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.
During the cruise over the last week, I actually managed to see a few movies on the stateroom screen including one of Sly Stallone's minor efforts "Bullet To The Head". Plus, there was also the Dreamworks flick "Puss In Boots", the spinoff sequel to "Shrek". I liked the character on "Shrek 2" especially when he pulled off that Sad Eyes look but never got to see Puss In Boots in his own movie.
As much as Antonio Banderas stole the show in "Shrek 2" though, he almost had his own show stolen by the Ohhhh Cat. All hail the Ohhhh Cat!
Speaking of cute trending felines, I'm reminded of a popular little meme several years ago when I was still living fairly contentedly in Japan and this video featuring cartoonish cats were dancing it up a notch with this European pop song playing in the background. It became the exotic earworm of the year titled "Koi no Maiahi" (Love's Maiahi) when it came out in late 2004 as a feature on 2channel.
The original song was "Dragostea Din Tei" by the Moldovan band O-Zone in 2003. With the official English title being "Words of Love" (although the literal translation is "Love From The Lindens"), O-Zone was singing an uptempo romantic ditty but in Japan, the humorists got hold of it and made it into a catchy tsukkomi tune. Not sure how it did on the Oricon charts...or even if it even did chart but it made a solid blip in Japanese pop culture for some time because of those cute cats.
The late crossdressing entertainer Ken Maeda（前田健）kept the party going for a while longer when he took on the role of a high school girl and created a singing unit called the Maeken Trance Project（まえけん♂トランス・プロジェクト）in 2005. They released a couple of singles with the first one being "Koi no Buchiage Tengoku"（恋のブチアゲ♂天国...Love's High-Tension Heaven）which was a merging of "Dragonstea Din Tei" and two other songs arranged as a trance tune. I saw the video in a store somewhere one day and I sorta reacted like the Ohhhh Cat.
About a couple of weeks ago, I put in an article about Aya Matsuura's（松浦亜弥）"Yeah! Meccha Holiday"（Yeah! めっちゃホリディ）in which I also noted that the Hello Projectaidoru had an impersonating admirer in the form of tarento Ai Haruna（はるな愛）. Well, I completely forgot that Haruna wasn't the only Japanese celebrity who enjoyed performing "Air Ayaya". There was also fellow impersonator Ken Maeda（前田健）. Although not as much as Haruna, I remember seeing Maeda appear on the various variety shows taking on other guises including that of a typical ko-gal.
Well, 2016 has been a very sad year so far in terms of the music world with so many musicians passing on rather suddenly. The anime world as well has also had some similar sadness to a smaller extent over the past several months. Seiyuu Miyu Matsuki（松来未祐）died late last year due to illness and then just over the past week, the aforementioned Ken Maeda left this mortal coil at the age of 44 because of what seems to be heart failure.
Maeda didn't make a huge contribution to anime since he only performed 2 roles in that genre. However he did apply his other talent of choreography to an anime franchise that was perhaps in need of some reformation at the time. The "Pretty Cure" series（プリキュアシリーズ）had already been around on TV Asahi for about half a decade but according to my anime buddy, following the adventures of the first three Precure teams, the powers-that-be decided that it needed a bit of a shakeup. So, there was a change in production staff and a slightly older team for the new show known as "Fresh Precure!"（フレッシュプリキュア!）which premiered in 2009.
Then, there were the ending credits. In the earlier shows, there was some dancing of a somewhat clunky variety involved with the characters but it looks like the producers decided to amp up the choreography with the contribution of MaeKen and with the addition of some 3D-esque visuals along with music that touched upon different genres, the new team launched a new tradition in the franchise in those ending credits that would continue until the present day. Maeda would also help out in the credits dances for another few seasons and he also played the character of Kaoru-chan, the eccentric and good-hearted mobile donut seller on "Fresh Precure!".
But I have to say that the first ending theme for "Fresh Precure!" has been the standard-bearer. "You make me happy!" indeed makes me happy. It was written by Sumiyo Mutsumi（六ツ見純代）and composed by singer-songwriter marhy with Momoko Hayashi（林桃子）on vocals, and I think the fans who actually saw the credits for the first time must have been surprised to hear some good old-fashioned R&B with snazzy horns enter the Precure universe. In a way, the song reminds me of some of Keizo Nakanishi's（中西圭三）early stuff back in the 90s.
"You make me happy!" was released as part of a single including the opening theme, "Let's! Fresh Precure!" in February 2009. It got as high as No. 25 on the singles charts.
To leave off, here is MaeKen with his other famous character.
