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.
Yesterday on "Shin BS Nihon no Uta"（新BS日本の歌）, the episode's theme was on flower-titled kayo kyoku. That did get me to thinking...as I recall, there have been quite a few such songs that I've remembered over the decades, so I've decided to provide my own short list. My list kinda breaks out a little more widely although the first entry here was also included on the program's own list. Anyways, without further ado:
Last night's edition of NHK's "Uta Con"（うたコン）was an extended one by half an hour partially because it was recognizing the 15th anniversary of the Tohoku earthquake on March 11th, so there were a lot of singers showing up. Of course, because of the tribute, everyone on stage and in the hall sang "Hana wa Saku"（花は咲く）. As the camera was panning across the stage to show all of the performers solemnly singing the ballad, I noticed one familiar face but wasn't quite sure if it was who I thought it was.
Well, she didn't appear again until the very end of the broadcast but it truly was who I thought it was. Up to now, I haven't seen much in the way of seiyuu appear on "Uta Con" aside from Nana Mizuki（水樹奈々） but Maaya Sakamoto（坂本真綾）indeed made her first appearance on NHK last night. I've known her for a while now since she's provided some of the theme songs for anime that I've seen with my anime buddy in the last decade such as "Koufuku Graffiti"(幸腹グラフィティ...Gourmet Graffiti) , and there was also her scintillating cover of "DOWNTOWN" for the 2010 "Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru" (それでも町は廻ってる...And Yet the Town Moves) which I never caught.
Sakamoto last night sang a brief medley including the third opening theme for the anime "Card Captor Sakura"（カードキャプターさくら）, "Platina"(Platinum), which came out as the seiyuu's 5th single in October 1999. It's hard to believe that it's been over 26 years since this was first released. Written by Yuuho Iwasato（岩里祐穂）and composed/arranged by Yoko Kanno（菅野よう子）, who incidentally created the aforementioned "Hana wa Saku", "Platina" is the type of song that I would enjoy as a breezy pop tune with a hint of soul and those swiftly flying strings. I never became a fan of the show itself though I know it's one of the more popular anime but I've become a fan of some of the theme tunes including Kohmi Hirose's（広瀬香美）aptly-named "Groovy" and chihiro's "Honey".
Sheepishly, I still have to admit that I have yet to watch the original anime "Cowboy Bebop" which has been compared to pure art, especially with all of that music connected to it such as the iconic "Tank!". And I'm also a jazz fan, so I should have already dove into the series but I guess I'm still the guy outside looking in.
Maybe I ought to head over to a lonesome alley bar at night and drown my sorrows for a while, although I'm unsure what the reaction would be there if I made a request for a Brown Cow. Hey, I'd still take the chance if the watering hole had music that I've just heard above. It's a beautiful jazz blues piece by producer Yoko Kanno's（菅野よう子）Seatbelts that adorned part of Episode 12 titled "Jupiter Jazz (Part 1)" when it was first broadcast in 1999.
The short piece would ultimately find its way to the June 2001 mini-album"Cowgirl Ed" where it started things off. "Goodnight Julia" refers to an old flame of Spike who pays a price for her sporadic contacts with him, and whether or not Spike did survive the final battle, I could imagine him slinking into a down-and-out bar to drink himself into a bottle while this song is playing. It's a wistful number that would be welcome on any soundtrack for an old fashioned film noir. Y'know, I think that I really ought to try a scotch with his one.
Last night, as I was doing my usual browsings (grazings 🐮?) through YouTube, I found this video of the great Hiroshi Sato（佐藤博）on a 1988 TV show introducing his backing band, and one of those musicians happened to be an adorable-looking mid-20s keyboardist by the name of Yoko Kanno（菅野よう子）. Yes, that Yoko Kanno who would come up with one of the most iconic anime theme songs in history along with other musical delights.
I then decided to see if there were any other Yoko Kanno compositions that I could explore. She did provide the soundtrack for one of the shows in the "Gundam" franchise, "Turn A Gundam"（∀ガンダム）in 1999 following her winning turn for "Cowboy Be-Bop". My exposure to the most famous Japanese robot of them all has been limited to just the first three movies in the late 1970s and early 1980s, though.
Therefore, "Turn A Gundam" was never in my viewscreen (and frankly my anime buddy may either laud or slam it) but I did encounter this beautiful piece from Kanno's soundtrack for this particular entry in the franchise. "Moon" was of course composed by Kanno and then written and performed by Gabriela Robin. From what I've read, folks had been wondering who this lovely Gabriela Robin was for years but then Kanno finally let the cat out of the bag and admitted that she was the Robin.
Well, that knocked folks out for a loop. I'm fairly sure that people wondered why she hadn't considered a recording career but I think that there are some artists who prefer to just be on the songwriting end of things, and that's fine. But indeed, Kanno as Robin has a wonderfully ethereal voice in "Moon", and though I've never seen a single episode of "Turn A Gundam", I can imagine that this track was used for a quiet introspective scene on the eve of one spectacular battle with the last half of the song reflecting the preparations of the gigantic Gundam itself.
It was through the anime field that I first found out about singer-songwriter-seiyuu Maaya Sakamoto（坂本真綾）, thanks to her contribution of the opening theme "Shiawase ni Tsuite Watashi ga Shitteiru Itsutsu no Houhou"（幸せについて私が知っている5つの方法）for one of my favourite anime "Koufuku Graffiti" (幸腹グラフィティ...Gourmet Graffiti) .
Little did I know at the time that Sakamoto's music career extended way back into the mid-1990s and even her time as a seiyuu went back even further into the late 1980s according to J-Wiki. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, she should be celebrating her 25th anniversary as a singer sometime next year.
Hearing her anison is wonderful but I've discovered that probably her non-anime material is also quite glorious, too. Case in point: this track from her March 2001 album"Lucy" titled "Kinobori to Akai Skirt"(Tree Climbing and the Red Skirt). One commenter stated that there is something very Beatles about this paean to the youthful years and I would agree, but I can also add that there is also a bit of Queen in there, too, but the rest of it is due to Sakamoto, lyricist Yuuho Iwasato（岩里祐穂）and composer/album producer Yoko Kanno（菅野よう子）. Iwasato was also the one who provided the lyrics to the aforementioned "Shiawase ni Tsuite Watashi ga Shitteiru Itsutsu no Houhou" in 2015. Kudos to her for providing the words about the bittersweet story of a boy and girl in youth who were the closest of buddies only to slowly grow apart as they grew up.
As well, I really love Kanno for putting in some of that sunny nostalgia through her melody and arrangement via the Beatles/Queen, especially with that distinctive guitar wail that I like to describe as elastic and the piano with the background chorus. Incidentally, Kanno is also on keyboards here.
"Lucy" sold about 43,000 albums as it peaked at No. 16 on Oricon. Although how the album got its title is not mentioned in either J-Wiki or Wikipedia, I do wonder considering the nature of this particular song whether "Lucy" had something to do with a sky and diamonds. Also before I leave off, I believe commenter Michael may have recommended this one to me; if so, my thanks to him.
Ever since I heard my very first Miki Imai（今井美樹）song, "Natsu wo Kasanete"（夏をかさねて）, in that relaxing lodge-style café in Gunma Prefecture over 30 years ago, the usual reaction template was set whenever I hear one of her ballads: exhalation. Yup, just like walking through a forest or watching an ASMR video of someone getting a scalp massage, I exhale in relaxation and stress seems to slowly melt away.
(very short version)
"Haru no Hi" (Spring Days) is one of those Imai songs that does just that. A track from her July 1995 9th album"Love Of My Life", perhaps the timing is a bit off here, but putting this one up right now makes me forget that we're approaching the dog days of summer (albeit the weather was somewhat cooler today).
With lyrics by Imai, music by Mayumi Horikawa（堀川まゆみ）and arrangement by Yoko Kanno（菅野よう子）, the singer's soft vocals, the resonant piano and what sounds like an accordion immediately puts me at ease, and I feel like returning to that mountain café for a cup of coffee. As much as I've not done too badly under the COVID-19 restrictions for the past few months, a song like "Haru no Hi" does make me pine a bit for a visit to a stylish coffeehouse with one or two buddies.
Wherever you are, I hope you are hanging in there.
Last month, I first mentioned about singer-songwriter Yoshiko Goshima（五島良子）and her collaboration with techno unit Denki Groove（電気グルーヴ）on "Niji"（虹）back in 1995. Apparently, according to herJ-Wiki article, that was the song which put her on the map, so to speak, but she did put out a good amount of singles in the 1990s starting from 1990 itself. Not a whole lot more information about her except that she was born in Nagoya, and from another webpage, she has a 5-octave range.
It's more of the high notes from her July 1993 single. For kayo fans, this particular song may sound rather familiar since it is a cover of "Shiroi Iro wa Koibito no Iro"(White is the Colour of Lovers) which was originally recorded by Betsy & Chris all the way back in 1969 with Kazuhiko Kato（加藤和彦）and Osamu Kitayama（北山修）of The Folk Crusaders creating it. Yoko Kanno（菅野よう子）was behind the arrangement of the song, and Goshima's heartwarming and child-like delivery (with the harmonies that also distinguished the Betsy & Chris original) help in selling the ever-calming song. The fantasy element is further enhanced by Kanno's arrangement that sounds as if it had been made for "Lord of the Rings".
My, my, Mai, Mai...this has been quite the Mai start for "Kayo Kyoku Plus" today. Just finished an article for Mai Kuraki's（倉木麻衣）"Secret of my heart", an anison for the "Meitantei Conan"（名探偵コナン）series, and now I'm going ahead with a more down-and-dirty tune by Mai Yamane（山根麻衣）for "Cowboy Be-Bop".
In terms of the singer, I'm approaching Yamane in that countervailing way that I've gotten into Japanese popular music. A lot of fans have become J-Pop fans through anison being their front door and then branching into the other genres and singers including the singer in this article. For me, although I had heard of Yamane's contributions to the legendary "Cowboy Be-Bop", I only started getting into this singer through her very early City Pop tunes in the 1980s such as "Tasogare"（たそがれ）, and then I made the inroads into her rock-and-anime area.
So I have arrived at "The Real Folk Blues" which is really a jazz-rock extravaganza with Yamane behind the mike and The Seatbelts as the band. And man, with all of the attention on that opening theme, "Tank!", I've realized that the ending theme is no shrinking violet by any means.
Mentioning about that jazz-rock arrangement, I couldn't really say that "The Real Folk Blues" is a typical fusion tune. I think that the creation by lyricist Yuuho Iwasato（岩里祐穂）and composer Yoko Kanno（菅野よう子）is something that belongs in that category of film noir-spy caper-Neo-Western music. It has that smoky bourbon blend of sexiness, danger and lone-wolf sense of justice. Plus, the lyrics by Iwasato seem to describe something like a final scene from a Humphrey Bogart/Lauren Bacall noir movie: "Sorry, dollface. Would love to be with you but a palooka like me ain't much for settlin' down. Gotta keep movin'". Heck, "The Real Folk Blues" would be something that I would have heard in a 1970s James Bond flick but with the far more intimidating Daniel Craig bringing the hammer down in the opening credits.
Yamane's honey voice and those horns are just perfect for the cool tone. And I gotta say that the coda that seems to describe Bogie walking off into the distance is amazing with the music keeping that main theme but taking on that underlying rhythm of an uncertain future. Y'know...with "Tank!" and "The Real Folk Blues", "Cowboy Be-Bop" may have been an anime with one of the most killer anison theme batteries in history.
Between all of the old anime that I dearly enjoyed as a kid in the 1970s and early 1980s such as "Gatchaman"（ガッチャマン）, "Uchuu Senkan Yamato"（宇宙戦艦ヤマト）and "Macross"（マクロス）and the stuff that I've been watching currently in this decade, there is a huge gap of about 20 years in which the anime world was largely unknown to me ("Sailor Moon" is a big exception). When I came back briefly to Toronto in the early 1990s, my anime buddy was still doing his presentations at University of Toronto and I either helped out or watched movies such as "Patlabor II" at one of the Engineering buildings. But basically, some of the big anime including "Five Star Stories" and "Evangelion" were just words to me. And don't even bother asking me about any of the Macross sequels; I have no idea and I don't really care.
From time to time during the anison hour at my friend's place, he plays some of the old stuff and recently he played a couple of pieces attached to the classic "Tenku no Escaflowne"（天空のエスカフローネ...The Vision of Escaflowne）, an ever-flowery title for an anime. Again, it was one of those titles that I have heard about over the years but frankly every time I heard that name, I couldn't help but think of an Italian cheese used in desserts.
Having said that, master composer Yoko Kanno（菅野よう子）came up with a whopper of an instrumental with "The Vision of Escaflowne" track from the 2nd soundtrack for the show. Who would have thought of having Gregorian chants introduced into such an album and then paired with some dramatic percussion? It's cool and haunting at the same time. I would think that this was the musical prelude before the epic final battle...between robot armies.
But then I did a Japanese comedian's pratfall when my friend played the ending theme of "Escaflowne", "Mystic Eyes" by Hiroki Wada（和田弘樹）. I just imagined all those Gregorian monks suddenly ripping off their robes and hitting the dance floor like landed fish. Perhaps conversations may have started like this: "Brother Roderick, thy RUNNING MAN is truly divine!" "My thanks, Brother Oswald, but thou dost danceth your KID N' PLAY like a BOSS!" Aye, those were funky times for the kingdom.
Well, yeah! That is some pretty serious dance music by Wada who also wrote and composed "Mystic Eyes". This was his third single released in April 1996 and perhaps he was channeling his inner Tetsuya Komuro（小室哲哉）. He goes by the name h-wonder now and has arranged music for a lot of other singers, especially Exile and Kumi Koda（倖田來未）. Wada also hails from Funabashi City in Chiba Prefecture, a city that is right next to my old burg of Ichikawa.
Being someone who has been enjoying Japanese popular music for many many years, there will always be aspects that I miss. I've mentioned this before but I miss some of the soul music that came into J-Pop in the early 2000s via songstresses such as bird and Misia. Even a decade earlier than that, there was also a brief dalliance in the early 1990s when there was a small cadre of female singers and/or songwriters providing some nice urban contemporary balladry.
Back on New Year's Day, I wrote about a nice song sung by Hikaru Nishida（西田ひかる）titled "Kinou to wa O-Chigai"（きのうとは大違い）which popped up by chance while I was searching for any more music by the songwriter of the piece, Kyoko Endo（遠藤京子）.
Well, it turned out that I found this wonderful ballad written, composed and sung by Endo called "27-sai no Seishun" (My Youth at 27). Also arranged by Yoko Kanno (菅野よう子...who would later be responsible for a number of amazing things, including one of the most iconic themes in anime history), this song is one of the prime examples about that urban contemporary balladry I was referring to earlier.
"27-sai no Seishun" was released as Endo's 14th single in March 1993 and was also a track on her 7th original album"Koibito ni Naritai"（恋人になりたい...I Want to be a Lover） which also came out on the same day as the single. The singer-songwriter-actress had already been in the music business since 1981 but never quite hit the huge fame that some of her clients such as Nishida or Hiromi Iwasaki（岩崎宏美）did. Not that it would really matter; her ability to not only write but also deliver a tune probably has garnered a very dedicated group of fans, yours truly included.
This particular song may or may not be categorized as City Pop. However, I am since from the music I can't imagine any place other than a big city where the music or lyrics can be played out. With that slight sense of bossa nova in there, "27-sai no Seishun" has that romantic flair masking a deep sadness in the words. That title may look and sound like something to be envied but according to Endo, it's quite the opposite as described in the wording. The heroine is describing perhaps yet another failed relationship, something that she had thought would only be occurring with any frequency during her true adolescence when she was younger, more reckless and more willing to roll with the punches. Well, in Japan, she's now 7 years past her official inclusion into adulthood and disillusioned that this part of youth has not let her go yet, and perhaps she's wondering whether it will ever do so. Certain listeners may want to have a stiff belt of scotch with this one.
Still as I've said, it's a lovely song although very bittersweet. It has renewed my nostalgia for those ballads from over 20 years ago.
Back in August 2014, I wrote up an article about Yoko Kuzuya's（葛谷葉子）"Koi"（恋）which was this rich ballad from this compilation album called "Ginza Evening" which was released back in 2001. Looking at the title, I had assumed that there would be a whole bunch of snazzy Mood Kayo songs in there but then on seeing the fuzzy background image on the booklet, I started wondering. And then on giving it a test listen at one of the listening posts in the CD shop, my mind was definitely changed. The tracks were all of a mellow contemporary nature. This was more of spending a quiet rainy Sunday afternoon in a Ginza café (and yep, I have been in a few of those) rather than a raucous night in a Ginza nightclub.
The wonderful thing about picking up these compilation albums is that not only do I re-discover some of those old tunes that had once been gathering dust in the brain but I also get to discover new wonderful songs from artists that I would never have heard unless I buy one of these omnibus releases.
Yoko Kuzuya was one such example. Another is Yuka Kawamura（川村結花）, a singer-songwriter who was born in Osaka. She actually gained (further) fame when she helped pen the SMAP megahit, "Yozora no Mukou"（夜空ノムコウ）in 1998 a few years after she had first debuted. But I didn't get to finally hear the singer part of her until I picked up "Ginza Evening" and listened to her 8th single from February 1999, "Every Breath You Take", and no, it has nothing to do with that early 80s hit by The Police.
Speaking of The Police, I vaguely remember an interview with Sting during which, when told that his song was about loyal devotion to a loved one, he surprisingly countered that one of his band's most famous tunes was actually about stalker-like obsession. I could imagine that interviewer's jaw dropping onto the floor. Kawamura's own "Every Breath You Take" is happily more innocent via the lyrics in which the singer declares her support for that significant other no matter how trying the circumstances. The song does sound as if it had been recorded straight from the floor of an intimate nightclub in front of an audience while Kawamura's vocals and piano have that feeling of a performance from way back in the 1970s. It is also featured on her 3rd album"Lush Life" from April of that same year.
There is a lot to be introspective about when it comes to "Ginza Evening". Another ballad that helps in that endeavour is Akiko Yano's（矢野顕子）"New Song". This was originally from her 1995 album "Piano Nightly", and although "New Song" has that relaxing atmosphere, Yano's words are there to help the listener come out of any gloom and doom.
One of my favourite tracks has been "Kiss no Ondo"（キスの温度...Temperature of a Kiss）by the duo known as wyolica. They have been defined according to Wikipedia as "...a two-piece folk pop/chillout group from Japan". Since I'm not all that well versed on those newfangled genre names, I'm going to imagine that chillout doesn't include bands such as Loudness or X Japan. And certainly "Kiss no Ondo" as purred by vocalist Azumi would probably have me imagining that I was in a tiny hidden cafe in bohemian Shimo-Kitazawa rather than a Renoir (a long-running coffee house chain) in Ginza. That Latin guitar and the mellow keyboards definitely do fine by me. Azumi wrote the lyrics while guitarist so-to and Shinichi "Mondo Grosso" Osawa（大沢伸一）took care of the music. "Kiss no Ondo" first appeared on wyolica's debut album"who said 'La La...'?" from February 2000 which peaked at No. 17 on Oricon.
Crystal Kay was another one of those artists that I saw and listened to during that period when R&B really started making the rounds in J-Pop in the late 1990s and early 2000s along with folks like m-flo and Misia. However, the one song by her that stayed in my brain was the one she debuted with, "Eternal Memories" from July 1999. She recorded this song when she was 13 years old (maybe I can have my niece listen to this one just to provide her with a bit of inspiration) and it was put into heavy rotation merely by having it become the campaign song for a long-running commercial on TV.
Listening to the whole song, there is something haunting but also quite soothing about "Eternal Memories", especially when she sings the mantra:
I will go and try, to find what's in my self I need to find the way, to find what's in my self I know it's not that easy, but I'll try
My memory of the original commercial song had it sounding a little more energetic but I still like this slower version that is in "Ginza Evening" since it is going along with the overall mellow tone of the album. Hiroshi Ichikura（一倉宏）and Crystal Kay provided the lyrics while the marvelous Yoko Kanno（菅野よう子）composed the hypnotic melody. Kanno had just created something a whole lot more jazzier the year before.
There are of course a number of other tracks on the album but I will probably give some of them some more individual attention in the near future. But the take-away here is that just like B-sides on an old 45" record, don't count out some of those subtle compilation albums.
It's been 5 years since the Tohoku Earthquake struck many parts of Japan so I thought it was time to feature a song that has become the anthem for the recovery from the disaster. "Hana wa Saku"(Flowers Will Bloom) was released in May 2012 as the product of the Hana wa Saku Project and has been a song that has been mostly featured on NHK.
Written by movie director Shunji Iwai（岩井俊二）and composed by Yoko Kanno（菅野よう子）, the song has many celebrities singing for which some of are shown in the official music video above...all of them come from the affected Tohoku region such as actor-singer Masatoshi Nakamura（中村雅俊）who hails from the town of Onagawa, Miyagi Prefecture, Toshiyuki Nishida（西田敏行）from Koriyama City, Fukushima Prefecture, and Olympic Gold-winning figure skater Shizuka Arakawa（荒川静香）from Sendai City, Miyagi Prefecture.
"Hana wa Saku" is sad, wistful, elegiac and hopeful. I watched today's NHK News which had a special broadcast to commemorate the March 11th earthquake and saw a resident in the affected area remark that he didn't want to forget that date but neither did he want to remember either. The song is a reminder of what had happened and who had been lost but it is also a reassurance that recovery, though long, slow and continuing, is present and life will return and eventually flourish in the area.
It has also been played a number of times since its release back in 2012 including just in the last episode of "Kayo Concert" a few days ago, and also in the last few years during the year-end Kohaku Utagassen on NHK. In fact, I'm starting to think that it has become as much a staple of the special as the singing of "Hotaru no Hikari"（蛍の光）at the end of the show.
The single went Gold and went as high as No. 11 on Oricon. As well, a number of singers have done their own covers of "Hana wa Saku".
I realize that earthquakes are a part of life in Japan and that there will probably be another powerful one hitting the country sometime in the future. Even so, let us all hope that the Japanese and the residents in the Tohoku region in particular are indeed recovering and becoming more hopeful about the future.
I never really got into the 15-minute morning drama serials on NHK (known as asadora), but for some reason, I made the exception for "Ume-chan Sensei"（梅ちゃん先生）which was shown here via TV Japan for the majority of 2012 (can't believe it's been 3 years). I guess it was because it took place during a period of Japanese history that I was the most interested in during my university years: the postwar era from 1945 into the 1960s when the nation began its economic rebirth. Also, I enjoyed the characters on the show since they kept the usual histrionics to a minimum.
(cover by BABY BAND)
The one other interesting thing about the show was the theme song by SMAP, "Sakasama no Sora" (Upside-Down Sky). When I first heard it in the opening credits, I thought it was a bit jarring since it sounded like a mellow semi-disco tune out of time with the setting of "Ume-chan Sensei". However, as I started enjoying the show, I also started to get used to the theme and even ended up liking it by the end.
"Sakasama no Sora" was released as SMAP's 47th single in April 2012 and became the group's14th straight No. 1 song going all the way back a decade to "freebird" in 2002. It also stayed in the Top 10 for 47 straight weeks right from the get-go, becoming the 37th-ranked song for the year. Tetsuro Anjo（麻生哲朗）provided the lyrics while Yoko Kanno（菅野よう子）composed the melody. The tune was also a track on SMAP's 20th studio album, "Gift of SMAP" which was released in August 2012 and also hit the top spot on the charts. It would later become the 19th-ranked album for the year going Platinum.
As I may have intimated in some of the other articles on anime theme songs, my interest in anime was revived only within the last few years...basically after I actually returned from Japan. All those 17 years I was living and working in the Kanto area, I really didn't touch the genre at all...except for viewings of "Chibi Maruko-chan" and "Sazae-san" on Sunday nights. The overarching reason is that I simply didn't have time. Being an English conversation teacher meant that I needed a full night's sleep and that didn't chime in with the scheduling of a lot of the good stuff which was in the really wee hours of the morning. Plus, my anime buddy told me that it was easier to be an anime fan outside of Japan rather than within the originating nation itself. Apparently, it still isn't too cool to be too public about being an anime fan despite all the festivals and the stores in Akihabara and Ikebukuro.
However, what I hadn't been aware of when I was a resident in Japan was that theme songs and excerpts of anime soundtracks were and are being used all the time to be provided as background music for variety shows or news program segments. In fact, just today on NHK's "Asaichi" morning show, the producers used an excerpt from the stage musical-worthy soundtrack of "Soredemo Sekai wa Utsukushii"（それでも世界は美しい...The World Is Still Beautiful）, an anime that I had seen last year, as the BGM for the introduction of a venerable actress.
There was also another excerpt that I heard fairly frequently when I was watching the news and variety shows. It was a snazzy Big Band piece with some really tight horns that livened up any feature about heading out into some especially tony Tokyo neighbourhood or just any segment that needed something spicy and exciting. I didn't know anything about it except for the fact that it was cool-sounding, and it was only when I was back here in Toronto that I found out the piece was the theme song for the much-acclaimed anime "Cowboy Be-Bop", "Tank!". Another anime enthusiast and friend who used to come up to the apartment in Ichikawa from the wilds of Mie Prefecture for a visit used to tell me about this particular show, but aside from the title, I never cottoned on to it.
The above video contains the opening credits for "Cowboy Be-Bop" which first came out in 1998, and after having taking a look at it for the first time last night, I gotta say that those are some of the slickest opening credits I've ever seen for an anime. Now I know where "Space Dandy" got its inspiration. "Tank!" and the credits just seemed to have come out from an imagination fed on reruns of "Peter Gunn", the original "The Thomas Crown Affair" and any other ring-a-ding-ding spy caper from the 1960s.Henry Mancini would see this and smile sagely.
"Tank!" was created by composer and musician Yoko Kanno（菅野よう子）, a name that I've seen a lot on various credits for other anime. and I had known she was involved with "Cowboy Be-Bop". She was also helping out with the spiritual descendant of the show, "Space Dandy", (including the arrangement of the ending theme, "X-Jigen e Yokoso") and was also behind the composition of the ballad in dedication of the recovery from the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake for NHK, "Hana wa Saku"（花は咲く...Flowers Will Bloom）.
Kanno was also behind the formation of The Seatbelts, the ensemble responsible for the blast radius of jazz that makes up "Tank!". According to the Wikipedia write-up on the band through a fictional description in "Cowboy Be-Bop", the name supposedly "...derives from how the performers wear seatbelts to be safe while they play hardcore jam sessions." I think that could also be applied to the audience members.
All those years ago, I had thought that the song came from some sort of 60s caper flick...the sort which contained lines like "Headin' out on a heist, Johnny?" and scenes with plenty of dollars and dames surrounding Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. Instead, it's from an anime near the end of the century. Who'da thunk?
When credits as iconic as those for "Cowboy Be-Bop" come along, I guess it's pretty much inevitable that parodies will arise. I was taking a look at the Internet meme database "Know Your Meme" and discovered those opening credits but with characters from another popular anime. It's really well done and I had a nice laugh, too.
I have already mentioned the legendary composer's name once, so I will finish things off here with Henry Mancini's version of "Sing, Sing, Sing". The famous swing piece created by Louis Prima and popularized by Benny Goodman used to be the go-to song in trailers for movies taking place in The Jazz Age, but Mancini's take was the very first version I got to know through my Dad's collection of standards. And when I listened to "Tank!", I was instantly reminded of "Sing, Sing, Sing". The latter may not be as constantly over-the-top as the former, at least not until the last several seconds, but I wouldn't mind calling Mancini's "Sing, Sing, Sing" a proud ancestor of one of the coolest anison I've heard.
As I may have mentioned about my bi-weekly get-togethers with my anime buddy, about an hour of my visit to his place involves listening to music and theme songs from his humoungous collection of various anime soundtracks. I'm not quite as big into the anison as he obviously is, but I have been keying in on "Space Dandy" since its debut in January this year. It's one of a few examples in which I have enjoyed both the opening AND ending themes. In fact, I've already talked on Yasuyuki Okamura's（岡村靖幸）Princely piece of funk, "Viva Namida" as the opening theme, and not too long ago, I also mentioned about one song that was inserted at the end of Episode 6, "Hoshikuzu no Pipeline"（星屑のパイプライン）by Junk Fujiyama that probably has been satisfying fans of City Pop/Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）.
So, this is the ending theme, "X-Jigen e Yokoso"(Welcome to the X Dimension), an appropriately titled song for an anime that's pretty way out there. Sung by the enigmatic and whisper-voiced Etsuko Yakushimaru（やくしまるえつこ）, it's an infectiously catchy little technopop tune with a bit of old disco, to boot. It goes quite well with the ending credit graphics, and apparently, the multitasking Yakushimaru was also responsible for coming up with the alien illustrations during those credits, too.
Yakushimaru is a stage name for this singer-songwriter and producer and illustrator and narrator. She also goes under the name of Tica Alpha while in songwriter mode (she was responsible for the music and words behind "X-Jigen"), and also belongs to a just-as-mysterious rock band by the name of Sotaisei Riron（相対性理論...Theory of Relativity） which debuted in 2006. The above video is the official one for the song in which the singer (maybe?) is co-starring with what is apparently a future employee of Amazon.com. The intro is pretty interesting in that it sounds like the beginning of Pink Lady's"UFO". Considering the song's spacey nature, it wouldn't surprise me in the least.
"X-Jigen e Yokoso" came out as Yakushimaru's 7th single in January 2014, and is most likely a track on the official soundtrack album for "Space Dandy", something that my anime buddy has already ordered and is waiting for with great anticipation.
What I hadn't also realized until very recently was that she was also behind the opening theme for the anime, "Mawaru Penguindrum". Now, that was truly a mind-screw of epic proportions.
P.S. I just found out about this fusion between "X-Jigen e Yokoso" and Musiq Soulchild's"Love", and I'm pretty impressed. Put the lights down low, baby!
