Sexy Zone -- Jinsei Yuugi（人生遊戯）

 

A couple of days ago, underneath the article for the "BAB" album by 80s Onyanko Club（おニャン子クラブ）subgroup Ushirogami Hikaretai（うしろ髪ひかれ隊）, I was given a recommendation from a commenter about one of Sexy Zone's recent singles. I gave it a listen and this is what I've found. 

"Jinsei Yuugi" (Game of Life) came out just before Christmas last year as their 25th single and it's a pretty high-octane tune that has plenty of horns, bass and good ol' tasty funk which is why the commenter was wondering whether this would fall under Neo-City Pop. To be honest, I'm kinda split. Ultimately, I decided to go for J-R&B within the aidoru realm although I admit that "Jinsei Yuugi" has some feelers from the cool Neo-City Pop band BLU-SWING and even club music diva Bird from the early 2000s. But no matter...it's still fun to listen to.

The list of lyricists is almost as long as the winding path on Milton & Bradley's "Game of Life"; well, I'm exaggerating a tad but they are Takuya Watanabe（渡辺拓也）, Erika Masaki（真崎エリカ）, Yuu Tokuyama（徳山優）, Kotomi Fukagawa（深川琴美）and Komei Kobayashi with Watanabe also composing the snazzy tune. "Jinsei Yuugi" hit No. 1 on Oricon and was also the theme song for the NTV Saturday night drama "Zeicho: 'Haraenai' ni wa Wake ga Aru"（ゼイチョー〜「払えない」にはワケがある〜...There's a Reason for "I Can't Pay"） which is a live-action adaptation of a manga dealing with tax department officers. 

From what I've read on Sexy Zone's Wikipedia article, it was decided only yesterday on January 8th that the group will undergo a name change as of March 31st this year. Member Kento Nakajima（中島健人）will also be leaving the group on the same day. Earlier that month, the group will release one more single under that name.

Sexy Zone -- Suppin Kiss（すっぴんKISS）

 

Up to now, my knowledge on Johnny's Entertainment groups coming into the 21st century has been mostly limited to SMAP and Arashi（嵐）, two popular units of guys who have since disbanded in the last few years. There have been other groups in the late Mr. Kitagawa's kingdom such as King & Prince, TOKIO and Hey! Say! JUMP, I know, because of their appearances on NHK's "Uta Con"（うたコン）and TV Asahi's long-running "Music Station".

(short version)

Sexy Zone is also a group that I have heard about and seen through their own shots on the annual Kohaku Utagassen and the above shows. They first formed in 2011 and had consisted of the following five fellows: Kento Nakajima（中島健人）, Fuuma Kikuchi（菊池風磨）, Shouri Sato（佐藤勝利）, Sou Matsushima（松島聡）and Marius Yo（マリウス葉）, although Mr. Yo left at the end of 2020 due to health reasons.

Now, why did I choose "Suppin Kiss" (Kiss From a Face with No Makeup)? Well, the keyboards and guitar work sound slightly closer to the Neo-City Pop material that I've been hearing recently and the song accompanied by the video kinda gave me a rather fresh impression of the lads (the soap helped). It also comes across as happy enough to make it as an opening or closing theme for an anime but actually it was used for a Kose Cosmetics commercial.

"Suppin Kiss" was one-half of their double-A 16th single "Karakuri Darake no Tenderness/Suppin Kiss"（カラクリだらけのテンダネス/すっぴんKISS...Tenderness Filled with Trickery） from December 2018. It was written by Kanata Okajima（岡嶋かな多）and Koudai Iwatsubo（イワツボコーダイ）with the latter also providing the melody alongside Simon Janlov. It hit No. 1 on Oricon and became the 41st-ranked single for the year, selling around 165,000 copies.