Hitomi Yaida -- Komazawa Koen（駒沢公園）

 

That photo above was taken in Komazawa Olympic Park（駒沢オリンピック公園）back in the summer of 2009. It's located far on the other side of Tokyo so as nice as it was, I didn't go there very often. There was a picnic there with friends back then and that was where I met a family who lived nearby the park. I ended up teaching the mother and father (well, the father was very fluent so it was more like talking about politics with him) every other Sunday in their apartment. It wasn't too long though that my commute through Komazawa Park would end since the family moved to Futako-Tamagawa although I would continue to teach them for a while longer. The neighbourhood around Komazawa was quite young and trendy with some nice restaurants.

Singer-songwriter Hitomi Yaida（矢井田瞳）was someone that was quite the regular presence on the music video channels and music shows in the early 2000s, thanks to her catchy pop/rock tunes and dynamism. She was quite the barefoot princess of J-Pop armed with her guitar. But I realized that time really sped by when she showed up on NHK's "Uta Con"（うたコン）a few months ago to perform one of her latest tunes.

Yaida half-jokingly remarked that her "Komazawa Koen" (Komazawa Park), which is a track on her September 2022 12th original album "All Right"（オールライト）, wasn't a go-touchi song despite the title and the fact that the episode had been covering those traditional tunes before her appearance. In fact, "Komazawa Park" doesn't reference anything about the Tokyo park at all; it's all about a woman's realization that her daughter is growing up and asking all sorts of difficult questions. Yaida did mention that her creation was based on that coming-of-age situation with her own child. It's definitely a Yaiko song although it now contains some more wistfulness and less speed.

Hitomi Yaida -- Kodoku na Cowboy（孤独なカウボーイ）

 

I recall hearing this song by pop/rock singer Hitomi Yaida（矢井田瞳）back in my Japan days, but I think that I appreciate it more now than then. Particularly, I like that intro in "Kodoku na Cowboy" (Lonely Cowboy) which makes me feel that I'm listening to a moody piano pop tune from the late 1960s going into the 1970s. Written and composed by Yaida as her 9th single in April 2003, her lyrics are more atmospheric than down-to-earth as she describes walking through the world all on her own where any place can serve as her home.

Hitting No. 9 on Oricon, "Kodoku na Cowboy" was used in commercials and TV programs, with the arguably most notable one being the 2003 NTV drama "Densetsu no Madame"（伝説のマダム...The Legendary Madame）. Starring the one-of-a-kind Kaori Momoi（桃井かおり）as Mari Hatsushima, she runs the wedding dress shop "Madame Mari" whose creations have been able to impart true happiness upon those who wear them on their wedding day. I've never seen the show myself, but my impression is that it's got some "Fantasy Island" and "The Twilight Zone" vibes.

Hitomi Yaida -- Look Back Again

A few weeks ago on "Uta Kon"（うたコン）, there was a welcome back of sorts for singer-songwriter Hitomi Yaida（矢井田瞳）. It's hard to believe that it's been 20 years since Yaiko made her very energetic presence known in J-Pop with "my sweet darlin'" in October 2000.

I guess before the arrival of Shiho Ochi（越智志帆）, aka Superfly, later in that decade, I'd seen Yaiko as the carefree 21st-century version of a hippie in the Japanese music world. Plus, she has that distinctive delivery for pop/rock including spurts of falsetto.

Well, her appearance on "Uta Kon" brought back her June 2001 4th single "Look Back Again" which was actually a double-A-side single alongside "Over The Distance". As would be the case for a Yaida song, it comes in on a head of steam and guitars as she sings about someone in some current doldrums being encouraged to look back on the good ol' days to create some future good new days. With a melody that hearkens back to the good ol' days of perhaps the 60s and 70s, the singer is more than happy to kick open the doors and let the gloom out of the house

Peaking at No. 3 on Oricon, "Look Back Again" ended up as the 45th-ranked single for 2001 and is currently still Yaida's most sales-successful song. Apparently the music video was filmed in Rio de Janeiro with some of the famous sites being featured front and centre such as the Catedral Metropolitana and Pão de Açúcar.

Hitomi Yaida -- Hitori Jenga （一人ジェンガ）

Actually the above is a photo of tsukemen but since I've considered the scrumptious dish as a form of deconstructed ramen, it will serve for my purposes here.

Whenever I took my rare trips outside of Tokyo, one of my favourite destinations was Yokohama and within that wonderful port city, one of my favourite stops was the Shin-Yokohama Ramen Museum. Although I enjoyed visiting and staying right by Yokohama Bay with Minato Mirai 21, Yamashita Park and Chinatown in the vicinity, the Ramen Museum was (and is) located a little further away near JR Shin-Yokohama Station, but all it takes is a short subway ride up to get there from the Bay so not inconvenient at all.

Perhaps the place might be seen as a little too touristy but I enjoyed going there not only to have my choice of ramen represented by several restaurants from all over the nation but also to savor the time trip back to Tokyo of the 1950s. The restaurants are all located down in the sub-basements of he facility surrounded by a detailed mockup of postwar inner city Tokyo so the place can also be a feast for the eyes as well as the stomach.

Now the reason I gave that shout-out to one of the national emporia for Japanese dishes is due to the music video for Hitomi Yaida's（矢井田瞳）"Hitori Jenga" (Playing Jenga Alone). When I was watching Yaiko perform in the video, I just went "Hey! Wait a minute...I know that place!" Yup, it was the Tokyo set in the museum. So I'm a tad worried now that something Pavlovian might happen and I will end up salivating for ramen whenever I hear this song.

In a way, though, Yaida's 10th single from September 2003 is a pretty nice match for the Ramen Museum since the song created by the singer-songwriter and arranged by her, Daishi Kataoka（片岡大志）and Akira Murata（村田昭）has that retro-rock feeling. I think it also sounds like something that Ringo Shiina（椎名林檎）would tackle as well in that sense.

Also I enjoy that one line she delivers "Aitai kedo aenai no"（会いたいけど会えないの...I want to meet you but I can't）for some reason. Yaida's lyrics come off as a bit of an old postwar film noir in the big city where a woman would dearly like to be with that one fellow but cannot due to dark circumstances from her past coming back to haunt her. The title actually refers to all of those entanglements being compared to playing that dangerous game of Jenga; how far can it be played before the whole thing comes crumbling down?

The single peaked at No. 6 on Oricon and was also put down as a track on her 4th album "Air/Cook/Sky" which came out a month after the single. It managed to get as high as No. 2.

Hitomi Yaida -- I'm here saying nothing

Haven't heard this one in a good long while. But when Hitomi Yaida's（矢井田瞳）3rd single was released in January 2001, its video was another long-running one on the various channels and music shows. I always remembered "I'm here saying nothing" as the one with the girl in the creepy mask of Yaiko and a dancing Yaiko on the sand (didn't remember the ostrich though).

Of course, "I'm here saying nothing" was written and composed by Yaida herself, and the lyrics were esoteric enough so that I could agree with the title. According to the J-Wiki article on the song, the video had a bit of an Irish motif, although I think the song itself had that exotic tinge that was probably somewhere deeper in the European mainland. But what sold the song on me were her fresh vocals.

"I'm here saying nothing" got as high as No. 4 on Oricon, and was a track on her 2nd original album, "Candlize" from October 2001 which hit the top spot on the charts and ended up as the 33rd-ranked album of the year.

Hitomi Yaida -- my sweet darlin'

Darlin, dar-LIN!

Heard that line a whole lot for several months going into the 21st century. At the end of the 80s going into the 90s, there were quite a few girl bands rocking out which was followed by several years of Tetsuya Komuro and his dance-pop units followed by a resurgence in aidorus of a new breed (Johnny's and The Hello Project) and the budding of J-R&B. So it was nice to hear a return of sorts of women rocking out again (although Nanase Aikawa had her debut in the mid-90s) with singer-songwriter Hitomi Yaida（矢井田瞳）.

Her nickname of Yaiko was another familiar catchword from 2000 for a few years all over the media waves. The video for Yaida's 2nd single of "my sweet darlin'" also got a lot of airplay as she sprayed that fire hose all over the fashion models while hearing that ringing falsetto. It was fun to listen to the song and "my sweet darlin'" is one of the standout tunes stuck in my memory of my times in Japan.

Yaida hails from Metropolitan Osaka and went to Kansai University where she majored in French language and French literature. However, at the age of 19, she picked up a guitar for the first time and within 2 years, she made her professional debut as a singer starting in May 2000 on an independent label with "Howling" and then her 1st official single a couple of months later at Toshiba-EMI with "B'coz I Love You". Then came "my sweet darlin'" in October. Talk about hitting the road at top speed. The singer created the song which peaked at No. 8 on Oricon although it didn't seem to chart on either the 2000 or 2001 lists unfortunately. A full English-language version was also created for UK release a few months later under the title "Darling Darling".

As for her inspirations, according to J-Wiki, Yaida was influenced by singers Joan Osborne and Alanis Morissette.