Sanae Jounouchi -- Kanazawa no Ame（金沢の雨）

 

The Japan FAQ

Can't say that I have ever been to Kanazawa City in Ishikawa Prefecture although I've heard all about it. My impression was that it was a resort city but perhaps I mistook it for Karuizawa（軽井沢）. However, Kanazawa is famous for having one of Japan's Three Great Gardens, Kenroku-en（兼六園）which was a place for which I once had a translation assignment years ago, and I've read on Wikipedia that it's famous for its traditional architecture.

Not sure what weather conditions are like in Kanazawa in the fall but Onyanko Club（おニャン子クラブ）aidoru-turned-enka singer Sanae Jounouchi（城之内早苗）had her feelings about the city through her "Kanazawa no Ame" (Kanazawa Rain) which was released as a single in October 1987. Marcos V. was kind enough to first open the Jounouchi file on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" with her first single "Ajisaibashi" (あじさい橋) and then I followed up with her second single "Ryuuhyou no Tegami"（流氷の手紙）.

So I figured that it was natural to come up with her third single, "Kanazawa no Ame". Created by the same songwriters behind her debut single, lyricist Yasushi Akimoto（秋元康）and composer/arranger Akira Mitake（見岳章）, I have to echo in a way what my friend Marcos said about "Ajisaibashi" in that this particular outing by Jounouchi doesn't come across as the prototypical enka tune. For the lack of a better description, it sounds airy and perhaps even somewhat mystical thanks to how those traditional instruments are used. The story behind the song uses the oft-used trope of post-romantic breakup travel with the poor lass riding alone on that train which stops at Karuizawa Station but the way it sounds, it could have been made as a theme tune for "Kimetsu no Yaiba"（鬼滅の刃...Demon Slayer）. Personally speaking, it even feels like some of that languid Fashion Music even got into Mitake's arrangement.

I'm not sure how common it was for an aidoru to make that shift from teenybopper music to serious enka back in the 1980s, but I have to say that Jounouchi was off to a solid start. Nope, her voice obviously didn't have the gravitas of veteran enka singers, but her delivery of "Kanazawa no Ame" can make me forget that she was ever an aidoru.

Sanae Jounouchi -- Ryuuhyou no Tegami（流氷の手紙）

 

Nope, I have to admit that it isn't the most flattering caricature of Onyanko Club（おニャン子クラブ）enka-singing member Sanae Jounouchi（城之内早苗）but it was the only picture that I could find on the fly for her.

Several years ago, Marcos V. was kind enough to display Jounouchi's debut single as a late-teen solo enka singer away from the usual teenybopper tunes of her mother group, "Ajisaibashi" (あじさい橋) from June 1986. Well, later in November, Jounouchi released her second single, "Ryuuhou no Tegami" (Letter in the Ice Floe).

Alongside the fact that a teenager was making waves as a bona fide decent enka singer from Onyanko Club itself, there are also some interesting observations surrounding "Ryuuhou no Tegami". For one thing, lyricist and Onyanko Club Svengali Yasushi Akimoto（秋元康）and composer Tsugutoshi Goto（後藤次利）were behind the creation of the song with Kei Wakakusa's（若草恵）arrangement. For one thing, Akimoto was usually associated with the aidoru and perhaps some general pop music while Goto was usually seen as a funky fellow behind the bass who often delved into City Pop. It was indeed unusual to see the two of those guys handing an enka tune. Heck, I was just writing about Goto yesterday with his "file".

Another observation is that Wakakusa's arrangement of "Ryuuhyou no Tegami" makes for a very elegant enka. In fact, I'd say that it's a melange of genres. The aidoru aspect is that I was accustomed to hearing some of those stirring strings in a number of aidoru songs throughout the 1980s to add that touch of class, and staying on that melody line, I feel that the elegance is so prominent that it could also be considered to contain some of that Fashion Music. From the title alone, I had already suspected that this wasn't the typical giddy puppy love tune but the cold aftermath of heartbreak.

Jounouchi's debut "Ajisaibashi" and the follow-up single of "Ryuuhyou no Tegami" broke into the Top 10 with the latter peaking at No. 10. The singer therefore reached an early career highlight in that she was the first enka singer to break into the Top 10 on Oricon with her first two singles.

Chisato Moritaka/Sanae Jounouchi -- Yowasete yo Kon'ya dake（酔わせてよ今夜だけ）

 

Ah, yes...those amazing enka singers: Sayuri Ishikawa（石川さゆり）, Hibari Misora（美空ひばり）, Harumi Miyako（都はるみ）, Chisato Moritaka（森高千里）...

Uh, say what now? I get the first three but did you say the fourth was Chisato Moritaka?! The techno aidoru of the late 80s and early 90s? The one who came up with "Benkyo no Uta"（勉強の歌）?

Indeed, I said so. Now, I don't mean that Moritaka made that full transition into kimono-wearing enka chanteuse; she's still first and foremost a pop singer, but for her 6th album in March 1992, "Rock Alive", she did have one enka/Mood Kayo tune for which she provided words and music, "Yowasete yo Kon'ya dake" (Get Me Drunk for Just This One Night). And yep, not only is her melody perfect for the genre, but her lyrics are the classic love-done-me-wrong kayo of a woman drinking herself into a stupor to forget the love that she's just lost (and not really being successful). The above is her own self-cover from many years later but the atmosphere is apropos with that street of nomiya behind her.

One other singer who eventually made the full shift from teenage pop to enka is Sanae Jounouchi（城之内早苗）, a member of Onyanko Club（おニャン子クラブ）. In 2016, Marcos V. first introduced her to us at KKP through her "Ajisaibashi"（あじさい橋）, her debut single of June 1986. Her 8th single from August 1993 is a cover of Moritaka's "Yowasete yo Kon'ya dake" which became a much-requested song on the cable radio circuit in Japan for the next several months. Hideo Saito（斉藤英夫）provided the arrangement for this tune which peaked at No. 87 on Oricon. 

Sanae Jounouchi -- Ajisaibashi (あじさい橋)

Yesterday, looking at Oricon’s 1986 Top 100 hits, I was surprised to see how many female aidoru tunes were in the list – I counted nothing less than 54 songs. In other words, half of the list was occupied by female aidoru tunes, leaving the other half to Enka singers, Rock bands, City Pop artists, male aidoru singers/groups, among other genres of Japanese popular music we could add here.

Apart from some usual Akina Nakamori (中森明菜), Kyoko Koizumi (小泉今日子) or Miho Nakayama’s (中山美穂) hits (to name a few big aidoru from the time), the huge majority of aidoru singers in 1986’s list were members of the big group Onyanko Club (おニャン子クラブ) going solo or being divided into subunits. For the critics, it was probably a very similar nightmare to what happens with AKB48, its subunits and sister groups nowadays, and we can thank – or blame – the same man, Yasushi Akimoto (秋元康), for both phenomena.

Among the many singles released by Onyanko Club’s members in this particular year, I was able to discover an interesting and unusual one: “Ajisaibashi” by Sanae Jounouchi (城之内早苗).

Released in June 1986 as Sanae Jounouchi’s debut single, “Ajisaibashi” was meant to be an enka song. It somehow succeeds, but I find the vocals really light in this one, if compared to the usual vibrato-heavy and more traditional enka singing style. Maybe Sanae was still learning how to sing enka in a more mature way (I still have to listen to her more recent singles), but “Ajisaibashi” ends sounding more like an usual ballad with a warm melody and just some enka flourishes in the arrangement. In the end, it was probably due to this “light way of performing enka” that I liked the song so much.

Here’s Sanae singing “Ajisaibashi” in a more recent performance.

“Ajisaibashi” reached #1 on the Oricon chart, selling 155,000 copies. Lyrics were written by Yasushi Akimoto, while music and arrangement were done by Akira Mitake (見岳章).

Source: generasia.com