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.
If I'm not mistaken, September 6th this year was the 59th anniversary of "Star Trek" so I'm hoping that 2026 will be a fine 60th diamond anniversary for the franchise. The above scene features the ancient and wise Guardian of Forever, a portal into all time.
Well, by coincidence, commenter Fireminer asked about this particular song by the rock band WANDS the other day. He had also provided his own KKP article regarding DA PUMP's"Corazon". "Toki no Tobira" (Time Portal) was the band's 4th single from February 1993 and the follow-up to their big hit which was the collaboration with the late Miho Nakayama（中山美穂）, "Sekaijuu no Dare yori Kitto"（世界中の誰よりきっと）. Probably buoyed by the effect of that song the previous year along with this single being a pretty catchy tune on its own, "Toki no Tobira" was also a million-seller hit for WANDS as it reached No. 1 on Oricon and eventually became the No. 7 single of the year.
Written by vocalist Show Wesugi（上杉昇）and composed by Kousuke Ohshima（大島康祐）, "Toki no Tobira" comes across as if it was channeling a bit of B'z. Considering all of those orchestra hits filling up the arrangement, I can only speculate that WANDS was showing a transition between B'z's early days as a synthpop duo and their very familiar sound as a pop-rock dynamo. The song was also the title track for their second album which was released a couple of months after the single, hitting No. 1 for four straight weeks and becoming the No. 2 album of 1993.
"Slam Dunk" was never a manga or anime that I got into because I'm not a basketball fan, but I've had a lot of students sing the praises of the franchise in either form. I've seen excerpts from the anime in which the individual players have their own crazy ways of offense and defense including one fellow who can apparently throw up a wall of arms.
Another thing that I didn't know about "Slam Dunk" the anime was that the song "Sekai ga Owaru made wa..." (Until the World Ends...) by the rock band WANDS had been used as its second ending theme. I've heard the song before elsewhere, perhaps on a commercial or on some celebrity karaoke show but didn't know about its connection with "Slam Dunk".
When it comes to WANDS, I'm always reminded of "Sekaijuu no Dare yori Kitto"（世界中の誰よりきっと）, their 1992 hit collaboration with singer-actress Miho Nakayama（中山美穂）. Perhaps I ought to include "Sekai ga Owaru made wa..." in my memories since it's also been one of their most famous entries in their discography. It was released as their 8th single in June 1994 after which it hit No. 1 for two straight weeks, ending up as the 10th-ranked single of the year. Other accolades that it earned was becoming a million-seller and the Artist Song Award (1989-1999) at the Heisei Anison Awards. As well, "Sekai ga Owaru made wa..." was also a part of that Sunakku Songs（スナックソング）list that I wrote about just a few minutes ago.
The music video for the song was filmed at a hangar at Haneda Airport. The lyrics were by WANDS vocalist Show Wesugi（上杉昇） while the melody was provided by Tetsuro Oda（織田哲郎）with arrangement by Takeshi Hayama（葉山たけし）. "Sekai ga Owaru made wa..." can also be found on the band's 4th album"Piece of My Soul" from April 1995 which also hit No. 1 for two weeks in a row and eventually became the 16th-ranked album of the year.
During my years at the University of Toronto as I was majoring in Japanese Studies, through my digestion of a lot of books on Japanese culture, I read that the society had something called a "bar culture". Not only can the usual drinking and light noshing be done in drinking establishments, but business negotiations, airing of work grievances and testing out of vocal cords can also be accomplished (mind you, I think the same things happen in my country, too).
I know that drinking establishments in Japan can come in a variety of sizes and forms. Of course, there are the Western-style bars up in the hotels with the tuxedo-garbed bartender shaking up cocktails. Then there are the more financially accessible chains of izakaya with plenty of space, libations and dishes. For an English conversation teacher like me on a budget, the izakaya was by far the watering hole that I frequented the most in the country, although I was never much of a drinker.
On the other hand, the Japanese snack bar, or sunakku（スナック）as they say it over there, is a place that I very barely entered although there were those significantly rare times that I managed to squeeze into one due to friends taking me there. A sunakku is indeed a very cozy place with limited seating and it's usually run by a woman known as the Mama or Mama-san. There is the usual supply of alcohol to wet one's whistle and some light snacks only. One big reason that I rarely went into a sunakku is that it's basically the neighbourhood meeting place for the regulars...kinda like a mini-Cheers, if you remember that American 80s sitcom. Probably depending on the night, which can go really long depending on the energy levels of all those involved, there are dedicated regulars coming in and mixing throughout the week singing karaoke and knocking them back. Maybe there is even that one nightly barfly who gets "NORM!" yelled at him in greeting.
Anyways, a couple of days ago, NHK's "Uta Con"（うたコン）was televising its usual episode but this time around, the theme of the episode was something that I hadn't heard before: favourite sunakku karaoke songs. According to what I heard, apparently the current demographic frequenting the little bars may mostly be in their 40s. I'm not sure if I even heard any enka (have a look at a past article on what folks in their 60s have enjoyed singing). Regardless, here are three from the "Uta Con" list.
Kiyomi Suzuki with Rats & Star -- Lonely Chaplin (ロンリー・チャプリン）
I guess that among all anime fans, it's well-known about the notoriety of the singing abilities of one master detective Conan Edogawa. Let's say that as a singer, the pint-sized genius sleuth is...a master detective. Conan could peel wallpaper with his vocal cords to the extent that Professor Xavier could have recruited him for the X-Men for both his mind and his laryngeal assault capabilities. So to see him even sing at an average level at the end of the above video is truly a miracle with manna served.
The kid might have a tin ear but he apparently has the moves, though. In the last few weeks, TV Japan's weekly broadcast of "Meitantei Conan"（名探偵コナン...Great Detective Conan） has displayed yet a new opening credit sequence (the 51st for the show) which is quite imaginative with not only various snatches of the manga flying past the screen but Conan jazz dancing like there's no tomorrow. Since "Conan" is running on TV Japan on a delayed basis, this opening sequence was actually showing for several months between January and September 2020.
All that detective dirty dancing is to pop-rock band WANDS' 16th single, "Makka na Lip" (Bright Red Lips) released in January 2020 which is this frenetic mixture of rock, pop and even Big Band jazz rhythms. I've been rather hot-and-cold with the many opening and ending themes for "Meitantei Conan", but I gotta admit that "Makka na Lip" is warming up to me pretty nicely.
I'm also happy that I got "Makka na Lip" (which peaked at No. 14 on Oricon) onto the blog since this is only the third WANDS song that I've placed up onto KKP, and it's the first time that I've gotten the band up here by themselves. The first two were actually 1990s collaborations with others such as 80s aidoru Miho Nakayama（中山美穂）for the big hit "Sekaijuu no Dare yori Kitto"（世界中の誰よりきっと）and a whole bunch of other pop/rock artists and a baseball legend for "Hateshinai Yume wo"（果てしない夢を）.
Furthermore, I never gave WANDS a proper introduction despite the fame and popularity of "Sekaijuu no Dare yori Kitto". The very first incarnation of the band came about in 1991 with vocalist Show Wesugi（上杉昇）, guitarist Hiroshi Shibasaki（柴崎浩）and keyboardist Kousuke Oshima（大島こうすけ）being brought together with their debut single, "Sabishisa wa Aki no Iro"（寂しさは秋の色...Loneliness is the Colour of Autumn）, coming out at the end of the year. As for the derivation of the band's name, according to the Wikipedia article on WANDS, they were named after the Suit of Wands in tarot cards. However, one other story that is only available on J-Wiki is that WANDS is an abbreviation of sorts of the phrase "Wesugi and Shibasaki".
WANDS has undergone a lot of membership changes in the past 30 years including three main vocalists (which would explain why "Makka na Lip" didn't have me thinking WANDS at first due to the different-sounding vocals). Their history has been separated into five stages and Wikipedia has given another way to divide it up by noting the Wesugi, Jiro (as in Jiro Matsumoto/松元治郎) and Daishi periods, named after the main vocalists. The current Daishi period (2019~) is named after Daishi Uehara（上原大史）, and so it is Uehara on the mike for this tune right here. His bandmates are currently guitarist Shibasaki and keyboardist Shinya Kimura（木村真也）. For "Makka na Lip", Uehara provided lyrics while former bandmate Oshima composed and arranged everything.
All in all, the band has released twenty singles including a sole digital single in 2020 and six original albums including their latest "BURN THE SECRET" from October that year. It got as high as No. 4.
I had actually been waiting for a friend of mine to give his insights on this song for a few years, but I don't think I really can wait any longer, so with all due respect to him, here is my own take on "Sekaijuu no Dare yori Kitto" (Undoubtedly More Than Anyone Else in The World).
Miho Nakayama's（中山美穂）duet with rock band WANDS was released in October 1992 as her 25th single which meant that I first heard about it between my two jaunts in Japan. So, I believe I must have first come across it when my university club was operating its weekly Wednesday night offerings of J-Dramas. "Sekaijuu no Dare yori Kitto" was the theme song for the Fuji-TV drama, "Dareka ga Kanojo wo Aishiteiru"（誰かが彼女を愛してる...Someone Loves Her） which also starred Miporin as the target of love.
According to the J-Wiki article, the song had been intended to be a ballad but then Nakayama's producer requested that it be something with a Christmas party feeling which led "Sekaijuu" to become the upbeat song it is. I'm not quite sure even after learning about this piece of trivia that it feels anything like a Xmas song, but it is a happy, happy, joy, joy song. And with the synths and wailing electric guitar arrangement from the early 90s, it's also a memorable nostalgic song.
In fact for me, I think this particular song is probably the one that I identify most with Miho Nakayama with the possible exception of "You're My Only Shinin' Star". The reason for this is basically media exposure. With the latter ballad, I just saw the song performed tons of times on those rentals of "The Best 10" episodes. But with "Sekaijuu", it just became a rather big piece of discussion on that ancient Internet format known as the BBS. My friends and I were half-jokingly talking about it becoming an unofficial song for the aforementioned club, but no doubt it was the popular tune not just within our own rarefied circle but also in Japan itself.
It became Miporin's first No. 1 hit in almost 3 years since "Midnight Taxi" back in 1990 (all of the hits in between the two songs peaked at No. 3), and broke through the 2-million barrier in sales. The lyrics were written by Nakayama and WANDS vocalist Show Wesugi（上杉昇）with Tetsuro Oda（織田哲郎）taking care of the music. Even with the relatively late release date, "Sekaijuu" managed to become the 37th-ranked song for 1992 but then a year later, it would also become the 10th-ranked song for 1993. The popularity of the song also earned both halves of the duet a ticket to the 1992 Kohaku Utagassen although WANDS wasn't officially listed on the performer slate (their name appeared just like with this phrase in brackets). And for a while at least, "Sekaijuu" was the most successful single by a solo female vocalist.
Another arbiter of a song's success is how often it's been covered. Composer Tetsuro Oda has done his own take on "Sekaijuu" along with other singers like Junichi Inagaki（稲垣潤一）and Hitomi Shimatani（島谷ひとみ）. And even Noriko Sakai（酒井法子）did a cover of the song as an official single in 2007. It would also be her final single to date before those personal problems started to set in.
To leave off, the coupling song for the original single by Nakayama and WANDS was "Sekaijuu no Dare yori Kitto Part II" done in a ballad style with the two halves switching roles. Nice, but I still favour the original.
What triggered my memory of this interesting oddity was Marcos V's article on that Mood Kayo duet between SDN48 and television presenter Monta Mino, "Kudokinagara Azabu-Juban"（口説きながら麻布十番）. I think there have been a fair share of duets between singers and non-singing celebs over the years, and "Hateshinai Yume wo" is one that has really settled into my brain.
I was never a big Japanese baseball fan but even I couldn't avoid the Shigeo Nagashima（長嶋茂雄）. He is the legendary Mr. Giants...the winning Tokyo (Yomiuri) Giants player from 1958-1974 and then manager of the same club from 1975-1980 and then 1993-2001. What has also increased his stature among the folks is his affable adorkability due to forgetfulness (feigned or not) and his hilarious remarks, often involving English (just check out the Trivia section in the Wiki article on him). Just imagine New York Yankees' Hideki Matsui and Yogi Berra spliced together. I've always stated that when Nagashima leaves this mortal coil altogether, there probably will be a few days of national mourning, whether or not one loved or hated the Giants.
So, just imagine my surprise when my J-Pop-loving university friend back in the 80s lent me a CD single of this mega-collaboration of pop/rock artists whose names sound like they were fished out of a bag of Scrabble tiles. And Nagashima is in there, too. "Hateshinai Yume wo" (Neverending Dream) was written by Show Wesugi（上杉昇）of rock band WANDS and the late Izumi Sakai（坂井泉水）of ZARD while Masayuki Deguchi（出口雅之）, aka REV, took care of the composing duties, and the song was meant to be the theme for NTV's nightly baseball program back in 1993.
The result was this rousing song of determination to boil up the blood of many a baseball player (pro, amateur or armchair) with this 90s J-Rock sound that made me wonder why B'z didn't get into this project. I also have to say that Sakai and one of the other vocals must have been reaching for the throat lozenges considering how high their voices had to go during recording. However, one must not forget the inclusion of Mr. Giants near the end....who frankly sounds like my father at the few times he's been to karaoke. Nagashima's adorkability quotient probably spiked a bit from this song as well.
Released in June 1993, "Hateshinai Yume wo" went as high as No. 2 on Oricon and became the 39th-ranked song of the year.
