the brilliant green -- Hello Another Way ~ Sorezore no Basho（それぞれの場所）

 

Well, it's March 17th which means that it's St. Patrick's Day today, and the happy news is that for the first time in two years, there will be a parade touting the Irish holiday in Toronto this Sunday. Hopefully, the COVID cases will either be kept somewhat lower or at least they won't be serious ones but we'll have to see. Anyways, the above video of the 2019 parade comes from the YouTube channel for the The Toronto Sun newspaper.

As such, I was thinking about what to do to provide an admittedly tenuous connection between Japanese popular music and St. Patrick's Day. Was there anything like green kayo out there? What I could track down was a brilliant green song, and I hadn't brought one of their hits onto the blog in several years.

"Hello Another Way ~ Sorezore no Basho" (Each Place) was the band's 10th single from May 2000, and hearing it again after so long, I was reminded that it had a lot of heavy rotation on that NTV Saturday night celebrity karaoke show, "The Yoru mo Hippare"（The 夜もヒッパレ）. It was good to make its acquaintance once more especially because that distinctive buriguri sound is sounding rather nostalgic to me nowadays.

With lyrics by vocalist Tomoko Kawase（川瀬智子）and melody by bassist Shunsaku Okuda（奥田俊作）, watching the music video above and seeing the translation of those words on "Anime Lyrics dot com", I had the impression that "Hello Another Way" was the ideal theme song for an isekai anime, but actually the only tie-up it had was with Japan Air Lines for their Hokkaido campaign that year. Still, it does have that feeling of traveling to a new world so it did fit well with JAL.

"Hello Another Way" hit No. 8 on Oricon and was placed as a track on the brilliant green's 3rd album "Los Angeles" released in January 2001. It hit No. 2 on the album charts. Anyways, for those hitting the pub tonight or this weekend, enjoy St. Patrick's!

SAYAKA -- ever since

 

Back at my computer after lunch, I was checking email and other SNS feeds as I usually do, when I saw a tweet from fellow KKP contributor Joana Bernardo and it was extremely shocking and saddening. I found out that actress and singer-songwriter Sayaka Kanda（神田沙也加）, the daughter of 80s aidoru and actress Seiko Matsuda（松田聖子）and actor Masaki Kanda（神田正輝）had suddenly passed away at the age of 35 yesterday. I got confirmation from Kanda's J-Wiki article and then saw a number of tweets and YouTube videos addressing the tragedy.

From what I could translate from the Japanese sports newspaper "Sports Hochi"（スポーツ報知）, Kanda had apparently fallen from one of the top floors in a Sapporo hotel at around noon on December 18th, Japan time, and despite being taken to hospital, her death was confirmed soon after. The cause has yet to be officially given although suicide hasn't been ruled out. She had been scheduled to perform in the stage musical version of "My Fair Lady" that day in the main role of Eliza Doolittle.

Joana was actually the first contributor on the blog to bring in Kanda through her "The First" article which was also her first article for "Kayo Kyoku Plus", and in that article, she noted her work as the vocalist for the band TRUSTRICK.

Kanda was involved in a number of projects including singing for TRUSTRICK, doing cover tunes of Vocaloid songs and voice work as a seiyuu. However, today I wanted to present her debut single from all the way back in May 2002 when she was just 15 years old and had gone with the stage name of that time, SAYAKA. "ever since" was written by the singer and composed/arranged by the brilliant green associates Shunsaku Okuda（奥田俊作）and Motoki Matsuoka（松岡モトキ）respectively. Not surprisingly, "ever since" does sound like an epic and hopeful BuriGuri tune and that main refrain sparked my memories in familiarity since I used to see the music video on the countdown shows and music video programs back in Japan.

"ever since" was also the theme song for the Fuji-TV drama "Big Money!"（ビッグマネー！）which was broadcast in 2002. The song also did very well as a single on the Oricon charts, peaking at No. 5. It would also eventually get onto SAYAKA's first original album "Doll" from February 2005 which got as high as No. 47.

My condolences to her family, friends and fans.

the brilliant green -- Tsumetai Hana （冷たい花）

I didn't follow the brilliant green too closely as a fan but along with their breakthrough hit, "There Will Be Love There" from May 1998, I did like the single that immediately followed it, "Tsumetai Hana" (Cold Flowers) which came out a few months later in August.

To be honest, I had forgotten the title but I still remember the melody created by bassist Shunsaku Okuda（奥田俊作）which had that deeper growl in the guitars. Vocalist Tomoko Kawase（川瀬智子）wrote the lyrics about gradually getting out of a bad time with renewed quiet strength, and the combination of her vocals and those guitars has given me that nostalgic sense of J-Pop back in the 90s. Of course, I know that there was the Komuro Boom of dance pop and the return of a more disco-ey and glamourous aidoru during that decade but there was also that musical breather in the form of guitar-based bands like the brilliant green. Songs like "Tsumetai Hana" would be stuff that I would love to hear at home on a rainy day. Strangely enough, I think the leaves tend to pop into a brilliant green after a good rain.

"Tsumetai Hana" was BuriGuri's 4th single which hit the top spot on Oricon and later became the 62nd-ranked song of the year.

the brilliant green -- There Will Be Love There

I wanted to track down the original music video for the brilliant green's breakthrough hit, "There Will Be Love There" since the image of the band singing on top of that nighttime swimming pool will always be the enduring one for me. And the song itself will always be the one that I associate the band with.

When I first heard "There Will Be Love There", my first impression was that there was something new and yet nostalgic about Tomoko Kawase's（川瀬智子）vocals. Words like "indie" came into my head since I think at the time (memory's a bit fuzzy) there was a transition of sorts from the dance-oriented music of Tetsuya Komuro（小室哲哉）to the J-R&B offered by units like m-flo along with the rising star of the aidoru groups such as SMAP and Morning Musume. BuriGuri (their nickname) just sounded different from all that, but I soon felt that there was also some association of their sound with bands like Mr. Children and Spitz. When I read that the group based a lot of their music on The Beatles, a light did go off....especially when I re-heard those guitars.

"There Will Be Love There" was first released in May 1998 as the brilliant green's 3rd single, and the song was also the theme for the TBS drama "Love Again". The show didn't particularly wow too many viewers but "There Will Be Love There" did very well as it debuted at No. 14 in its first week and then went all the way up to No. 1 by the end of its first month of release. Kawase was responsible for the lyrics while bassist Shunsaku Okuda（奥田俊作）took care of the music. By the end of the year, the song was ranked No. 22 on the annual charts.

the brilliant green was formed back in 1995 when Okuda and his classmate at Murasakino High School in Kyoto, guitarist Ryo Matsui（松井亮）, discovered Kawase singing at a live house. A couple of years later, the band would make its major debut with "Bye Bye Mr. Mug", a single that had entirely English lyrics. That song peaked at No. 69. 20 singles in total have been released up to 2010 along with 5 albums although the brilliant green went on a hiatus from 2002 to 2007 (mind you, Kawase was still humming along with her solo projects Tommy february 6 and Tommy heavenly 6 at the time).

Kawase and Okuda eventually got married and Matsui later left the group in 2010. As for the guys' alma mater, Murasakino High has had quite the few celeb grads over the years including Shibuya-kei master Fantastic Plastic Machine and a number of announcers on TV and radio.