Sakanaction -- Iranai（いらない）

 

It was good to see Sakanaction（サカナクション）in action again when I saw Ichiro Yamaguchi（山口一郎） and the band on last year's Kohaku Utagassen. They did a mini-medley consisting of their recent "Kaiju" （怪獣）and then a golden oldie in the form of "Shin-Takarajima" （新宝島） .

Well, they haven't been resting on their laurels apparently. In February, they released a digital download single titled "Iranai" (Don't Need You) which was made the theme song for the late-night comedy hero drama "Kochira Yobi Jiei Eiyuuho?!"（こちら予備自衛英雄補?!...Small Fry Heroes） about a septet of seemingly dysfunctional folks with special abilities called in to serve with Japan's Self-Defense Forces in a reserve capacity. I'm kinda wondering if this had been NTV's take on The Thunderbolts.

The trailer for the show doesn't really show anything unless fierce anger and resentment are their powers. However, I've gotten more mileage from the official music video for "Iranai" and I'm happy that there is plenty of 80s synthpop flavour to savor in the arrangement. The video itself has its charms as its characters wanna give their tribute to the famous dance sequence in "Pulp Fiction" although Yamaguchi plays a far less dangerous and dumb dance partner than Vincent Vega to model/actress/dancer Aoi Yamada's（山田葵）femme fatale. His lyrics talk about some frantic push and pull regarding desire for a young and perhaps psychotic lady...which may indeed be playing out in the video. By the way, talking about psycho...Yamaguchi drops in a whole lot of sugar into his coffee which is what I used to do a few decades ago.💀 A completely different aside, but hey I can totally see him and the Salarywave Man from Kirinji's（キリンジ）"Jikan ga nai"（時間がない）having a dance-off at a disco somewhere in Tokyo.

For some video information on Yamada, you can check out this video from the Victoria's Secret YouTube channel.