Geez...looking at the Toshihiko Tahara（田原俊彦）file, the lad's been showing up on a lot of ROY articles over the past year or so but his last bona fide article was back in February 2025 for his "Shower na Kibun"（シャワーな気分）.
Well, Toshi-chan's back on board today. Here he is with his January 1982 8th single "Kimi ni Barabara...to Iu Kanji" which is another one of those punny titles which can mean "It's Like...a Ton of Roses for You" or "I'm Falling to Pieces Over You". Yep, it's pretty far-reaching.
As soon as I heard this one, I felt like this was kinda special in the arrangement, and sure enough, it was arranged by Motoki Funayama（船山基紀）with Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）responsible for the original melody. In fact, this was Tsutsumi's first Toshi-chan assignment, and the master composer came up with this strut-worthy and snazzy tune for walking on the concrete as Toshi thinks about what to do with this girl he's gone gaga over. "Kimi ni Barabara...to Iu Kanji" reached No. 3 on Oricon and finished the year as the 27th-ranked single. Yoshiko Miura（三浦徳子）was the lyricist here.
I am curious were you listening to Toshihiko Tahara back in 1982? Back in the very early 80's my access to Japanese media/music was very limited but I know I was listening to songs by ボーカル・ショップ, Isao Sasaki, Mitsuko Horie, and Mari Iijima, パル(はらだ ひろき, ぜき ゆうじ, ふなばし たかき,あらい まさひと,and わたなべ かよ).
ReplyDeleteIt's probably more accurate to say that I was watching Toshi-chan back then via rental video tapes of shows like "The Best 10". I never purchased any of his albums or singles. From your list, it seems that you got your first education in Japanese pop music through the anime route which is how many people outside of Japan got to know kayo kyoku and J-Pop.
DeleteToday, it is true that people learn of J-pop through anime, but that was not true at all when I was growing up in the late 70's and 1980s as Japanese animation was not being broadcast at all on T.V. stations in my country or at least not in my city. It was only in the late 1990's that Japanese anime started showing up on cable networks and then in the 2000's that Japanese anime started to become more mainstream, but I was already in Japan at that time. To make a long story short I grew up within walking distance from a 補習校 (hoshūkō) and so there were a lot of Japanese kids my age in my neighborhood and it was through them that I learned about Japanese culture and media they had sent to them from Japan. I listened to whatever their parents had playing in the back ground and whatever was on their satellite tv and VHS tapes.
ReplyDeleteHello, Brian. I was different in that my parents had brought over a lot of their LPs and 45s to Canada from Japan, so I got to hear a lot of enka, Mood Kayo and kayo kyoku right from the time I was a baby. My anime exposure began in the 1970s with "Gatchaman" and "Yamato". And when the VCRs became commonplace, I was able to watch shows like "The Best 10" to find out more about what was hot on the charts.
DeleteHey, J-Canuck, our childhoods were very different, but one thing we had in common was watching shows like "The Best 10" and “The Top Ten". It was on someone's home-taped 1984 episode of “The Top Ten" that a much younger me first saw Mari Iijima perform, and I was immediately smitten even though I was too young to know anything able having crush on someone or love. To be sure Mari Iijima also showed up on "The best ten" in 1984, but I did not see that episode until much later.
ReplyDeleteHello, Brian. Unfortunately, I never got to see Iijima on the music ranking shows. Considering the year you mentioned, I'm assuming that she sang that "Macross" song "Ai wo Oboeteimasu ka?"
DeleteThere is a bit of a mystery here. Macross aired from October 1982 to June 1983 but the single "Ai wo Oboeteimasu ka?" was released one full year later on June 5, 1984! But, I guess the song ties in with 1984 Macros Film 『超時空要塞マクロス 愛・おぼえていますか』that recapped and kind of re-imagining series.
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