Shocking Lemon -- Under Star

 

We've had a few people in the music industry on both sides of the Pacific pass away in the last few weeks. However, I'm surprised to hear of a familiar face and name who has also left this mortal coil. TV personality, actor and former WBC Lightweight champion Guts Ishimatsu（ガッツ 石松）passed away on June 2nd at the age of 76 from pneumonia. As with a lot of people in Japan who knew of him, I was shocked since, although my exposure to Japanese television is rather limited now, I'd had no idea that Ishimatsu was even ill.

I didn't know anything about his boxing career but I got to know Ishimatsu as the amiable if seemingly slow-off-the-mark tarento on many variety shows (although when he was a color commentator on boxing broadcasts, he was sharp as a katana in his observations and assessments). I'm sure that a lot of folks in Japan were tickled pink to see him in a small role as one of the bad guys in Michael Douglas' "Black Rain". I noticed a lot of condolences beneath the above video, and I would also like to send my condolences to his family, friends and fans.

Guts, who was born Yuuji Suzuki（鈴木有二）in Tochigi Prefecture, was also the man who came up with what is called in Japanese, the Guts Pose, due to his special victory gesture that has been picked by many an athlete and pretty much anyone else in the nation who has won anything. Yumi's English Boot Camp below will give a Japanese explanation on the expression itself.

I wasn't quite sure how to pay tribute to Guts Ishimatsu. I was thinking about something from boxing-themed anime although I'm not a fan of the sub-genre itself. But I do remember one awkward and funny scene from the 2000 anime (the usual sax helped sell it) "Hajime no Ippo"（はじめの一歩...The First Step） which I'd wrongly assumed was a far older show from the animation style.

There were a couple of opening credits theme songs for the series, the first one being a third single "Under Star" by the rock band Shocking Lemon, released in December 2000. Not surprisingly, the song, which was written and composed by guitarist Hideki Taniuchi（谷内秀基）, has that rapid-fire jangly rock arrangement which comes to mind whenever I think of anime openers. The rest of the band consisted of vocalist Takahiko Ogino（荻野隆彦）, bassist Makoto Sakata（坂田誠）and drummer Toshiki Shimizu（清水俊樹）. "Under Star" was their major debut as a band although they started up in 1993. After four singles and three full albums, Shocking Lemon broke up in 2007.