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.
Showing posts with label Yuuichi Nakamura. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Yuuichi Nakamura. Show all posts
Some of the funnier scenes during the yearlong run of "Shirokuma Cafe" (しろくまカフェ) in 2012-2013 involved Grizzly, Shirokuma's bestie (or should I say beastie), since he easily became flustered or frustrated with the antics of his old friend and some of the other patrons at the Shirokuma Cafe. I'm not sure if it had also been the case in the original manga but in the anime, Grizzly started out as a recurring role but near the end of the series, it seems as if he got promoted to co-star. All the better for all of us.
Yuuichi Nakamura（中村悠一）was the one who played the gruff (but with a heart of gold) bruin owner of his own bar, and since getting to know the seiyuu for the first time from that role, I've seen him play the romantically clueless Nozaki-kun in "Gekkan Shojo Nozaki-kun"（月刊少女野崎くん）in 2014, the sullen Hazuki from "Natsuyuki Rendezvous"（夏雪ランデブー）which aired in the same year as "Shirokuma Cafe", and currently the kindly widowed father in the foodie fave "Amaama to Inazuma"（甘々と稲妻）during this summer. However, he never got to sing any of the theme songs for those anime although I do have him represented on the blog as one of the Matsuno sextuplets singing the earworm "Six Same Faces" for "Osomatsu-san"（おそ松さん）.
However, Nakamura got his time behind the recording mike at the end of a few episodes of "Shirokuma Cafe" in character as Grizzly with "Grizzly-san no G☆ROCK"(Grizzly's G☆ROCK) which was written and composed (as all of the ending themes have been) by Saki（紗希）. Grizzly has always been the passionate buddy in the group with his hair-trigger temper and his cries of "Enjo, enjo!"（炎上、炎上！...Burn it up, burn it up!）, and he brings a lot of that energy to his own ending theme which was the second in the series. It's done like an old 50s or 60s rock n' roll tune that any of those old pompadour-sporting and hip-twisting teens in Harajuku of the late 70s and early 80s would have gyrated to. I'm not sure if his pride would allow it but Grizzly could set up his own sock hop at BAR THE GRIZZLY. Speaking of which, Grizzly even has his own instrumental theme as heard below...perfect with that glass of I.W. Harper.
First, a bit of background. The fellow you see in the video is Iyami (イヤミ), one of the characters from the famous "Osomatsu-kun"（おそ松くん）which started out as a manga by Fujio Akatsuka（赤塚不二夫）in 1962 before becoming an anime in 1966. Iyami has become legendary since he came up with what has become the all-round international anime gesture for shock: standing on one foot while making an angular shape with his body and arms before screeching "SHEEH!" It became a meme even before memes officially existed and it has since jumped into the 3D world. I've seen comedians use it all the time on TV and even Godzilla used it once in one of his movies....at the cost of several buildings and probably several hundred more lives.
And yet, Iyami was supposed to be just one of the silly supporting characters for the main sextuplet of ne'er-do-wells (known as NEETs in Japan) on "Osomatsu-kun". That one gesture probably upended the hierarchy. I never saw any of the anime variations of the franchise but even I knew "SHEEH!" and the gesture.
To continue on, after I did the article on the opening and ending themes of the anime "Kono Bijutsu-bu ni wa Mondai ga aru"（この美術部には問題がある！）yesterday, I innocently decided to check out whether the three fellows of TECHNOBOYS PULCRAFT GREEN-FUND had ever done stuff outside of the anison realm. And I think I came across at least one of their more ambient efforts on YouTube, but then after, I came across the above video featuring the song "Same Six Faces ~ Konya wa Saiko!!!!!!" (Tonight's The Best!!!!!!). What happened afterwards was the equivalent of a spider (the song) snagging a juicy fly (namely, me) for dinner. Dang, welcome back to the disco 80s! I was ready to order a mirror ball from Amazon after listening to this...2 or 3 times in succession.
Yup, the Technoboys came up with another earworm late last year, and this time, I didn't hear too many of those syn-drums that have become a sign of their work on their another anime. "Same Six Faces" turned out to be the ending theme for the sequel series for "Osomatsu-kun", "Osomatsu-san"（おそ松さん）, which came out in October 2015 before finishing its run at the end of March 2016. The original series had the Brothers Matsuno as these six scallywag kids but this new series had them as grownups but still not too mature.
I never got to see the series and reading and watching some of the clips, I have a feeling that "Osomatsu-san" is not really my anime buddy's type of show despite the mostly nutso humour involved. But man, is that ending theme catchy! "Same Six Faces" as it was used in the ending credits had the actual voice cast bantering and singing over the Technoboys' delivery with the seiyuu for Iyami, Kenichi Suzumura（鈴村健一）, leading the way (complete with the background chorus coolly crooning the "SHEEH!"). As for the Brothers Matsuno themselves, I was surprised in that it looks like the entire cast of "Shirokuma Cafe"（しろくまカフェ）decided to re-unite to voice the characters. Takahiro Sakurai（櫻井孝宏）, Jun Fukuyama（福山潤）, Hiroshi Kamiya（神谷浩史）, Daisuke Ono（小野大輔）, Yuuichi Nakamura（中村悠一）and Miyu Irino（入野自由）go all in.
Released in December 2015, the single went Gold and it went as high as No. 3 on Oricon. Now I feel like grabbing one of my old 80s compilation CDs and searching for S-Express again!
Ah, before I finish off...the current lineup of Technoboys is Tomohisa Ishikawa, Tohru Fujimura and Yohei Matsui（石川智久・フジムラトヲル・松井洋平）.
