Kobukuro -- Kono Hoshi no Tsuzuki wo（この地球の続きを）

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Having regular access to Japanese television via Jme and before that, TV Japan, I've been able to keep tabs on the Osaka Expo this year which opened to the general public a couple of days ago. Other than that, I haven't heard a single thing on the event anywhere else including Canada and America. Up to this point, the advance ticket sales hadn't been great although the opening Sunday had a lot of issues with long lineups and smartphone hang-ups regarding maps and registration. Will it be a success? We'll just have to see.

I figured that there just had to be an official theme song for the event but I didn't actually hear it until today's "Uta Con"（うたコン）broadcast. I didn't even know that it was the pop duo Kobukuro（コブクロ） who had been behind it until they showed up on the program. And it was all the way back in February 2022 when Shunsuke Kuroda (黒田俊介) and Kentarō Kobuchi (小渕健太郎) were given the assignment to come up with that official theme.

Later that year in July, Kobukuro presented their theme song at the "1000 Days to Go!" Expo-related event at Universal Studios Japan with the digital single coming out the following day. "Kono Hoshi no Tsuzuki wo" (The Continuation of This World) takes listeners on a magic carpet ride with the help of a children's chorus, some pounding piano and of course the soulful voices of Kuroda and Kobuchi. With the underlying intoning of "Let's go and see the future!", it fits as the campaign song for all of those goodies within the various pavilions on display. So, "Kono Hoshi no Tsuzuki wo" was in existence long before the Expo's full bloom in the past few days but then again so was "Sekai no Kuni Kara Konnichiwa" (世界の国からこんにちは）, the theme song for Expo 1970 in Osaka which had been created back in 1967.

Ayaka & Kobukuro -- WINDING ROAD

The famous line from the original "Ghostbusters" (nope, haven't seen the new one yet) with Bill Murray yelling "Cats and dogs living together...MASS HYSTERIA!!" came to mind when I saw this ad for the Nissan Cube in Japan. There are a lot of those commercials for the Cube on YouTube but for some reason, I couldn't find the one that I was looking for rather ardently.

And it's a pity too since it had the campaign song with the most soul. Popular singers Ayaka（絢香）and Kobukuro (コブクロ) appeared one day on Fuji-TV's venerable "Music Fair" program and apparently enjoyed the experience working together so much that the former visited the latter in their dressing room after the taping. She then asked if they would like to collaborate again at the Warner Music Japan Convention Live concert since the two of them not only belonged to the same label but were also due to perform there anyways. Kentaro Kobuchi（小渕健太郎）of Kobukuro then counter-proposed that they all create a song just for the occasion.

Thus, "WINDING ROAD" was born. It was performed for the first time in the summer of 2006 but didn't actually get out as a single for several months until February 2007. The music video of the three on that rotating stage got a lot of heavy airplay as I recall.

Furthermore, I'm sure that "WINDING ROAD" probably got a lot of play as a karaoke song as well. It's a rousing tune with plenty of heart and that aforementioned soul but when I hear Ayaka and Kobukuro sing their internal organs out for this song that is officially listed as J-Pop, I hear some of the old country songs that used to be performed in grand cooperative style by singers on one of my parents' favourite programs "Hee Haw". And maybe The Grand Ol' Opry comes to mind also. Another reason could be the title itself. When I see that title, I imagine those big rigs traveling across America that were often the topic for a country ballad performed by folks like Jerry Reed and Alabama. However, imagining an 18-wheeler trying to navigate a winding road in the Rockies could be somewhat concerning.

Well, in any case, a cute little Cube car and not a huge truck got "WINDING ROAD". And the collaboration between Ayaka and Kobukuro was very successful. The single went Platinum, broke 2 million in sales, along with hitting No. 2 on Oricon. It just barely missed getting into the Top 10 of the year by peaking at No. 11. The song was even performed at the Kohaku Utagassen at the end of 2007 with the effect being that after it had left the Oricon Top 100 weeklies, its performance helped to gush the song back up to the 20s in the first week of 2008.

If the sheep and wolves had come back for the commercial with "WINDING ROAD", I'm pretty sure that the meadow would soon have been filled with the adorable sight of hybrid sholves and weep.

Kobukuro -- YELL (エール)

I remember when I first saw the duo Kobukuro (コブクロ) on TV. It was when they came out with their huge hit, "Tsubomi"（蕾）in the latter half of the last decade. I just saw these two fellows with a huge height differential and remarked "That guy is no singer...he's a basketball player!".

That tall fellow is Shunsuke Kuroda（黒田俊介）at 193cm or 6'4" according to Wikipedia. Nope, compared to some of the guys in the NBA or the NHL, he would be seen as just one of the guys but on Japanese telly, he might as well be Gulliver on the island of Lilliput. But digressing, his partner is Kentaro Kobuchi（小渕健太郎）and the two of them formed Kobukuro at the end of the century when they met up as street buskers in Osaka.

Kobukuro paid their dues on the indie scene for their first few years but then hit pay dirt with their first single as a major act. That was "YELL" from March 2001 and listening to it for the first time recently, the song further confirmed my impression of the duo as mellow but passionate musicians who never quite left the street despite their current fame. Thousands may be in their comfy stadium seats surrounding Kuroda and Kobuchi but I still get that feeling of a few passers-by suddenly stopping in front of the pair and giving them a good listen.

According to the J-Wiki article on "YELL", their debut single was a big hit as it peaked at No. 4 on Oricon and went Platinum in sales. Kobuchi wrote and composed the song which was used as a theme for a couple of variety programs and as a commercial tune for an insurance company. Ultimately, it became the 77th-ranked song for 2001 and it was also placed on Kobukuro's debut album "Roadmade" which was released in August that year. It hit as high as No. 6 on the album charts.