THE BOOM/Akiko Yano & Kazumasa Oda -- Chuo Sen（中央線）

In terms of commuting within the Greater Tokyo Area, I got to know Japan Railways as much as I did the Tokyo subways. Often, I took the looping green Yamanote Line and since I had to regularly hightail it out all the way to Chiba City at one point in my teaching career, I got to take (and sleep on) the yellow Sobu Line. However, due to priorities in commuting, I never took the orange Chuo Line all that much although it had a truly long range between Tokyo Station and the wilds of Mt. Takao which is officially within the Tokyo city limits.

Man, it has been a long time since I wrote about the band THE BOOM. I did write about their most famous hit "Kaze ni Naritai"（風になりたい）back in late 2012, so it's been around 5.5 years.

But this song here is another whose melody is quite familiar to me. "Chuo Sen" was THE BOOM's 19th single from June 1996 although it had actually been the coupling song to the band's 5th single, "Sakadachi sureba Kotae ga Wakaru"（逆立ちすれば答えがわかる...You'll Know The Answer Once You Stand On Your Head）which came out in July 1990. Written and composed by vocalist Kazufumi Miyazawa（宮沢和史）, it strikes me as being a pretty cool and languid ballad about someone reminiscing of a past love while waxing romantic about the titular JR line. Mind you, considering how crowded the Chuo Line could get, Miyazawa must have had some imagination. The single peaked at No. 84 on Oricon. "Chuo Sen" was also a track on THE BOOM's 3rd album "JAPANESKA" from September 1990 which broke the Top 10 by landing at No. 4.

Also, one would be forgiven if he/she thought that "Chuo Sen" would be a shoo-in as a campaign song for the actual line. But then again, why would JR need to create a commercial for a commuter line that is guaranteed tons of passengers every day? In any case, the song was used instead for the contracting firm, Shimizu Corporation, and the Matsumoto Yamaga Football Club in the J-League as a cheer song by its fans.

A decade later in 2006, Akiko Yano & Kazumasa Oda（矢野顕子・小田和正）provided a wonderful duet for their cover of "Chuo Sen" in Yano's 26th album "Hajimete no Yano Akiko"（はじめてのやのあきこ...The First Akiko Yano）. This version really brings relaxation, and it doesn't so much evoke images of train riding than it does bring images of sitting beside a placid pond. The album reached as high as No. 42.

Now I've found out that Yano had made an earlier cover of the ballad in her 13th album "Super Folk Song" from June 1992 which peaked at No. 10. The arrangement seems to be the same for both Yano takes.

To finish off, Miyazawa and Yano also performed a duet that nikala can tell you about.

Hamako Watanabe -- San Francisco Chinatown（桑港のチャイナ街）

Tonight's "Uta Kon"（うたコン）, which only finished here a mere 10 minutes ago, took the geographical kayo way outside of Japan to countries like Turkey and even my nation of Canada.

America was also included in the musical whirlwind tour and it was represented by Hamako Watanabe's（渡辺はま子）"San Francisco Chinatown". There were a lot of songs that got my memories going but I never knew the title and the original singer for this number that also sparked my engrams. And what specifically sparked them was the cheerful singing by Watanabe that was almost a yodel.

Released in November 1950, "San Francisco Chinatown" was written by Takao Saeki（佐伯孝夫）and composed by Shunichi Sasaki（佐々木俊一）. And it was a song that was performed by Watanabe on the very first Kohaku Utagassen on January 3rd 1951 when it was only broadcast on NHK Radio. The singer would perform it three more times on the televised versions of the New Year's Eve special in 1956, 1964 and 1973.

I only got to visit San Francisco once in 1990 so far, and although I missed out on getting that wonderful view of the Golden Gate Bridge because of...and it's no surprise...fog, my group and I were able to enjoy a fine dinner in Chinatown. I would proudly put up Toronto's Chinese cuisine against any of the equivalent fare around the world, including that in Hong Kong, but I have to say that dinner in San Francisco that one night was one of my finest culinary experiences ever. I would say more but I don't want to have Larry blush too much.😋

Four Leaves -- Olivia no Shirabe（オリビアの調べ）

When I was a kid, I used to hear the name Olivia Hussey bandied about from time to time, not really knowing who she was. Well, I found out that she was this actress who got her big break in the 1960s from her role as Juliet in "Romeo & Juliet" (some sort of doomed romance, I think). However, the Japanese especially fell for her hard and it didn't hurt that she was married to singer Akira Fuse（布施明）for a time.

Last week on NHK's "Uta Con"（うたコン）, some of the male performers gave a rendition of a song by Four Leaves（フォーリーブス）. The name sounded familiar but for the life of me, that was really the only thing I could fathom about this group.

As it turns out, Four Leaves was one of the earliest Johnny's Entertainment groups, so you can say that it is one of the grand ancestors for SMAP and Arashi（嵐）. The group consisted of Koji Kita（北公次）, Takashi Aoyama（青山孝史）, Toshio Egi（江木俊夫）and Masao Orimo（おりも政夫）with their debut single, "Olivia no Shirabe" (Olivia's Melody) coming out in September 1968.

Man, it's quite the groovy trip with some of those nostalgic horns, rumbling drums and jangly guitar. And yep, the song is a lovelorn tribute to the aforementioned Olivia Hussey. She was indeed popular. Kita himself wrote the lyrics while Kunihiko Suzuki（鈴木邦彦）took care of the dynamic music. Nice touch with the harp, by the way. Just the whole arrangement has me thinking Group Sounds but probably none of the members ever touched instruments when performing anyways.

"Olivia no Shirabe" peaked at No. 15 on Oricon and it was also a track on their album "Hit! Hit! Hit! Four Leaves Golden Show ~ Four Leaves 1965-1975". Four Leaves lasted until 1978 after 38 singles and 7 consecutive appearances on the Kohaku Utagassen. In 2002, the four decided to get the old band together and even put out a new single "it's more Ai"（it's more 愛...It's More Love）in that year before finally calling it quits in 2009.

You might want to check out another kayo in tribute to another Olivia.

Toronto -- April 23 2018

I was writing my last article when I was called into dinner at around 5pm tonight and that's when I found out about the horrible attack earlier this afternoon in North York which is a huge area in the Greater Toronto Area. At the time of the attack (around 1:30 EDT), I was actually working on my usual translation assignment, and during that time, I didn't have any media on (which is usually the case when I'm working).

At this point, we don't have any idea what motivated the attacker to mow down pedestrians with a van. Various media folks have been yelling terrorism but it's way too early to know for certain now. What is certain is that at this writing, 9 people are dead,16 people are injured and many many more who were in the area are traumatized.

The area I'm talking about is the segment of Yonge St., the main north-south street of Toronto, between Finch Avenue and Sheppard Avenue in the northern part of the city. When I was writing the first paragraph above, I heard one of the folks on CBC saying that she often visited that area and that the carnage could have happened to anyone. I can certainly agree...I could have been there. I often visit that particular segment since a cluster of ramen restaurants has popped up in that district in recent years and one of the major movie theatres I frequent is located there. In fact, "Kayo Kyoku Plus" collaborator Larry and I went to the ramen restaurant Konjiki right there just two weeks ago for lunch.

Police have told all of the owners of those various businesses on Yonge St to close up shop and go home and so, that usual bustling section there is now a very quiet but massive crime scene. It'll probably stay that way for the next few days.

My relatives including my brother have called to make sure that we are OK and one of my former students and good friend checked up on me via Facebook. The rest of my family are also fine but there are several families out there who are enduring the ultimate horror and that is where my sympathies lie right now.

Miyako Chaki -- Chizu douri ni Hashirikitta Anata（地図どうりに走り切ったあなた）

Love the song, love the cover! As for the latter, that is the cover for singer-songwriter Miyako Chaki's（茶木みやこ）1976 album "Tobenakunaru wa"（翔べなくなるわ...Won't Be Able To Fly）. Talk about a great photo to reflect City Pop of the 1970s...the singer in a denim outfit looking rather pensive as she sits in a chic drinking establishment, perhaps watching people and life go by.

J-Wiki has Chaki categorized as a folk singer, and perhaps she was earlier in her career, but this second track from "Tobenakunaru wa" is pure urban. "Chizu douri ni Hashirikitta Anata" (Running Behind The Map) sounds as the title reads: a sunrise intro followed by a speedy and soaring race through a Japanese metropolis. It's fueled by some funky keyboard and a great wacka-wacka guitar, and I would probably get the album on this song alone. Nobukazu Hioki（日置信和）provided the lyrics while Chaki came up with the fast-paced melody. Also love the instrumental bridge with the guitar and the sax, by the way.

Chaki was born and raised in Kyoto. While attending Doshisha Women's College of Liberal Arts, she and Kyoko Kobayashi（小林京子）formed a folk duo named Pink Pickles（ピンク・ピクルス）in 1970 which was so named after the shibazuke pickles from her hometown. Two singles and an album came out of the relationship before the duo broke up in 1972.

D-Pi/France Gall -- Le temps de la rentrée

It was a nice Sunday yesterday. Got some really good, really seasonal weather for the first time in several months and it wasn't just me and my anime buddy but we had a guest appearance from another old friend and his son. So it was time to go out for some spicy Szechuan fare and then some dessert.

I gotta say that there are some offbeat shows this season of Spring 2018. We got another anime about dragons although this one isn't listed as a slice-of-life comedy but more of a wartime drama according to Wikipedia. Looking at the first few scenes of "Hisone to Masotan"（ひそねとまそたん...Hisone & Masotan）, I thought it was a straight show about a young awkward lady trying to fulfill her dreams of becoming an ASDF pilot for Japan.

Then I saw the dragon Masotan and, nope, it wasn't going to be all that simple. Still, there is plenty of humour to be had with the main character of Hisone Amakasu（甘粕ひそね）who might have Asperger's and awkwardness, and her frenemy (?), the cranky and resentful punk Nao Kaizaki（貝崎名緒）. My friend told me that Mari Okada（岡田麿里）is the screenwriter for the show, and apparently she has a penchant for killing off her characters in horrible myriad ways so perhaps I shouldn't get too attached to any of them. But then again, the notorious Gen Urobuchi（虚淵玄）was actually pretty nice (relatively speaking) on "Suisei no Gargantia"（翠星のガルガンティア...Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet）, so you never know.

Although Winter 2018 didn't have any instant earworms among the anime themes (although a few of them have grown on me), it looks like Spring 2018 may unearth a few musical maggots including the ending theme for "Hisone to Masotan", a cover of the late France Gall's "Le temps de la rentrée" with the added Japanese subtitle of "Koi no Ieji (Shin Gakki)"（恋の家路（新学期）...Love's Road Home (New School Term)）. As if things couldn't get even more weirder. The show has this cover of a French ye-ye tune performed by all of the Dragon Pilots or D-Pi (although not all of them have been introduced yet as of the 2nd episode) played by Misako Kuno（久野美咲）as Hisone, Tomoyo Kurosawa（黒沢ともよ）as Nao, Maki Kawase（河瀬茉希）, Satomi Arai（新井里美）and Kaori Nazuka（名塚佳織）. Plus, the ending credits have the characters channeling their inner American Bandstand.

The original song was a track on Gall's "Baby Pop" album from 1966 with father Robert and brother Patrice creating "Le temps de la rentrée". The song is only around a minute and change long so perhaps what I heard on the ending credits is the entire version. Short but very sweet.

Natural High -- Hajimari no Hito（始まりのヒト）

Peach cocktail

(Unfortunately the video has been taken down.)

In the last several months of my stay in Japan in 2011, I had heard of this J-Drama on TV Asahi titled "Bartender"（バーテンダー）starring Masaki Aiba（相葉雅紀）from Johnny's group Arashi（嵐）. I saw the commercials pitching this show and I quickly figured out that Aiba would be playing the typical J-Drama trope of a character who seemed to have one foot in reality and another one in surreality while possessing this otherworldly ability. For this show, Aiba was the bartender extraordinaire who could whip up the perfect drink to not only quench a troubled customer's thirst but miraculously heal his problems.

And I gather that this was an idea whose time had come. Bartenders the world over have been, rightly or wrongly, seen as counselors without the high fees per hour. A joke that I used to do when I was teaching English was whenever I saw one of my students plop himself/herself down in front of me looking a bit more down/stressed than usual, I took my handkerchief and pretend to wipe down the table as if I were a mixologist polishing the bar before asking "O-nayami desu ka?"（お悩みですか。Anything troubling you?）.

Little did I know that "Bartender" had its origins as a manga back in 2004 and that a couple of years later, Fuji-TV even released an anime version, presumably in the late-night hours. I saw Episode 1 just this morning when I first discovered that there had been an anime about it, and yeah, sure enough, the bartender Ryu Sasakura was there in the near-secret Eden Hall bar in Ginza ready to dispense the right drink, advice and solution to the imbiber in trouble. Yeah, the premise is probably corny to all heck but wouldn't anyone enjoy that sort of treatment at a classy all-wooden temple of mixology?...at least, until the bill comes.

I liked the ending theme for "Bartender", "Hajimari no Hito" (The First One) as well. This was the 9th and penultimate single (December 2006) by Natural High（ナチュラル ハイ）, a female duo with vocalist Yuko Shiroki（白木裕子）and pianist Kaoruko Ohtake（大嶽香子）. Ohtake was responsible for words and music, and for that matter, the score for the anime itself.

Although "Hajimari no Hito" relates the story of a woman reminiscing about her first love in high school a decade after the fact, I think it also fits the bar milieu. The soft piano arrangement rather approaches that Bill Evans type of jazz that could be heard in any classy drinking establishment but the song is still a pop ballad to me. Plus, Shiroki's vocals are as enticing as that kind bartender inviting you in for a spell of good drink and banter in comfy surroundings.

"Hajimari no Hito" peaked at No. 161 on Oricon. Along with their 10 singles, Natural High released a mini-album and 2 full albums. Their run lasted between 2003 and 2008.