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.
Not quite there yet in terms of summer patio visits. Folks would probably want the temperature by some more degrees before those happen. Still, the sun has been out after a number of rainy days so we'll take what we can get right now and hope for warmer spring weather to result next week.
In the meantime, we can all get aurally comfortable and party-like with Tokyo DJ/pianist/producer Ryota Nozaki（野崎良太）and his collective Jazztronik. I wrote about his "Today" a few years ago and today I've got his even earlier "Searching for Love" from his August 2005"Cannibal Rock".
I was wondering about that wonderful voice helping to propel the tropical dance club-loving "Searching for Love", and it happens to be veteran songbird Miki Imai（今井美樹）. There's a lot in this one that reminds me of Mondo Grosso's way of getting folks to get up and dance, and maybe it won't be too long before we can all do that again in Toronto. Daisuke Kawaguchi（川口大輔）was responsible for the lyrics.
Hey, you can listen to the Rasmus Faber remix of it as well.
Didn't catch "Uta Kon"（うたコン）last night as I usually would because I was actually out last night with a few close friends for a Peking Duck dinner. I didn't want that cholesterol to go to waste, after all. In other news, my latest package from Tower Records has been in Toronto for the past couple of days where it will probably be having an extended stay at a processing centre while the rotating strike-influenced backlog attempts to be cleared.
Anyways, back on Sunday when I met up with my anime buddy, we had our usual anison hour. My friend decided to play a few tracks from his newly-acquired soundtrack of the summer anime "Harukana Receive"（はるかなレシーブ）. Track 1, "Rise", immediately grabbed my attention with its happy and high-paced Latin beat. This is the vocal version (unfortunately I couldn't find out who the vocalist was) created by Rasmus Faber who was behind the entire soundtrack, but the instrumental version of it was played throughout the show at various points.
It's a great tune which has been able to pull me away from the current snow-laden weather outside, and "Rise" even reminds me of "Life" which was the wonderful Mondo Grosso creation from 2000. With a few more of these tropical tunes, I may just survive the Canadian winter to come here.
It hasn't been just for Japanese pop songs that I've found YouTube to be a treasure trove. Over the past number of years, I've also enjoyed watching my fair share of cooking videos ("Binging with Babish" is one channel I recommend) and there are even the mixology videos. For people who know me quite well, they might be rather surprised by my confession on that last part of the sentence because I don't really drink alcohol all that much. I rarely drink outside with my friends (I can count on one hand the number of times I drink at a bar in an average year) and I only drink once at home with my family, and that would be at Xmas.
And yet, I've enjoyed seeing videos by Robert Hess for Small Screen Drinks as he concocts a variety of cocktails. Perhaps I simply admire seeing the process exerted by an expert...in this case, the Eagle's Dream in the above video involving an egg white and gin.
It's been a more entertaining anime season these past few months compared to Autumn 2017, one reason being the somewhat larger proportion of consumables-based anime. I did mention the second round of "Dagashi Kashi"（だがしかし）, the show based on a few characters and their love for Japanese snacks. A number of us were disappointed that "Dagashi Kashi 2" was pared down from 30 minutes to 15 minutes but as my anime buddy and I were discussing last night, this may mean a third season in the not-too-distant future, and the addition of the hilariously Lucille Ball-like Hajime Owari late in the game has helped blunt the pain to a good extent.
Now what has taken over those last 15 minutes vacated by "Dagashi Kashi 2" also has something to do with something to put down your gullet but it's not exactly food. "Takunomi."（たくのみ。...Drinking at Home） is based on a manga about four young women living together in a shared house while savoring their love of drink which can range from Yebisu Beer to a Brown Cow (the default cocktail for me all these decades).
Of course, the disclaimer has to come out before every episode that only people over 20 years of age can touch the golden brew. Like a good Brown Cow...or Kahlua Milk, as it's called in Japan...the show is pretty mellow and slice-of-life, perhaps to the extent that my friend will most likely not get any DVDs of "Takunomi." as he has for other more favored anime. It's pleasant enough but I think it comes across more as pleasant filler than anything timeless.
Having said that, I do like the opening theme, "aventure bleu" by seiyuu/singer Maaya Uchida（内田真礼）. She also plays one of the four main characters, Makoto, who is actually a more reserved woman compared to the somewhat wackier roles that I've been accustomed to seeing Uchida play. "aventure bleu" is Uchida's 7th single from February 2018 and it peaked at No. 14 on Oricon.
meg rock provided the lyrics but I'm especially drawn to Rasmus Faber's melody. Over the years, I've gotten a lock on a number of composers' sounds such as those for Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）and Taeko Ohnuki（大貫妙子）. With Faber, he tends to go with a dreamy/spirited groove when it comes to his music that does speak to me quite nicely. As I recall, he also came up with the opening theme for another favourite food-based anime back in 2015.
Over 3 years ago, I provided an article on the opening theme, "TRY UNITE", for the first season of the anime "Rinne no LaGrange"（輪廻.のラグランジェ）which turned out to be a nightclubby earworm for me for a good long while. Then a little over a year go, I wrote a piece on the oh-so-homey ending theme for its second season titled "Wasurenai yo"（忘れないよ。）, both sung by Megumi Nakajima（中島愛）.
Now I come to the opening theme for this second season which was Nakajima's 8th single called "Marble". As I mentioned for "Wasurenai yo", that ballad was the coupling song for "Marble" which occupies its own melodic niche when compared to the other two "Rinne no LaGrange" entries. Compared to that dramatic first-season theme with a light technopop beat, "Marble" is a bit more hopeful and down-to-earth although it was Rasmus Faber, who composed "TRY UNITE", also composing this opener. The song starts off with this sense of anticipation before it soars off into the air with a couple of contemplative parts, almost as if it were reflecting a typical adventure with the characters. Meanwhile, prolific lyricist Yuuho Iwasato（岩里祐穂）wrote the words about fond old memories and everlasting friendships.
"Marble" peaked at No. 20 after its release in August 2012.
Yep, the above is a photo of my first meal back in Japan...at one of the Yayoiken restaurant franchises, to be exact, right by the Toyoko Inn near Tawaramachi Station. As would be the case going from Toronto to Tokyo non-stop, it was a long and arduous flight, and so after taking a 10,000-yen taxi ride from Haneda Airport to the hotel, I was pretty much done for the day. Happily, my anime buddy was already there in the lobby and he was kind enough to drag me over to that Yayoiken for a beloved teishoku of karaage (Japanese-style fried chicken), perhaps my favourite food there. And the whole meal cost a mere 700 yen with free refills of hot rice, miso soup and green tea.
Today's article was partially inspired by Marcos V's recent article on Tochiotome25's crazed tribute to Wagyu beef,"Wagyuu Fire!", and partly by the fact that I'm currently watching this tasty anime biweekly.
"Koufuku Graffiti" (幸腹グラフィティ...Gourmet Graffiti) is another one of those slice-of-life anime that I've come to realize that I have an affinity for (another is "Gochuumon wa Usagi desu ka?"). There is no major story arc about battling robots/magical girls/mind-twisting concepts (although I have no big issues with those anime); it's just a small group of amiable characters getting together for some happy and kooky times.
This particular show is centered around one of my favourite topics...food. And knowing that the Japanese are also huge foodies, there have been a fair number of anime about the topic but "Koufuku Graffiti" is the first one I've been watching during its first run, and perhaps it's the first somewhat moe one. Along with the gorgeous, lovingly animated dishes cooked up by the main character of Ryo (Rina Sato...佐藤利奈) for her good buddy Kirin (Asuka Ohgame...大亀あすか), the show is also notable at how...seductively...the eating scenes are portrayed.
In any case, the opening theme is "Shiawase ni Tsuite Watashi ga Shitteiru Itsutsu no Houhou" (The 5 Ways I Know For Happiness) by singer-songwriter/seiyuu Maaya Sakamoto（坂本真綾）. One reason I gained a liking for it is that Rasmus Faber's music takes me back to some of the mellow pop songs that I heard in the early 2000s by folks like bird and Miyuki Hatakeyama（畠山美由紀）. The lyricist here is Yuuho Iwasato（岩里祐穂）who wrote a lot of Miki Imai's（今井美樹）songs in the late 1980s and into the 90s. So, there is some pretty high-powered songwriting. Basically, the song provides for a nice and smooth entrance to another foodie adventure with Ryo and Kirin. It's rather like good background music for a date at a morning cafe. By the way, Faber was also behind another catchy but different anime theme.
Now, I couldn't finish off the article without providing the second anime earworm in a week here. At the end of each episode of "Koufuku Graffiti", there is the short intro to what the next episode will be but instead of showing scenes, there are 30 seconds of a nicely presented dish and chibi-Ryo and chibi-Kirin swishing and singing and scatting adorably. Supposedly the very brief ditty is called "Shiawase Graffiti"（しあわせグラフィティ）and Akina Shinkoda's（新小田明奈）lyrics consist of just "tsukuru" (I'll cook it), "taberu" (I'll eat it) and "doo-bee-doo-bah". Ran Kumagai（熊谷蘭）came up with the laidback guitar accompaniment. It's apparently become quite the squee-worthy video on YouTube.
I'm not sure when the soundtrack or even the singles will be coming out from this show, but the odds are very high that my anime buddy will be one of the first to acquire them.
"Earworm" has been the word of the day to describe an infectiously popular song. One of those little bugs that has been tunneling through the windmills of my mind of late is Megumi Nakajima's （中島愛） 6th single"TRY UNITE!" which was also the opening theme for Season 1 of the 2012 anime, "Rinne no LaGrange"（輪廻.のラグランジェ....LaGrange: The Flower of Rin-ne).
I only caught the pilot episode of the show involving some young women and their mecha, but "TRY UNITE!" has lasted far longer for me. Since my anime buddy was kind enough to give me a nice grouping of anison, this song has been getting the heavy rotation treatment on my computer. It's that cool dance club beat and Nakajima's soaring vocals that spawned the worm. Even more than it being a theme for an anime, I think it would be great to hear in a car roaring down a Tokyo expressway at night heading down for the bright lights of Shinjuku, Shibuya or Odaiba....it's why I chose the above video in particular which has the full version of the song. Below is the opening of Season 1 from "Rinne no LaGrange".
After listening to this for the first time, my impression had been that it was created by a Shibuya-kei artist like Fantastic Plastic Machine. But it was actually written by Kenzo Saeki（サエキけんぞう） and composed by Rasmus Faber. Faber, who hails from Sweden and wears many hats including those of pianist, DJ and composer. He's also an anime fan who created a series of albums titled "Rasmus Faber Presents Platina Jazz" from 2009 which has covered anime songs performed in a jazz style with the help of Swedish musicians. This project eventually led to Faber writing his own tunes for Japanese singers, and then "TRY UNITE!" for Nakajima. The single was released in February 2012 and managed to go as high as No. 11 on Oricon.
This is the introspective ballad version of the song, again with Nakajima on vocals.
And just to show a bit of that "Platina Jazz", here is a special treatment of "Sailor Moon", since after all....she's the one.
And here is Faber introducing his tribute to the classic "Galaxy Express 999".
