Yasuhisa Watanabe -- North Star from "Senko no Rondo" （旋光の輪舞）

During the music session at my anime buddy's house the other day, he decided to throw in a bit of game music and it happened to be a track from some game called "Senko no Rondo" which translates directly as "Polarimetric Round Dance". However, the English version was gratefully re-named "WarTech".

I never played nor even heard of this game but as soon as my buddy played the track "North Star" on those huge airplane wing speakers of his, I sat up and took notice. Yup, I realize that it is background music for a couple of robots shooting the heck out of each other but still it's pretty compelling stuff to listen to on its own. Especially two-thirds of the way into the track when the dramatic dance-pop techno suddenly makes a shift into something that hit me like good ol' City Pop with a computer edge where I was in a car racing down a really cool low-ceiling tunnel before suddenly launching out into a bright and clean futuristic metropolis out of some utopian anime. I wish I could have this track in a sports car the next time I'm in Tokyo. Mind you, I wish I could just drive.

"Senko no Rondo" was released back in 2005 and game music composer Yasuhisa Watanabe（渡部恭久）was responsible for the soundtrack.

Nope, not "Senko no Rondo".
The guys decided to go with "Street Fighter".

Ayumi Hamasaki -- LOVE〜Destiny〜/LOVE〜since 1999〜 (with Tsunku)

Digging through my old CD singles, I came across this Ayumi Hamasaki（浜崎あゆみ）number which represents the only music I actually own by a singer who at one point was pretty much the Queen of J-Pop for a number of years. Perhaps nostalgia for the 90s and early years of the 21st century will get me to buy a few more CDs by her in the near future, but at the time although I knew about her up-and-coming star power, I never really got into her music for the most part.

But I already made that point clear in my only other contribution to Ayumi Hamasaki, "SEASONS", and that was a ballad as is this one. "LOVE〜Destiny〜" was one-half of her 7th single from April 1999. So I gather with the associative property in gear, I probably just like her love songs. Unlike the driving dance-pop that she usually sang, this particular song written by her and composed by the vocalist of Osaka band Sharan-Q/the head honcho for the Hello Project, Tsunku（つんく）, hooked me by the fact that the arrangement sounded a lot like those sappy 80s ballads created by folks like David Foster (I almost expected Rob Lowe to pop in with a saxophone solo in the video) and that Hamasaki sounded and appeared so tender and vulnerable. I remembered that the video got a lot of airplay and seeing the singer looking rather tired in her dressing room certainly showed a different side from the glam.

On the flip side, there is "LOVE〜since 1999〜" which was a more dramatic rendition of the above ballad fit as a theme song for a Japanese movie of intrigue filmed in Europe. Actually, though, it was the theme song for the Fuji-TV drama "Semi-Double" which I barely remember as a show about some affair or affairs exploding among the cast of characters. Although the music remained basically intact, Tsunku put in his own lyrics (and his vocals) for this version. "LOVE〜Destiny〜" was used as the love theme for the show.

Every time I've heard "LOVE〜since 1999〜", my ears have had to adjust to the duet of Hamasaki and Tsunku since the voices didn't quite mesh at the beginning for some reason. Thankfully, they seemed to blend a bit better by the middle of the song.

The single hit No. 1 (her first one) and ended up as the 30th-ranked song for 1999, going Double Platinum selling about 690,000 copies. It also appeared on Hamasaki's first BEST album "A BEST" from March 2001 which hit the top spot and became the 2nd-ranked album for the year. In fact, it is the 6th most successful album in Oricon history.

Ryouta Komatsu & Charlie Kosei -- Kagen no Tsuki (下弦の月)

I've just finished this horror anime titled "Mononoke" (モノノ怪). What drew me to it was the prospect of seeing a lone character, who in this case is only known as the Medicine Seller, exorcising yokai/ayakashi/mononoke with a blade that can only be drawn once this mystery man knows the Form, Truth, and Regret of the entity. With a plot that intriguing and the art style being nothing I've ever seen before in an anime I decided to give it a go. "Different" was the word I saw being used to describe "Mononoke". That person was not wrong. Personally, I'd describe it as colourful, eerie, cryptic, and mind-warping. The thought, "What just happened?" popped into my head several times and I had to go down to the comments section to clear my doubts. However, I also found myself staring at my laptop's screen with eyes wide open and my breath held in anticipation when the intense story arcs unfold and when highly unsettling imagery is shown. I wish there was more than 1 season.

Anyway, throughout the series' 12 episodes the theme song used was "Kagen no Tsuki". With the most of the story arcs and designs being set in the Edo period, I assumed that the opening theme would represent that by sounding traditional - with instruments like the shamisen, taiko, shakuhachi, etc. And it did fool me into believing so during its intro. Though what I first thought was the accordion was being played, there was also the tinkling of some Japanese string instrument - sounds like the koto to me. Then when the name of the anime was shown, that was when the pace jumped in speed and the tango-esque rhythm kicked in with more Bandoneon (something like the Spanish version of the accordion commonly used in tango music) and Spanish/acoustic guitar. Composing this unique score was Ryouta Komatsu (小松亮太), a Bandoneon player. Reading his J-Wiki profile, he's prominent and established in the world of tango music and has collaborated with multiple artistes like the formerly-glamorous Kenji Sawada (沢田研二) and violinist Taro Hakase (葉加瀬太郎).

Singing "Kagen no Tsuki" to Komatsu's melody is Charlie Kosei (チャーリー・コーセイ), who had provided his smooth vocals for the theme songs for many installments of the "Lupin III" series. He delivers "Kagen no Tsuki" in a somewhat laid back manner, though some parts sound quite odd like he's hopping from one word to another.

"Kagen no Tsuki" was released in 2007, which was also when "Mononoke" was released. Despite this tune being seemingly out of place in "Mononoke", I find that it blends quite well with the atmosphere of the anime and sets the tone for it. It's also a little creepy especially when combined with the visuals from the opening sequence.

matome.naver.jp/odai/2009032615505510365

Just some trivia to end things off - voicing the aloof Medicine Seller, whose speech is slow and halting, was Takahiro Sakurai (櫻井孝宏). For those who watch "Shirokuma Cafe" (しろくまカフェ), you'd probably recognize him as the voice of the coffee-serving Shirokuma.

A Refrain: Akina Nakamori 中森明菜 -- Second Love (セカンド・ラブ)

While I was visiting my parents in Toronto Canada last week, J-Canuck and I met over lunch in a Japanese restaurant.  We talked about San Francisco, Japan, Japanese music, Kayo Kyoku Plus, among other things, and I was telling him that from time to time, I got strangers asking me over email to translate this and that Japanese song for them.

Besides contributing to Kayo Kyoku Plus, I have my own blog at blogspot.  I originally conceived it to be a dumping ground for my random essays.  After a while, I changed my mind (after all, I didn't write that many random essays anyway) and wanted it to brand it as my photo blog.  That also got abandoned (why do that when I already have my own photo web site?) and the blog stayed quiet for a long while, until I finally decided to make it a blog for translated Japanese songs that I love.  It would also, albeit indirectly, let me test my Japanese, pick up some vocabulary (in fact, it's amazing how much vocabulary I've been picking up by reading the lyrics), and sort of like a self imposed "Japanese homework" outside my normal routine with my Japanese teacher.

So, I was telling J-Canuck over lunch that a guy emailed me a while ago asking for Akina's Second Love's translation, apparently after he visited my blog.  "It's so timely," J-Canuck promptly replied.  "I just wrote a piece about Second Love.  Feel free to offer your translation if you like," he said.  So, with J-Canuck's encouragement, and in response to the guy who requested it, I'm offering my translation here.  Of course, I'll post them on my blog too.

Before we jump to the translation, let's first talk about the story in the song.

Second Love is about a young girl who failed at her first love, and is on the cusp of falling in love again, thus the name Second Love.  Reflecting on her failed experience, she had some expectations in terms of adjustments she'd make in her second love.  Unfortunately, the boy that she loves, either due to lack of courage, or maybe lack of interest (who could possibly resist a 17 year old Akina?), do not show any response.  The young girl is therefore confused and feels painful at not knowing whether he likes her or not.

An ex-girlfriend of mine once told me that she feels more exciting in the period leading to a relationship, rather than during the relationship itself.  It's not even comparable to the first few months of a new relationship, which is usually considered to be "honeymoon period."  She told me that it's the guessing and flirting game that makes that "transitory period" ever so exciting.  Of course, the prerequisite is she's interested in the guy in the first place.  During that period, she would analyze every single word and every single little gesture made by her date, and would offer corresponding hints and gestures in response.  Sometimes, the guy didn't get it, and she'd be confused (frustrated?) as to whether he showed real interest.  When the guy responded, she would pretend that it's nothing and keep him guessing.

Excitement aside, it's the same emotional roller coaster that this young girl in Second Love is going through.  She's given him hints but he didn't respond.  She loves him so much that it made her more confused and painful.  When I read the lyrics, there's one part I couldn't figure out.  There 2 gestures made by the young girl: (1) picking the boy's sweater's cuff (2) fixing her bangs.  Despite not having any personal experience with the 1st one (all my ex-girlfriends found that too aggressive, I guess), I would say it is a definite gesture.  However, I wonder if (2) is any indication that the girl likes the guy.  I did a search on the Internet a bit and it looks like multiple dating advice sites say that it is indeed a gesture made by a girl when she likes the guy.  Okay, I'll let the experts out there comment further :)

Oh, one more thing that I almost forgot to mention.

Second Love was covered by Hong Kong singer Sara Lee (李麗蕊) in 1985.  Sara debuted at a very young age (when she's still in secondary school) and she's only 18 when she covered it.  The title of the song is 蛻變, or Reborn, in English.  For those interested, here's Sara Lee's version on YouTube.  I came to know about this around 5-6 years ago and I was pleasantly surprised at that time.  For a lot of Hong Kong people, Sara Lee is a forgotten name because she never had a hit, let alone coming to fame.  But I remembered her well because she introduced me to Air Supply during her radio show (She proclaimed herself to be a fanatic Air Supply fan).  I was still in secondary school at that time, sigh!

Here's the Japanese lyrics, taken from this site:

セカンド・ラブ

恋も二度目なら 少しは上手に
愛のメッセージ 伝えたい
あなたのセーター 袖口つまんで
うつむくだけなんて
帰りたくない そばにいたいの
そのひとことが言えない

抱きあげて つれてって 時間ごと
どこかへ運んでほしい
せつなさのスピードは 高まって
とまどうばかりの私

恋も二度目なら 少しは器用に
甘いささやきに 応えたい
前髪を少し 直すふりをして
うつむくだけなんて
舗道にのびた あなたの影を
動かぬように止めたい

抱きあげて 時間ごと からだごと
私をさらってほしい
せつなさがクロスする さよならに
追いかけられるのイヤよ

抱きあげて つれてって 時間ごと
どこかへ運んでほしい
せつなさはモノローグ 胸の中
とまどうばかりの私

And here's my English translation.  Japanese lyrics are famous for its ambiguity and room for imagination.  I'm only providing my own interpretation.  If you have other interpretations, feel free to let me know.

The second time I fall in love
I’d like to be a bit better at hinting my love to him
I pick your sweater's cuff while walking together
But you just keep your head down...
Don’t wanna return home; just wanna be by your side
I am unable to say that in front of you

Hold me tight, and take me with you, and time
Towards somewhere afar
My pain is growing fast when I’m not seeing you
I’m totally confused now

The second time I fall in love
I’d like to be a bit better at responding to his chatters of love
I pretend to fix my bangs a little bit
But you just keep your head down...
Your extending shadow over the pavement
I wish I could freeze it by stopping time

Hold me tight, with time, with my body
Please sweep me away with you
The pain that crosses me when we bid each other goodbye
I hate being chased by such feeling

Hold me tight, and take me with you, and time
Towards somewhere afar
The pain in my heart is playing its monologue
I’m totally confused now

========================================

Enjoy!  And by the way, someone once copied my translated lyrics of a Koji Tamaki song and posted it on YouTube without citing me as the source.  I don't mind having this part of my work spread all over the Internet, just remember to quote the source rather than passing it as your own work!

Akina's 1989 album: Cruise (released 2 weeks after her attempted suicide)

Mariko Takahashi -- Namida Moroi Peggy （涙もろいペギー）

Time for some cross-pollination of my pop cultural sensitivities here. Along with my love for good old Japanese kayo and this blog, I've been keeping up my interest in superheroes as they have been extended from the comic books and onto the big & small screens. I'm a dedicated fan of "Gotham", "The Flash" and "Agents of SHIELD" while not really getting into "Arrow" or "Supergirl". My jury is still out on "DC's Legends of Tomorrow". However, along with myself, I think the fandom has been rooting big time for "Agent Carter" starring Hayley Atwell as super agent Margaret "Peggy" Carter, future head of SHIELD and former potential paramour of Captain America. I think alongside Clark Gregg's Director Phil Coulson, Atwell's Carter character has been the breakthrough role in the massive Marvel Cinematic Universe.

So when I hear an old song from "Sounds of Japan" by songbird Mariko Takahashi（高橋真梨子）, there was an instant link between it and some of the more wistful scenes between Steve Rogers and Peggy Carter just like in the very top video.

Takahashi's "Namida Moroi Peggy" (Weeping Peggy) is a sweet ballad which is arranged like a slow country waltz that first arose in her 7th solo album from November 1982, "After Hours". As I've mentioned before, Takahashi was one of the first singers to alert my ears to the fact that Japanese music had expanded into areas beyond teenybopper aidoru and traditional enka. Although at the time, I had yet to realize the Japanese significance of the term "new music", Takahashi had once again opened things up to me with this song which sounded like a tune that had come out of a 1950s radio show from the southeastern United States. And yet it was an original Japanese ballad created by Chinfa Kan and Kingo Hamada（康珍化・濱田金吾）. The lyrics by Kan are straightforward: goodbye to dear Peggy which is why I've started to remember the sad scene of a horrified and heartbroken Peggy Carter realizing that the love of her life was about to crash into the ice in the very first "Captain America".

(karaoke version)

To be honest...at times, I've felt that there was a certain guilty pleasure sappiness to "Namida Moroi Peggy" especially when it came to the perhaps overwrought lyrics of "Goodbye, goodbye, Peggy" when they were wrung out like tears from a handkerchief by Takahashi. But as all of the active collaborators of "Kayo Kyoku Plus" once agreed during a comment spree for one recent song, a nice song is a nice song. And this particular contribution by Takahashi still comes down as one of her more memorable entries in her discography. Just imagine: a country ballad of heartache originating in the nation of onsen, sumo and sushi.

And here's hoping for a 3rd season of "Agent Carter".

Yasuyuki Okamura -- Kahlua Milk （カルアミルク）

https://www.flickr.com/photos/chewychua/100117586

When I first heard Yasuyuki Okamura's（岡村靖幸）old single "Kahlua Milk", I was pretty astounded at how similar his lyrics sounded like my life back when the song was first released in December 1990. Not that a "Big Bang Theory"-friendly geek like me was carousing with girls at all back at that time. However, I was hanging out with my buddies from university almost every weekend at Kuri or at some disco in Toronto well into the wee hours just as Okamura was describing in his song.

Also, I was drinking down my fair share of Kahlua Milk during those days. Now in North America, the cocktail was known as a Brown Cow, and was frankly a ridiculously easy thing to make for the average mixologist: just pour some Kahlua Coffee Liqueur into a tumbler and top up with cream or milk. Like Okamura, both he and I gradually became able to drink somewhat harder fare (for him, a bourbon & soda; for me, just plain beer), but frankly the both of us preferred our sweet and milky Kahlua Milk. In fact, after a time, as soon as I walked into Kuri on a Friday or Saturday night in the late 1980s, the bartender knew to mix up my regular drink.

As for "Kahlua Milk", this was funky Okamura's 14th single. He took care of music and lyrics here and they seem to go into a form of redemption of sorts as he sings to his ex-girlfriend about trying to patch things up after a few years of debauchery with the buddies in downtown Tokyo. He's gotten all that stuff out of his system and wants to at least make another go at a more permanent relationship. There's something quite reminiscent of 80s pop balladry about it and to amp up the nostalgia factor, he's included words such as "famicom" (family computer), "disco" and "rental video" into his lyrics. Of course for me, there is the titular drink as well.

The song managed to peak at No. 61 on Oricon and was a track on his 4th album "Katei Kyoshi"（家庭教師...Home Tutor）from November 1990 which broke into the Top 10 at No. 7.

I don't go out nowhere near as often as I once did. When I do, I sometimes ask for a Brown Cow at the restaurant but I've often gotten blank stares from the waiters. Only the bartender at the Duke of York knew exactly what I wanted without blinking. Sometimes I wonder if ordering a Kahlua Milk is the equivalent of asking for a steak well-done from a prize-winning chef.

Michiya Mihashi -- O-Saraba Tokyo （おさらば東京）

The theme for the most recent episode of NHK's "Kayo Concert"（歌謡コンサート）was heading out for the countryside. And when it comes to those kayo, the oft-used theme for them is trying to run away or refresh oneself after a romantic breakup. So I heard a lot of sung stories about sudden loneliness and/or getting back on that horse emotionally.

Strangely enough, a few days before the broadcast, I put on an old 33.3 rpm record of Michiya Mihashi（三橋美智也）unabashedly titled "Michiya Hit Album No. 1" with a young sly and slimmer enka singer looking out at me. The first track was his 1957 hit "O-Saraba Tokyo". Now I know the meaning of saraba which is "farewell" but with the honourific "O" in front of it, I could only translate the title as "Fond Farewell, Tokyo". Quite the grand exit from the Big Sushi.

And like those songs I heard on Tuesday night on "Kayo Concert", the lyrics by Hiroshi Yokoi（横井弘）relate a poor fellow so broken up by a now-deceased relationship that he feels the need to leave Tokyo. There's not so much a mention about getting out to the hometown or to a more rural landscape to take a deep fresh breath; it's just trying to flee the metropolis. "O-Saraba Tokyo" is another one of those enka-Mood Kayo hybrids. Tadaharu Nakano's（中野忠晴）music has that languid country-style lilt to it which would peg it as an enka for outside the big city but with those rich horns in there as well, I could imagine it being sung by Mihashi in a Ginza nightclub.

The ballad definitely hit a nerve among the fans since it did get Mihashi his 3rd gig on the 9th Kohaku Utagassen at the end of 1958, and according to J-Wiki, Radio Tokyo's "Ninki Tokyo Mutsu no Uta"（人気東京六つの歌...The 6 Popular Songs of Tokyo） music program had "O-Saraba Tokyo" at No. 1 on its own chart for 50 straight weeks! It might as well have been the official theme song for the show.

Above is a cover of the old chestnut by another enka darling Kouhei Fukuda（福田こうへい）whose version is straight enka.

Yup, I can imagine Mihashi's teeth would be gleaming.