Various -- Meiji Chocolate Theme（明治チョコレート・テーマ）

 

There are a number of reasons that I actually gained weight while living in Japan instead of the opposite and probably healthier direction. One is that the average convenience store held some scrumptious snacks including various forms of chocolate. The famous company Meiji（明治製菓）was also complicit by providing some of that cacao goodness including those chocolate-covered almonds. If the product being stated on this blog sounds familiar, then you must have read yesterday's article on Mariya Takeuchi's（竹内まりや） "Synchronicity ~ Suteki na Guuzen"（シンクロニシティ (素敵な偶然)）since the song was used for that particular Meiji confection.

From Amazon.jp

Yeah, that's right. YOU! Damn you, Meiji Almond Chocolates and your sultry chocolatey vixen ways! That might as well be a mug shot...a mug of hot chocolate!

I have no idea how many tens of millions of Meiji chocolate products get sold annually but I know that the marketing department for the company must have cleaning up the yen all these decades including the various commercial campaigns on television. And that includes the whimsical theme song for the chocolate which was one line repeated over and over like a hypnotic mantra: 

Chocolate, chocolate, chocolate wa Meiji（チョコレート チョコレート チョコレイトはメイジ～ ...Chocolate is Meiji）

The first time I heard it was when the popular aidoru duo of the late 1980s going into the 1990s, Wink, sang it coquettishly for the company. My assumption had been that the jingle was made just for them.

Well, how wrong I was! The "Meiji Chocolate Theme", which is also known as "Chocolate wa Meiji"（チョコレートは明治） and "Meiji Chocolate no Uta"（明治チョコレートの歌...The Meiji Chocolate Song）, was first created by famed songwriter Taku Izumi（いずみたく）, who was also responsible for the theme song for the long-running interview show "Tetsuko no Heya"（徹子の部屋） starring Tetsuko Kuroyanagi（黒柳徹子）, in 1966. The above ads were supposedly from 1967 and it's interesting to see that the commercials feature a father and his daughter enjoying the chocolate; apparently, Mom would have stopped that habit dead in its tracks. The very first version as noted above was sung by the vocal trio The Three Graces（スリー・グレイセス）who also sang the theme song for beloved anime "Mahotsukai Sally"（魔法使いサリー）in the same year of the Meiji theme's debut.

Reading through the J-Wiki article for Meiji, the theme song has been covered over the past half-century by many singers in their individual way, and one such band who did so was none other than the Group Sounds bunch known as The Tigers（ザ・タイガーズ）with Kenji Sawada（沢田研二）at the fore.

80s aidoru Akina Nakamori（中森明菜）gave her own contributions to the "Meiji Chocolate Theme" and other songs connected with the company.

Jun Matsumoto（松本潤）of Arashi（嵐）wasn't the one singing here but the theme gets a circus-like arrangement while the lad himself and his surroundings are very reminiscent of Willy Wonka.

The Works of Asei Kobayashi（小林亜星）

 

Sad to say but I seem to be seeing and reading about these obituaries of figures in the Japanese music industry all too often these days. This morning, NHK reported the death of songwriter and actor Asei Kobayashi at the age of 88 after he had suffered heart failure on May 30th. I had just written another article regarding one of his creations a little more than a month ago.

My knowledge about Japanese lyricists, composers and arrangers has grown only because of my work on the blog, so before 2012, the name Asei Kobayashi was one that I was barely aware of. In terms of the visual medium of television, however, I've known about Kobayashi for years on sight alone since as a thespian, he became famous for his very first role as Kantaro Terauchi, the stonemason with the volcanic temper from the mid-1970s TBS drama "Terauchi Kantaro Ikka"（寺内貫太郎一家...Kantaro Terauchi's Family）. Looking like the most terrifying and willful Showa Era father, his most famous scene involved him literally tearing up his own living room and painting the walls with his family (albeit in a comical fashion), including young heartthrob singer Hideki Saijo（西城秀樹）. I don't know whether Kobayashi had ever created a song that was recorded by Saijo.

Interestingly enough, from reading an article on this website, I found out that "Terauchi Kantaro Ikka" was famous for tackling some of the social issues of the day, and considering Terauchi's personality, I immediately wondered whether this program was the Japanese equivalent of America's "All in the Family" which was becoming a controversial hit on CBS at the same time.

However, I was to gradually discover that Kobayashi's true forte was as a composer. He was born in August 1932 in Shibuya Ward, Tokyo, and he was named after a playwright that his mother, a member of a drama troupe, had greatly admired. His father was a government official, and it had been his hope that young Asei would become a physician and so the lad attended Keio University. But much to his parents' dismay, he jumped ship so to speak to become a composer under the tutelage of Tadashi Hattori（服部正）.

I was also surprised to find out that the actor behind the fiery Kantaro was the same fellow who created the beloved themes for the following anime among other shows:

Gatchaman (ガッチャマン）(1972) by Masato Shimon

Mahotsukai Sally （魔法使いサリー）(1966) by The Three Graces

Then, Kobayashi composed the song that would be another huge critical and popular hit for enka singer Harumi Miyako（都はるみ）in 1975.

Harumi Miyako -- Kita no Yado Kara （北の宿から）

He also came up with a popular folk song. 

Yuuki Hide, Kotaro Asa and Singers Three -- Hitachi no Ki（日立の樹）(1973)

Kobayashi also composed a lot of commercial songs for various products, and in fact, in the same way he made quite the splash as a first-time thespian in "Terauchi Kantaro Ikka" in the 1970s, he became famous for one of his earliest creations (words and music) for a television ad, "Wansaka Musume"（ワンサカ娘...The Wansaka Girl） for the Renown company which specialized in textiles and clothing.

Originally recorded by Hiroshi Kamayatsu（かまやつひろし）in 1961, "Wansaka Musume" was taken up as the song for Renown and this time it was Mieko Hirota's（弘田三枝子）turn behind the mike in 1964.

Then in 1965, singer and actress Sylvie Vartan performed her own yé-yé cover of "Wansaka Musume". I tried looking it up but I couldn't find out what the wansaka meant. Maybe it's just onomatopoeia but hopefully one of you veteran readers can let me know. Anyways since then, "Wansaka Musume" has been given further covers by acts including Duke Aces（デューク・エイセス）and Ann Lewis（アン・ルイス）.

Kobayashi also had his regular appearances on game shows and his own commercials. He had quite the voice, and I'm not talking about his yelling one from "Terauchi Kantaro Ikka".

My condolences to Kobayashi's family and friends.

The Three Graces/Hiroko Asakawa/Angerme -- Mahotsukai Sally （魔法使いサリー）

If you were a TV kid like I was, then you would have been very acquainted with "Bewitched", the long-running ABC sitcom from the 60s and 70s starring Elizabeth Montgomery as Samantha Stevens the witch. Sam and the rest of the motley characters including long-suffering hubby Darren, crabby mother Endora, Uncle Arthur, and Dr. Bombay were very welcome folks in my living room way back when. And apparently, the show was quite the hit as well in Japan; I vaguely remember the lovely Ms. Montgomery showing up on a Japanese commercial complete with nose twitch when I was over there in 1972.

Although I have never seen the 1966-1968 anime "Mahotsukai Sally" (Sally The Witch), the theme song has become familiar to me since whenever those anime retrospectives periodically came on TV, the song was perennially on the Top 10 list. I had wondered whether the anime was connected with the American "Bewitched", and according to Wikipedia, the creator of the original manga, Mitsuteru Yokoyama（横山光輝 ）, actually was inspired by "Bewitched" (perhaps I should say bewitched by "Bewitched"). What I was even more surprised was that "Mahotsukai Sally" is supposedly the very first Magical Girl anime to be produced, so I can gather that a whole bunch of Sailors and PreCures would be chanting "We're not worthy" at Sally's dainty feet.

Like the theme for "Bewitched", "Mahotsukai Sally" also has its own jazzy theme although the jazz here is not of the lounge/standard variety but more on the much older Dixieland version. Written by anime producer Takashi Iijima（飯島敬）under his pen name of Kiyoshi Yamamoto（山本清）and composed by Asei Kobayashi（小林亜星）who would create a big hit for Harumi Miyako（都はるみ）a decade later, the opening theme could also have been one of the first anison earworms especially with those magical words at the beginning. It was sung by The Three Graces（スリー・グレイセス）, a trio consisting of Masae Morimoto, Misao Hoshino and Hanako Shiratori（森本政江・星野操・白鳥華子）, who would handle anison, real-life drama themes and a ton of commercial jingles.

To keep the legacy alive, Sally returned for another 2-year stint along with an updated pop version of the famous theme song in 1989. Saitama-born anison singer Hiroko Asakawa（朝川ひろこ）sang the new version.

Then in July 2015, Angerme (アンジュルム...pronounced as "anjerm", although I can't help but see it as "anger me"), a member group of Hello Project, released their own version of "Mahotsukai Sally" as the coupling song to their 19th single, "Nana Korobi Ya Oki"（七転び八起き...Ups and Downs）. To be honest, I had never heard of these ladies in their current incarnation although their former name of S/Mileage was a tad familiar to me.

Ah, did find an Elizabeth Montgomery ad in Japan.