It's been an interesting decade and a half since I got back from Japan for good since at about the same time, Japanese gastronomy as it applies to my hometown really started to evolve. During my childhood, it was all about the generalist Japanese restaurant which covered everything through courses such as the teriyaki course, the tempura one and the sushi one. But then from around 2011 or 2012, various ramen chains that started from Vancouver made their way across Canada to Toronto starting with Kinton and that made a huge splash. Then, it was the izakaya boom, Japanese cheesecake and then more specialized fare including udon and tonkatsu.
At least some of these restaurants have also been aware of the Japanese pop culture scene. Kingyo, when it was a full izakaya at the time, decorated its walls with pachinko machines and used to play anime on its back wall, and recently as a converted izakaya/food store, it's had a playlist of Japanese music coming through the speakers.
In the past year or so, there's even been a new place that's brought a bit of Japanese into the old-fashioned diner and even it has mentioned its own Spotify playlist. It's quite the bounty and Cafe Citypop has stuff including Junko Yagami's（八神純子）boppy "Jealous" and Kirinji's（キリンジ）snazzy "Hi Zero Wa Game" (非ゼロ和ゲーム...Non-Zero Sum Game). But it's not all City Pop and I was able to find one song in the list that I hadn't heard before.
Akiko Ikuina's（生稲晃子）"Omedetou" (Congratulations) is a track from her 2nd and final album to date, "Nihon "Ikuina" Kikou"（日本「生稲」紀行...Japan "Ikuina" Travelogue） which was released in August 1989 to a No. 33 ranking on Oricon. "Omedetou" may not be a City Pop tune per se, but it sure is catchy and refined. And as soon as I saw the arranging and composing credits belonging to Etsuko Yamakawa（山川恵津子）from Tohoku Shikansen（東北新幹線）fame, I knew that I was going to get something infectiously good. It's got the nice slow-to-medium-tempo groove and an effective combo of keyboards in play. Kazuko Sakata（さかたかずこ）took care of the lyrics.
Akiko Ikuina!? What? She was an Aidoru? For the vast majority of the time I have lived in Japan, I have known her as a politician. She was elected to the House of Councillors during my second year in Japan, and then she quickly started moving from one position in the government to the next. Now she is a Parliamentary Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs. Even though I grew up in the 4th largest city in my country of origin back in the 80s, you could count on one hand all the authentic Japanese restaurants in the city. I think the main restaurant back when I was a child served kaiseki-ryōri. Then there was also a nationwide teppanyaki-styled restaurant created by a Japanese-American. Back in the 70's and 80's we only had one real Japanese supermarket called Nippan Daido; it closed when the owners retired in 2019 in part because newer and bigger Japanese supermarkets opened up. BUT surprisingly (at least to me) both in and outside of the Japanese community there was a huge wave of outcry and lots of petitions. So, Nippan Daido re-opened and it is now much, much more popular than it ever was before.
ReplyDeleteHi, Brian. It's interesting to go to her J-Wiki article and see this middle-aged lady on the right side looking all governmental and stuff. And then you notice that she has a discography! She used to be part of Onyanko Club as well.
DeleteWhen you speak of that nationwide teppanyaki restaurant chain, do you mean Benihana? I'm not sure whether we had a Benihana here but we had and still have a teppanyaki place here and there in Toronto.
Yes, Benihana was the one I was thinking of!
DeleteI never went to Benihana myself although I've experienced one teppanyaki session at a restaurant here.
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