Sara Hamamoto -- Futari（ふたり）

 

I've seen the veteran Kansai comedic duo Downtown（ダウンタウン）for years and years as they hosted a lot of variety shows including "HEY!HEY!HEY! Music Champ". However, I never heard of this one called "Hatsumei Shogun Downtown"（発明将軍ダウンタウン...Invention Shogun Downtown） which was on NTV between 1993 and 1996 (the show lasted one more year without Downtown with different hosts). Apparently, Downtown invited a lot of amateur inventors to the studio to show off their wares and see if they could get some prize money. Of course, Hamada and Matsumoto were there to snark off as usual. I could see that this was a show from over thirty years ago since Hitoshi Matsumoto (on the left side in the above video) still had a full head of hair and no bristly moustache and beard.

Knowing Downtown and their brand of chaotic energy, I had assumed that the ending theme for "Hatsumei Shogun Downtown" would be a rockin' number. Instead though, it's a cuddly mid-tempo pop song by Sara Hamamoto（浜本沙良）titled "Futari" (Two People). Usually I've covered her material as City Pop tunes of the 1990s but I think "Futari" is fine as a pop tune although it's urbane enough that I could include it here on Friday. Released as her 4th single in November 1995, it managed to reach No. 48 on Oricon which was Hamamoto's first recorded rank-in there. Keiko Moon（けいこmoon）was the lyricist while Masaki Iwamoto（岩本正樹） took care of the melody and arrangement.