I've been a fan of Japanese popular music for 40 years, and have managed to collect a lot of material during that time. So I decided I wanted to talk about Showa Era music with like-minded fans. My particular era is the 70s and 80s (thus the "kayo kyoku"). The plus part includes a number of songs and artists from the last 30 years and also the early kayo. So, let's talk about New Music, aidoru, City Pop and enka.
Credits
I would like to give credit where credit is due. Videos are from YouTube and other sources such as NicoNico while Oricon rankings and other information are translated from the Japanese Wikipedia unless noted.
Never did I think that a song could be made involving a female wrestler from Japan and a supremely popular video game from the late 1970s, but in that nation, anything was and is possible when it comes to pop culture (and of course, why couldn't wrestlers be into the video game craze?). Sure enough, a few years ago, I posted an article on "Aitsu wa Invader"（あいつはインベーダー）by Maki Ueda（上田マキ）who happened to be one half of the wrestling duo Beauty Pair.
Well, as I mentioned for that article, "Aitsu wa Invader" was the B-side to Ueda's one-and-only 1979 record "Invader Walk". Compared to the light mix of disco and technopop of "Aitsu wa Invader" which played a little like a tokusatsu series theme song, the A-side emphasized just the disco in what sounded like a combination of "YMCA" and a good old-fashioned rock n' roll song. Shigeru Kawamura（河村シゲル）was the lyricist here while Isamu Shiroga/Shiroka（城賀イサム）took care of the good-time melody.
Oh, boy! Those ancient arcade video games...they were quite the craze when we were going into junior high school. I remember the game of Pong which could be played on the TV through some sort of controller, but then the industry took a huge leap forward when "Space Invaders" came out. I've played that game but to be honest, I always preferred "Pac-Man" or "Galaga".
During that trip to Japan in summer 1981, my classmates and I ended up at a game kissa（ゲーム喫茶...game café）one sweltering morning, and some of them got to play one of those video games (probably "Space Invaders") while our bemused waiter came up with the iced coffees. Yup, I have been hooked on iced coffee since then. The Japanese did it again...drink, chat and play all at the same time!
The advent of video games surely crashed into all aspects of pop culture, so I couldn't be surprised that a kayo would be made about "Space Invaders". And sure enough, one did pop up: "Aitsu wa Invader" (Guy's An Invader) by Maki Ueda（上田マキ）, one-half of the popular women's wrestling duo Beauty Pair.
"Aitsu wa Invader" was the B-side to Ueda's one-and-only single from 1979, "Invader Walk"（インベーダーWALK）, and if it wasn't for the topic matter and the bleeps and bloops associated, I would have sworn that this song was a theme for a tokusatsu program of almost a decade prior. It has the kids backing up the chorus and it just sounds so heroic. Mind you, I do pick up on the disco as well. Written by Yu Kamimura*（上村裕）and composed by Noriichi Morikawa*（森川範一）, it has been included in a compilation of techno kayo, although I think that the bleeps and bloops are relatively subdued. However, I think Ueda does a pretty good job as an unlikely solo idol type behind the mike. I would also like to know who was providing that bass backup vocal.
No idea how Ueda's tune did on the Oricon charts. But a couple of years later, Buckner & Garcia came up with "Pac-Man Fever" which broke into Billboard's Top 10 at No. 9.
*Once again, I've got a couple of firstnames that I'm not sure about for the two songwriters. If anyone can come in with any clarification, I will make any corrections if necessary.
Happy weekend! As a kid, I remember that my childhood on Saturday afternoons often consisted of playing with the neighbourhood children outside in the snow and then watching wrestling on City-TV or CHCH Channel 11 in Hamilton. Some of the colorful figures bashing and smashing each other on the screen and in the ring included Rowdy Roddy Piper, Arriba Martinez and The Sheik.
Japan has had its own long history of wrestling but I never really got to know that scene very well. However, one duo that actually permeated my veil of ignorance when it came to Japanese wrestling was Beauty Pair（ビューティ・ペア）. Female wrestlers Jackie Sato（ジャッキー佐藤）and Maki Ueda（マキ上田）became quite the heroines during the latter half of the 1970s not just in the ring but also through pop culture as well. And of course, when celebrities of any stripe hit the big time, that also means cutting a record or two.
Releasing 6 singles between 1976 and 1978, the one song that I've heard by the Pair is "Makkana Seishun" (Beauty Sunshine, although the exact translation is Bright Red Youth), their 2nd single from June 1977. In fact, Jackie and Maki have even performed it in the ring.
Obviously wrestling being their stock-in-trade, their singing is not classic but I think the two acquit themselves pretty well in "Makkana Seishun" which was written by Shinichi Ishihara（石原信一）and composed by Tachio Akano（あかのたちお）. With the cute kids in the chorus, it sounds like an especially cheerful tokusatsu theme song. And strangely enough, a movie was made around them with the same title "Beauty Pair: Makkana Seishun" that same year.
Reading some information from an October 2012 feature on a TBS afternoon show via J-Wiki, their time together as Beauty Pair lasted until 1979 when Maki decided to break up the duo in a direct talk with the president of their management company without telling Jackie. Apparently, the relationship between Maki, who was more sociable, and Jackie, who was more of the lone wolf, had never been all that good to begin with. The president allowed it under one condition: the two would have to fight each other with the loser retiring from professional wrestling. Maki lost and retired but Jackie would do the same just a couple of years later.
Gradually, though, Jackie and Maki made amends, culminating in an onsen trip together, according to their bio. Unfortunately, this new friendship didn't last too long since Jackie would succumb to stomach cancer in 1999 at the age of 41.
