Banana Zero Musica -- O-Kome Kakurenbo（お米かくれんぼ）

Due to my upbringing, the carbohydrate that I have the most loyalty to is, of course, rice. If there is any sort of protein on the table during dinner, I simply gotta have my gohan as accompaniment. I was once a two-bowl guy (o-kawari was something that I used to say) but now I'm down to the one bowl although my stomach hasn't exactly shrunken too much.

But it's not just the nightly bowl of hot white rice that I seek. I also enjoy it as fried rice, onigiri (as you can see above) and even outside of Japanese cooking, I also love it as nasi goren and jambalaya.

So, I can truly understand where the comedic duo of Bananaman（バナナマン）is coming from when they sing their "O-Kome Kakurenbo". Actually for the purposes of this song, taller Osamu Shitara（設楽統）and portlier Yuuki Himura（日村勇紀）are known as Banana Zero Musica（バナナゼロムジカ）since "O-Kome Kakurenbo" was a 2017 project from their now-defunct NHK program "Banana Zero Music"（バナナ♪ゼロミュージック）. The guys and the staff from the show put heads together to come up with this pretty dandy ode to rice that is directly translated as "Rice Hide & Seek", but I prefer to be cute and go with "Rice & Seek".

https://www.bilibili.com/video/av16125344/

Although the full song is in the YouTube video above, I also like the colourful video that was produced with "O-Kome Kakurenbo", so I've added the link to the page which is the only place that I could track it down. As Banana Zero Musica delve into their gusto-filled love of rice anywhere around the planet to the extent that some dried examples seem to pop up somewhere on their clothing, the song does some melodic shifting on its own with its own samples of comical kayo, festival enka, funk and rap.

The video even had its fifteen minutes of fame through regular appearances on NHK's "Minna no Uta"（みんなのうた）in 2017. Moreover since I got to see both "Banana Zero Music" and "Minna no Uta" regularly via TV Japan, "O-Kome Kakurenbo" was also oft-seen by me.

Banana Zero Music （バナナ♪ゼロミュージック）

With the grande dame of NHK's music programming "Uta Con"（うたコン）off for half the summer (mind you, it's coming back tonight), some of the other NHK music shows have been coming to the fore on TV Japan. There has been "Utau! SHOW Gakko"（歌う!SHOW学校）hosted by enka legend Hiroshi Itsuki（五木ひろし）but it seems as if the national network has been much more strict in ensuring that even small scenes from that show don't get up on YouTube.

However, there is the other NHK program "Banana Zero Music" hosted by the comedic duo Bananaman（バナナマン）. The two shows make an interesting contrast. Both of them made their debut in April 2016 but whereas "Utau! SHOW Gakko" has Itsuki-sensei instructing his guest "students" (tarento and enka singers) while taking part in some of the old kayo in an ancient junior high school classroom, "Banana Zero Music" goes into the relatively more recent J-Pop stuff on a bright day-glo typically variety-show set.

Plus, it is truly a variety show with a capital "V". Along with the usual appearances of singers, producers and songwriters, there's some location shooting and quiz games involving music with Bananaman and friends even getting in on the singing act. Both "Banana Zero Music" and "Utau! SHOW Gakko" go heavier on the talk and hijinks side compared to "Uta Con" and "Nodo Jiman"（のど自慢）but I get to learn some more about the lyrics and even some of those songwriters' tricks of the trade sometimes.