to work. "Fantasy" was Iwasaki's January 1976 single created by lyricist Yu Aku（阿久悠）and composer Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）. As with her earliest works by this duo, "Fantasy" has that rather urgent string-driven arrangement with the slight disco touch. From what I can glean from Aku's lyrics, there is a countdown going from two months down to half a day before as a woman recounts the adventure of a man she fancies and is then betrayed by. It makes me wonder whether the lady's dreams of romantic bliss were nothing but cruel fantasy or whether the woman made this whole thing up. It's quite the mature topic for teenaged Hiromi to sing about.
"Fantasy" peaked at No. 2 on Oricon and eventually became the 20th-ranked single of 1976. Iwasaki also got onto that year's edition of the Kohaku Utagassen for the second time to sing this one.
I think it may have been commenter Brian who recently reminded me of anime's favourite boarding house "Maison Ikkoku"（めぞん一刻）by stating that it had celebrated a recent anniversary. And sure enough, we're all here again admiring Kyoko the boarding house manager. But I come here through a rather coincidental route. Yesterday, I was delighted to find out that one of the new anime for Spring 2026, "Ganbare! Nakamura-kun!!"（ガンバレ!中村くん!!...Go for It, Nakamura!）, has adopted the policy of using some of the Showa and Heisei Era hits to end each episode, and the ending theme for Episode 1 was Kozo Murashita's（村下孝蔵）wonderful "Hatsukoi"（初恋）. Let it make a resurgence, I say!
Well, I've only just discovered that another Murashita single had become the final opening theme for "Maison Ikkoku". I've heard of his September 1987 12th single"Hidamari" (Sunny Spot) but only as something that I probably listened to for the first time on "Sounds of Japan" decades ago. I didn't know of the anime's connection with the song but now I recognize it as being part of the "Maison Ikkoku" family along with Yuki Saito's（斉藤由貴）upbeat "Kanashimi yo Konnichiwa"（悲しみよこんにちは）and Anzen Chitai's（安全地帯）mysterious "Suki sa"（好きさ）.
I figure that if anime fans can enjoy the fruits of "Hatsukoi", then why not lead them to "Hidamari", the opening theme for this classic show of the 1980s? Murashita had been known as a singer-songwriter who flitted between folk and pop with ease, but the really skippy "Hidamari" is definitely in the latter genre as his lyrics talk about one fellow mightily pining for that young lady. Kimio Mizutani（水谷公生）was behind its arrangement as it hit No. 61 on Oricon.
The last time I had singer-songwriter Seishiro Kusunose（楠瀬誠志郎）on the byline, it was back in 2021 for his 1987"Elevator Town" which was catchy because of the jazz and that supreme four-on-the-floor drumming.
Well, after around four and a half years, Kusunose is back on the byline with "Parody Date", a track from his August 1991 6th album"Suusen no Hoshi"（数千の星...Thousands of Stars）. I have no idea what a parody date is...it sounds like a plot device that would pop on a Japanese rom-com or a comedy anime but hey, the song itself is catchy enough.
I mentioned that jazz and the four-on-the-floor for "Elevator Town". Well, for "Parody Date", it's all about the Latin jazzy brass and the feeling that listeners were meant to do a cha-cha on the floor as well. It's OK...just close the drapes and you can have fun without anyone knowing. Anyways, Kusunose was behind the happy melody while Shota Namikawa（並河祥太）provided the lyrics. Satoshi Takebe（武部聡志）arranged everything into its cha-cha form.
Years ago, when we were all living in Japan, one of my friends, A-kun, related the story of when he and another mutual buddy, B-chan, had gone to a branch of Manga no Mori (a famous manga store franchise) in Ikebukuro near the Sunshine 60 Building. The two of them had their own preferences when browsing for Japanese comics so they promised that after half an hour or so, they would meet up near the cashier. A-kun had a pretty wide range of manga that he liked so he most likely went all over the store, but B-chan had specific genres in mind: magical girls, Takarazuka-like classical romances....and BL (boys' love). At the time, he hadn't been aware of that last one.
Well, the thirty-minute window passed by. A-kun was left waiting at the cashier for a few minutes but B-chan wouldn't show up, so he went to search for her. He finally did find her fully ensconced in one of those BL manga and when he approached her from behind to see what she was reading, she was taken by surprise. A-kun swore that B-chan threw away that BL manga like skipping a rock across a river. Apparently, it bounced twice and almost impaled another browser. It was on the level of Mio's own reaction above whenever anyone was about to find out her own love of creating BL. In any case, to her own dread, she was outed. Of course, neither A-kun nor I judged her on that.
In any case, the above preamble ramble was for me to introduce one of the new anime of the season "Ganbare! Nakamura-kun!!"（ガンバレ!中村くん!!...Go for It, Nakamura!）, adapted from a manga that had run for a couple of years in the mid-2010s. I'm not into BL at all but this anime looks pretty darn humorous as young Okuto Nakamura falls hard for classmate Aiki Hirose. As well, I like the old-fashioned style of the design of the characters...reminds me of the 80s.
Heck, the entire design of the opening credits felt like a time warp back to my high school and university days. And then there is the opening theme by Yasuyuki Okamura（岡村靖幸）and former Sexy Zone member Kento Nakajima（中島健人）. It was about thirteen years ago that Okamura came up with one of the coolest and funkiest anison, "Viva Namida"（ビバナミダ）for "Space Dandy"...man, time does fly, doesn't it? And I don't think the singer who has looked like the most dance-crazed corporate section chief had created any more anison until this one in 2026.
Well, with "Shunpatsuteki ni Koi Shiyou", which literally translates as "Let's Fall in Love Right Here and Now!" but whose official English title is "Sudden Spark", we have Okamura creating and arranging the song into another techno funk piece just like "Viva Namida". It's a whole lot shorter than "Viva Namida" but I figure since the song won't officially get onto the market until late May, here's hoping that it will get longer through another verse and/or instrumental bridge. I see that Okamura still likes to cut a rug.
Strangely enough, what got my attention on "Ganbare! Nakamura-kun!!" in the first place was the ending credits sequence. For the ending of each episode, a different old kayo kyoku or J-Pop hit from the Showa and Heisei eras will be played. Episode 1 has the late Kozo Murashita's（村下孝蔵）"Hatsukoi"（初恋）from 1983. Good choice! I always love it when the folks of today happily find out about a Japanese song from yesteryear.
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