Yuji Ohno -- Wavelet（ウエイブリット）

From Amazon.jp

Whenever I think of canine heroes, my memories reveal "Lassie" (Rin Tin Tin was just way before even my time) from the 1960s. I remember watching some of the TV series as a kid and though I can't really remember the theme song, I can make out enough of it that it was an instrumental with a faintly classical arrangement.

In 1976, novelist Jugou Nishimura（西村寿行）wrote "Inubue"（犬笛...Dog Whistle） whose plot entailed a child kidnapping and the father who used his trusty dog via a dog whistle to track down his kid and the dastardly folks behind the crime. Apparently, the novel had quite the legs since it would be made into a movie in 1978 followed by three television adaptations in 1978, 1990 and 2002. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any footage from any of those TV shows or the movie so the poster up at the top is the best I could do.

For the 1978 TV adaptation that was an 8-week summer series on NTV, the recently departed Yuji Ohno（大野雄二）was placed in charge of the music. I'll do the official ending theme by him next month but for today, I'll go with the B-side of the single, the shibui "Wavelet". The first time I heard this, I thought that this was awfully urban and urbane for a thriller that seems to take place in the deep woods, and it's not everyday that an adventure involving a kid and a dog sounds like something from "Lupin III". But hey, it's Ohno and he was the master of the jazzier side of City Pop, so if the kid and the dog wanna hit a Shinjuku hotel top bar for mocktails (I wouldn't dare say cocktails) after filming, I'm not judging. 👍