Masachika Ichimura -- Shoufu no Tetsugaku（娼婦の哲学）

 

It's almost been a couple of years since I posted the first article for bon vivant, actor and singer Masachika Ichimura（市村正親）. For his "Hotel Blue"（ホテル・ブルー）, I noted that he has had the flamboyance and showmanship of Takeshi Haga（鹿賀丈史）from "Ryori no Tetsuji"（料理の鉄人...The Iron Chefs） fame, and I guess another thing that the two entertainers have in common is that they both had their City Pop phases.

"Hotel Blue", for example, was his City Pop 2nd single from November 1982. Well, Ichimura also put out a lone album titled "Kagiri naku Yasashiku"（限りなく優しく...Gently Without End） in March 1982 whose tracks were all written by Rei Nakanishi（なかにし礼）and composed by Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）. One track is the playful but urbane "Shoufu no Tetsugaku" (Philosophy of a Prostitute).

Thanks to that slightly tinny piano, there is a feeling of old-time jazz but then the City Pop rhythm quickly flows in and the disco strings hint at a time now gone by. I guess it's because of Ichimura's showman style but I can imagine the fellow welcoming tired inbound guests at Narita Airport and then having them get their second wind by simply showing them the bright lights and big city of Tokyo. His vocals are indeed the key here. Considering the title, I'm not sure whether he is leading them to Kabukicho or the area between Shinjuku and Shin-Okubo.

Outside of any "Miss Saigon" Japanese revivals, the last time I've seen the entertainer was as the occasional host of the NHK infotainment series "Ashita ga Kawaru Torisetsu Show"（あしたが変わるトリセツショー...The Instruction Manual Show to Change Your Future）.

Masachika Ichimura -- Hotel Blue（ホテル・ブルー）

 

Well, it's not 100% percent. It's jittery in terms of uploading videos and images but with a couple of attempts (think about starting a car on a cold cold morning), the Gmail and Blogger issues are beginning to get resolved so at least I could get this particular video up.

Masachika Ichimura（市村正親）is an actor/singer on stage and screen as well as a seiyuu. But I also think that I've seen him enough on television variety shows that I can also think of him as a tarento as well. He's married to actress/singer Ryoko Shinohara（篠原涼子）and has a distinct hawkish visage along with a flamboyance that rather rivals that of another actor/singer Takeshi Kaga（鹿賀丈史）who was the Grand Chairman of the Kitchen Stadium on Fuji-TV's legendary "Ryori no Tetsujin"（料理の鉄人）back in the 1990s. I only discovered recently that he has also portrayed The Engineer on the Japanese version of "Miss Saigon" as you can see above.

For someone who has lent his vocal talents on the stage, his discography is surprisingly sparse. Ichimura put out only two singles in 1982 with one album coming out on the same day as that first single. His second single featured here is "Hotel Blue" which was released in November, and it's got some songwriting muscle behind it with Keisuke Yamakawa（山川啓介）on lyrics, Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）on melody and Mitsuo Hagita（萩田光雄）taking care of the arrangement. It's a fairly spicy and snazzy metropolitan number with some post-disco added, and Ichimura's vocals back forty years ago sounded somewhat similar to those of singing superstar Kenji "Julie" Sawada（沢田研二）. To be honest, in a way, Ichimura's smiling face on the cover makes him look like Julie's brother!

Hmmm...this time, getting the video here was back to normal. Oh, I hope that means the Gmail crisis is finally over.