Marlene -- Seishun Carnival （青春カーニバル）

That was quite the game, wasn't it? Pundits have been saying over the past few days that the final game of the 2016 Major League Baseball season will go down as one of the best Game 7s ever played. I will one up that opinion and say it may be one of the best games, period. As much as it was a pity that the Blue Jays didn't make it past the ALCS, I was rooting for the Chicago Cubs since they needed to get that 108-year-old albatross off their necks. And they did it!

So I was thinking of some baseball-themed kayo that would have been appropriate for the situation. However, I had already taken care of yakyuu songs such as the anison "Touch" and even "Rokko Oroshi"（六甲おろし）, the theme song for the lovable losers of Osaka, the Hanshin Tigers. But try as I might, I couldn't find anything out there.

However last night out of the blue (& white...Cubs' colours), I came across the above video on YouTube. It turned out to be the Japanese theme song for the brief American sitcom version of "The Bad News Bears" (more ursine coincidence). The custom, I think, still continues today where J-Pop tunes are created specifically as promotion songs for imported foreign TV shows (heck, I think there was even one for "Space 1999").

Anyways, I remember watching the original movie from the mid-1970s with Walter Matthau as the suffering manager and Tatum O'Neal as the fireballing pitcher. There was even a sequel "The Bad News Bears Go To Japan", before the TV version came on via NTV with veteran actor Jack Weston in the Matthau role. I'd forgotten when the series aired but according to Wikipedia, it was 1979-1980. Apparently, that TV version did make it over to Japan but instead of the familiar strains of Bizet's "Carmen" greeting viewers there, it was a jaunty country music pop song that framed the opening credits.

Marlene Pena Lim is a jazz singer based in Japan who I first found out about when one of her disco songs got onto a compilation tape of 80s Japanese music that I got at Wah Yueh in Chinatown back in my university days. Going by her nom de guerre Marlene by that point, that particular song was called "Magic".

Born in Manila, The Philippines in 1960, she made her professional debut as a singer in 1975 at the age of 15 and made her way to Japan in 1979. Her debut single under the name of Marilyn (and that was the case for her next 3 singles) was "Seishun Carnival" (Carnival of Youth), a happy-go-lucky ditty about trying one's best and not giving up the fight while making a very short shoutout to the Bears. It sounded all very "ABC's After School Special". Nobuko Tanaka（田中のぶ子）wrote the lyrics while Yuuichiro Oda（小田裕一郎）came up with the hay wagon ride of a melody. While "Seishun Carnival" covered the A-side of the single, the B-side had an arranged version of "Carmen".

Finding this song was providence. Imagine writing about a song for a group of a fictional baseball team of lovable losers in tribute to a real baseball team of (now former) lovable losers. And I've always enjoyed finding the obscure and interesting Japanese kayo as much as I've savored writing about the hits.

Bill Murray has been one of my favourite comedic actors ever since "Caddyshack" and right through "Ghostbusters" to "Groundhog Day". I've known him for his deadpan sense of humour and sometimes downright dour demeanor. So it was well worth repeatedly watching his truly joyous reaction when the Cubs finally won.

Sharam Q -- Iiwake (いいわけ)

Of the few Sharam Q (シャ乱Q) songs that I do like, "Iiwake" (Excuses) is not at the top of the list, to be honest. The somewhat jazzy "Zurui Onna" (ズルイ女) is my favourite. However, "Iiwake" is memorable for its intro which builds up with a dreaded air of uncertainty before things explode in a crash of instruments and lead singer Tsunku (つんく) goes into his lyrics (he also composed the music) of spouting off various excuses for not getting into a normal healthy relationship.

Plus, there was that appearance of Sharam Q at the Kohaku Utagassen (I'm assuming that it is the 1996 show). The familiar buildup for "Iiwake" began when the square of the stage floor opened up and out flew Tsunku to immediately dive into the song. That stunt probably got everyone's eyes open. I was just astounded that he didn't end up breaking his neck or falling back down into the basement. The moaning that he does in his performance would have been for real.

"Iiwake" is the band's 10th single from April 1996 which peaked at No. 3 and became a million-selling hit, earning a Best Record prize at the Japan Record Awards. It ended the year as the 21st-ranking single. The song was also used as the theme for a Fuji-TV drama about the consequences of infidelity called "Age,35 Koishikute" (Age 35 恋しくて....I Miss You). As I remember, the show got a lot of press and exposure, not surprising since the original manga was created by Fumi Saimon（柴門ふみ）, the author of "Tokyo Love Story" which became one of the big dramas (if not the biggest) for 1991.

Never saw a single episode but I am quite impressed with that opening credits sequence with Sharam Q actually performing "Iiwake" in front of the camera while the main actors are sitting pensively and separately at their tables. Pretty much sets the tone for the drama to come over the next several weeks.

Circus -- Toki yo Yuruyaka ni/Ai no Cantata （時よゆるやかに・愛のカンタータ）

Going back to the beginning here with this story, but this happens during that July 1981 Toronto Japanese Language School graduation trip. There was the 5-day tour of Tokyo along with stopovers in Nagoya and Kyoto, and then there was the 3-day homestay with the high school girls of Tezukayama in Nara. This included a day-long trip with us three guys and our respective hosts through Nara and Osaka.

I'm not sure what prompted the decision but all 6 of us ended up catching an anime motion picture two-thirds of the way into the movie! Can't even remember how the staffer even let us in but it was the movie whose trailer you can see above here. It was titled "Syrius no Densetsu"（シリウスの伝説...The Legend of Syrius）, and for those folks who think this may have been a riff off of Walt Disney's version of "The Little Mermaid", the former film was actually released a day or two before we saw it in that month of July...almost a decade before Disney's first big success story with animated musicals began.

As I said, we entered the theatre with only less than half an hour left but it was pretty easy to figure out the story. It was all very Romeo & Juliet with the star-crossed lovers of Syrius The Sea Prince and Malta The Fire Child (I heard when they got together, it all got really steamy....ach, made myself laugh). As I remember it and as you can see from above, there was something quite Disney and Nelvana (a Canadian animation company) about it. Of course, once the movie was over, the girls were dabbing tears while we guys suddenly had "allergy attacks". And then we went for parfaits at a cafe nearby.

(Sorry but I could only find the instrumental version.)

The predictable story aside, what impressed me about "Syrius no Densetsu" was the music which was created by Koichi Sugiyama (すぎやまこういち), the man behind some of the most famous kayo chestnuts such as Garo's "Gakusei Gai no Kissaten"（学生街の喫茶店）and "Koi no Fuuga"（恋のフーガ）by The Peanuts way back when. The soundtrack was all very orchestral and epic as if Sugiyama had wanted to compose something for the most ambitious ballet musical.

With support by the NHK Symphony Orchestra and the pop vocal group Circus（サーカス）, Sugiyama and veteran lyricist Michio Yamagami（山上路夫）created the theme song and the insert song for the movie, "Toki yo Yuruyaka ni" (Slow Down, Time) and "Ai no Cantata" (Love Cantata) respectively.

"Toki yo Yuruyaka ni" as the main theme is a proud but wistful anthem about lovers blocking all sight and sound and stopping time just to see each other. Meanwhile, "Ai no Cantata" (the song is in the video immediately above) is a gently rolling romantic number that accompanies Syrius and Malta during the happier period of their courtship. Both are sung wonderfully by Circus and at the time I had no idea about this group. A couple of years later, I would get to know their most famous hit from 1978, "Mr. Summertime" from "Sounds of Japan".

I gotta say that some of those orchestral treatments of anime flicks back in the 1980s were just tremendous and yet they could also be distinguished from those John Williams scores from around the same time.

Later on, one of the other guys told me that "Syrius no Densetsu" didn't particularly get any great reviews from the critics. Well, so be it. It still provided one of my good memories from the trip to Japan.

Rie Miyazawa -- NO TITLIST

As I said in Rie Miyazawa's（宮沢りえ）only other entry on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" (to date), the IT girl of the time didn't exactly inspire with her vocals. But she was poppy and sprightly enough to pull it off. However, there was that one time she appeared on the 1990 Kohaku Utagassen to sing a cover of David Bowie's "Game" from a bathtub which had my jaw dropping to the floor...and not in any good way. My relatives and I simply looked at each other and wondered whose bright idea it was for Miyazawa to assault the work of Ziggy Stardust like that. And then we asked each other to pass the mikan.

Y'know...it would have been somewhat better if the NHK producers for the Kohaku had simply asked Miyazawa to perform her 2nd single from February 1990, "NO TITLIST" (which still gets a few chuckles from me whenever I read it). At least, hearing the IT girl sing that one would have been more bearable.

Created by the same duo, Tetsuya Komuro and Masumi Kawamura（小室哲哉・川村真澄）, behind her hit first single "Dream Rush" which had come out half a year before, "NO TITLIST" has a melody that seems to evoke a call to action or at least a call to recognize the new current generation of the 1990s as one that shouldn't need a title. Everyone is their own person...no need for that generational identifier. I'm not sure if her anthem was heeded by the sociologists but with Komuro being Komuro, I could hear a bit of Misato Watanabe（渡辺美里）and even the future TRF in the music.

"NO TITLIST" hit the top of the charts and finished 1990 as the 45th-ranked single. It was also a track in Miyazawa's 3rd album, "Game", and was even used as the theme song for one of her teen dramas "Itsumo Dareka ni Koishiteiru"（いつも誰かに恋してるッ...Always In Love With Someone）.

Aw, heck. Let's finish this off with another round of Rie-chan commercials!

Maison book girl -- lost AGE

The photo above is of a local free magazine specializing in Japanese restaurants in the Greater Toronto Area called "Bento Box". Even 5 years ago when I got back to my hometown after my life in Japan, I couldn't have imagined that there would be so many ramen restaurants, izakaya and J-restaurants that would have generated the industry's own free magazine. Now, it's become a regular pick-up for my place.

"Bento Box" also has pages devoted to various aspects of Japanese culture and on its last page last issue, there was an article on some of the more eclectic acts that have come to visit various cities in Canada. And that would include the subject of this article, the aidoru group Maison book girl which actually had a gig in Toronto last month.

Formed in 2014, musician-songwriter Kenta Sakurai (サクライケンタ) decided to form this new group around one of the members (Megumi Koshoji/コショージメグミ) of the aidoru group BiS which had initially broken up in the same year (until apparently starting up again this year). Three other women, Aoi Yagawa（矢川葵）, Yui Inoue（井上唯）and Rin Wada（和田輪）joined up to complete Maison book girl.

The J-Wiki article for the group stated that the songs were filtered through a merger of contemporary pop and aidoru music. I've only listened to a few of their songs so far including "lost AGE", and I would say that according to that particular song, Sakurai has created an aidoru group that is anti-aidoru. Not that I'm trying to say that Maison book girl is going out of its way to lambaste the current alphabet groups like AKB48 but there is none of the smiling Disney cuteness and jingle-jangle Yasushi Akimoto（秋元康）songs. Plus the choreography seems to be a mix of interpretive dance and something a high school club concocted...it's refreshingly stodgy. Heck, even the video itself is embracing some very un-aidoru-like pallid colours and darkness.

Sakurai wrote and composed "lost AGE" as a track for Maison book girl's first EP, "summer continue" which was released earlier this year at the end of March 2016. The title and the lyrics hint at a schoolgirl going through a rough patch in her life and perhaps becoming a hikikomori, withdrawn and sullen inside the private dimension delineated by her room. The romanized lyrics and their English translation can be found at the website "renai junkie".

Looking at the YouTube comments, "lost AGE" has been polarizing...some loving it, some wanting to throw a rock at it. To be honest, "summer continue" will probably not be on my Xmas shopping list but then again, neither will any of AKB48's discs for the foreseeable future. Still, Maison book girl strikes me as being an interesting creation in a beatnik sort of way...about as indie as an aidoru group can be, I suppose.

Simons -- Koibito mo Inai noni （恋人もいないのに）

I guess my mellow mood continues since I've got another 70s folk song involving a female duo following my article on Betsy & Chris.

Simons (シモンズ) was a folk duo who had their heyday between 1971 and 1974. As both Yumi Tanaka（田中ユミ）and Tae Tamai（玉井タエ）came from Osaka, their music was deemed a part of the Kansai Folk sub-genre. The high school classmates held concerts covering the songs performed by the aforementioned Betsy & Chris after which they passed an audition held by the radio program "Young Town". Following their graduation from high school, the two went to Tokyo and were signed up by RCA Records.

In August 1971, they debuted with "Koibito mo Inai noni" (Even Though She Doesn't Have a Boyfriend), a song that starts off with that jaunty acoustic guitar but starts to finish with a fairly urban flourish of horns and percussion. However, Tanaka and Tamai kept up that cheerful and crystalline harmony that was reminiscent of the rolling countryside.

Written by Takeshi Ochiai（落合武司）and composed by Takashi Nishioka（西岡たかし）, the lyrics had the singers wondering where that girl was going with a bouquet of flowers. Apparently, although the love was gone, the lass was intent on frittering away those petals to officially signify the end of the romance. Although "Koibito mo Inai noni" peaked at No. 21, the single managed to sell over 600,000 records, and was the most successful of Simons' 12 singles. The duo also released 4 original albums.

Simons had been scheduled to sing what would become the kayo folk standard, "Ano Subarashii Ai wo Mou Ichido"（あの素晴らしい愛をもう一度）as their debut, but only for the creators of the song, Kazuhiko Kato and Osamu Kitayama（加藤和彦・北山修）, to sing it by themselves, so the female duo went with "Koibito mo Inai noni". And even though that former song has become the more famous of the two, Simons did win Best Newcomer honours at the Japan Record Awards that year.

As for the derivation of their duo name, both Tanaka and Tamai are big fans of Paul Simon.

Betsy & Chris/W -- Shiroi Iro wa Koibito no Iro （白い色は恋人の色）

Into November we are. A good chunk of those maple leaves have fallen as well as the temperatures although we are quite a bit above seasonal with a high of 17 degrees C today. Considering that things are feeling nicely autumnal, perhaps something mellow would be nice to start the November 2016 edition of "Kayo Kyoku Plus".

Some late 60s/70s folk sounds about right. So, here are Betsy & Chris (ベッツィ&クリス) with their debut single "Shiroi Iro wa Koibito no Iro" (White is the Colour of Lovers). As much as the fact that American-born singers like Hikaru Utada（宇多田ひかる）and Jero (ジェロ) have made their mark in Japan applies, they aren't the first folks from the USA to do so. I don't know who the first American was to have a hit original song in Japan but in 1969, a couple of members from the Sounds of Young Hawaii were scouted out when they came to the country on tour and were given the opportunity to release a song as a duo.

Betsy & Chris are Elizabeth Virginia Wagner from Hawaii and Christine Anne Rolseth from Idaho who were born within a few months of each other in 1952. Their "Shiroi Iro wa Koibito no Iro" was written and composed by two members of The Folk Crusaders, Kazuhiko Kato and Osamu Kitayama（加藤和彦・北山修）as this calming folk song with a lovely harmony between the two singers.

Released in October 1969, the song hit No. 2 on Oricon and became the 11th-ranked single for 1970. Although Betsy & Chris broke up in 1973 after 13 singles and several albums, their first single was their biggest hit which has been covered by a number of singers over the decades.

One such unit was W with Ai Kago and Nozomi Tsuji（加護亜依・辻希美）from Morning Musume（モーニング娘。）. Their version came out in 2004 as a part of their album "Duo U&U"（デュオU&U）.

While Chris later became a music teacher in Hawaii, Betsy returned to her singing career after many years also in the Aloha State. In fact, about a decade ago, she and her daughter Emma joined up to sing the song again on the 2006 edition of NHK's summer "Omoide no Melody"（思い出のメロディー）.