Salty Sugar -- Hashire Koutarou（走れコウタロー）

Time for another slightly more adventurous article at "Kayo Kyoku Plus". I first heard this hoedown-friendly tune as an opening theme song for the 1990s anime "Midori no Makibao"（みどりのマキバオー...Midori's Makibao）, about a mule who looks slightly like a svelte hippo but with the beating heart of a champion thoroughbred as he wins race after race. It apparently was performed by three Fuji-TV announcers under the name of F-MAP, one of whom was Kenji Fukui（福井謙二）, the play-by-play man on the legendary "Ryori no Tetsujin"（料理の鉄人...Iron Chefs） cooking contest show.

"Hashire Makibao"（走れマキバオー...Run, Makibao） is a song that I had just treated as an especially jaunty anison for years. But then one day, I discovered that it was a cover of an original folk tune from 1970.

Salty Sugar（ソルティー・シュガー）was a folk group with a comical touch that had its origins in the late 1960s at Hibiya High School in Tokyo under an initial name. One of the members, Toshio Sato（佐藤敏夫）, needed to focus on getting into university, so he pulled out of the band, but his name was left with the remainder of the group who decided to twist it around and then translate it to form the new band name of Salty Sugar.

Guitarist Koutarou Yamamoto（山本厚太郎）, contrabassist Michio Tezuka（手塚通夫）, guitarist Takashi Takahashi（高橋隆）and Kanekichi/Kenkichi Ikeda (池田謙吉...instrument not specified) debuted in December 1969 with "Aa, Daigaku-sei"（ああ大学生...Ah, University Students） which only sold 3000 records, according to the J-Wiki article.

However, then came their second single in July 1970, "Hashire Koutarou" (Run, Koutarou) which had been written and composed by Ikeda with Nobuo Maeda（前田伸夫）as co-composer. Sadly, though, soon after the announcement of the release of the single in May of that year, Ikeda suddenly and tragically passed away at the age of 21. However, banjo player Sato, who had promised to come back to the band in a year, did so and together they did their departed bandmate proud by scoring a massive hit that reminded me a bit of the theme song from "The Beverly Hillbillies".

The song was originally created in tribute to an actual winning racehorse from the 1960s with the same name as Yamamoto but it also soon became a humourous poke (I hope) at the guitarist who had a penchant for always running late for practice. Regardless, "Hashire Koutarou" became a No. 1 hit on Oricon, selling close to a million records, and ended up as the 26th-ranked single for 1970. The next year, it rose even higher by finishing up at No. 20. It also won Salty Sugar the Best New Artist prize at the Japan Record Awards for 1970. Strangely enough, though, the band never got invited to the Kohaku Utagassen.

It looks like anime wanted to give the song another look since "Hashire Koutarou" was adapted once more as a song for a game version of the anime "Uma Musume Pretty Derby"（ウマ娘 プリティーダービー...Horse Girls Pretty Derby） which had come out earlier this year. Eight of the many seiyuu in that cast sang the high-flying "Hashire Uma Musume"（走れウマ娘）including Azumi Waki（和氣あず未）and Naomi Ozora（大空直美）who have their own entries in the Labels. Ikeda's legacy lives on.

Joe Hisaishi -- Summer

Kinda nice to bring this one in, especially since we've apparently got snow coming in as we approach the weekend here. I was watching tonight's extended "Uta Kon"（うたコン）when a quintet of shakuhachi players gave a brief performance of a song that immediately sparked familiarity from years back. The fact that it was composed by the famous Joe Hisaishi（久石譲）then sparked me to search for "Summer".

It took me a while to track it down but "Summer" was used for some years as the music for Toyota Corolla commercials in Japan. With that gently flowing piano, it did feel like a Hisaishi composition.

Originally though, "Summer" was the theme song for the Takeshi Kitano/Beat Takeshi（北野武・ビートたけし）film "Kikujiro no Natsu"（菊次郎の夏...Kikujiro） that had come out in 1999. Despite hearing it as a most wonderful background piece for those Toyota ads all those years, tonight was the first time that I heard the song in its entirety. Starting off feeling a bit reminiscent of "Krazy Klock", a song that my junior high school band class practiced ad nauseum, the familiar theme comes in before things take on somewhat of an overture-like feeling. I never saw "Kikujiro no Natsu" but I assume that parts of "Summer" were used throughout the score for the movie.

Nice to get that warm melodic glow again although we are in November now.

Buffalo Daughter -- Oui Oui

I'd heard of the band Buffalo Daughter during my days in Japan and I remember seeing one music video by them on one of the music channels on cable, but that was about the extent of my exposure. So, my knowledge of their music is still very limited although I had been under the impression that they were as Shibuya-kei as Pizzicato Five and Flipper's Guitar.

However, according to a Japan Times article via the Wikipedia write-up about Buffalo Daughter, member suGar Yoshinaga（シュガー吉永）has said that she doesn't really think the sound of the band has ever really been about Shibuya-kei. Judging from their snappy song "Oui Oui" from their 2014 album "Konjac-tion"（コニャクション）, I would tend to agree.

Although there is that vague feeling of French pop in "Oui Oui" which is a genre that has been one of the inspirations for Shibuya-kei back in the 1990s, I really see this song as being more of a pop/funk piece (and that's despite the Wikipedia categorization of their music all being various types of rock). Along with the funk beat, I also like the onomatopoeia in there, too.

Buffalo Daughter's other current members are Yumiko Ohno（大野由美子）and MoOoG Yamamoto（山本ムーグ）. They've been around since 1993 and have released six full studio albums. I will probably be playing catch-up with some of their past efforts.

Hachiro Kasuga -- Kosame no Eki ni Bell ga Naru（小雨の駅にベルが鳴る）

The photo above is of Ito Station in Shizuoka Prefecture when my friend and I stayed in the small city of Ito for that one night four years ago. Of course, being a local transportation hub, the surrounding area had its share of shops, cafes and restaurants, and the ocean wasn't too far away either.

Furthermore, alongside airports, it seems like the train station was also the place where romances went to sadly fade away in kayo kyoku. Case in point, Hachiro Kasuga's（春日八郎）"Kosame no Eki ni Bell ga Naru" (The Bell Tolls at the Station in a Light Rain). Well, perhaps I would rather translate that in a more concise way and go with "The Bell Tolls at the Rainy Station".

Originally released in 1954 as one of Kasuga's early singles, it describes the sweet but sorrowful parting of two lovers at the station. Although I couldn't find out whether the depot was based on a real place, I could imagine that it was probably far smaller than even Ito Station and the stationmaster still punched the tickets with that clacking metal set of pincers. That was still the case when I was living in Gunma Prefecture back in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

While Kikutaro Takahashi（高橋掬太郎）was the one behind the bittersweet lyrics, Yoshi Eguchi's（江口夜詩）melody is still quite jaunty as if it were still describing some sort of hustle and bustle around the titular station despite the drama playing out between the man and woman. Perhaps one romantic relationship may be coming to an end (temporarily or permanently), but life still goes on regardless.

The video below has the original 1954 version while the one above, according to the YouTube description, contains a new version which was recorded in 1972 for his "Kasuga Hachiro no Deluxe San-shuu"（春日八郎デラックス３集...Hachiro Kasuga's Deluxe Collection 3）. I have to say that although the original obviously has that nostalgic quality, I really do like the new version since it really brings out Kasuga's voice in a rich way alongside those strings.

Tamao Koike -- Kanariya（カナリヤ）

Always like getting that pleasant surprise whenever I'm writing on the blog.

The surprise for today has presented itself in the form of Tamao Koike's（小池玉緒）"Kanariya" (Canary) since I found out that it had been the progenitor for a Seiko Matsuda（松田聖子）B-side called "Wagamama na Kataomoi"（わがままな片想い）. Until then, I had only known Koike for "Kagami no Naka no Juu-gatsu"（鏡の中の十月）.

In terms of arrangement, it's pretty similar in that "Kanariya" still has as much of that technopop adventure in Toyland feeling as the later "Wagamama". But instead of Takashi Matsumoto's（松本隆）lyrics in the latter, Koike herself provided the words for her "Kanariya" although Haruomi Hosono（細野晴臣）is still the one behind the creation of the bouncy melody. From the singer's delivery, it sounds like she was having a slightly difficult time maintaining the high notes and as such, she may have achieved a certain New Wave quality with this song.

The other surprising element is that "Kanariya" had never been released in the 1980s. I'm assuming that it was recorded not too long before "Wagamama" so maybe in 1982 or 1983 (but for the sake of argument, I'm going to go with 1983). It finally saw the light of day, so to speak, through a compilation album of 18 discs called "YEN BOX VOL.2" (check Disc 18) which was released in May 1996. Koike herself offered the song to Matsuda soon after recording her version.

Jouji Nakayama/Daisuke Hara/Mizue Takada/Teresa Teng -- Shuutou（秋冬）

Definitely feeling that headlong pull deeper into autumn. Over the weekend, we in North America turned the clocks back one hour and that made a fairly big difference. The sun basically disappeared just a little after 5 pm today, and so for the next several weeks, night will be creeping on us that much faster until December 21st.

A few weeks ago on "Uta Con"（うたコン）, I heard a rather melancholy ballad that I could easily peg being from decades past. Titled "Shuutou" (Autumn and Winter), it's a song about love lost and the consequences felt by one person. It is an apt autumn kayo since often enough, autumn going into winter has been the setting for the death of romance in Japanese songs.

May J. and Aya Yamamoto（山本彩）did a duet on "Shuutou", and the arrangement was elegant enough to attract my attention about where this song had come from. And the story behind it adds a further layer of sadness but also happiness to the legend. The original singer and lyricist was Jouji Nakayama（中山丈二）who had recorded "Shuutou" onto a demo tape shortly before his untimely passing at the age of 36 in 1980. Douji Horie（堀江童子）created the music for the song. The above video apparently has Nakayama's actual vocals although since the J-Wiki article on the song mentioned that it was just him and his guitar on the demo tape, the dramatic violins were probably added later.

After Nakayama's passing, some of his friends such as TV personalities Hiroshi Sekiguchi（関口宏）and Maki Carrousel（カルーセル麻紀）, and actor Toru Minegishi（峰岸徹）helped out to get "Shuutou" produced via 400 records. Afterwards, the song started quietly getting known.

In 1983, a singer by the name of Miki Tachibana（橘美喜）released a cover version and it sparked a lot of other singers to provide their own version of "Shuutou". Although Tachibana's cover doesn't exist on YouTube, I could find another accomplished take of the ballad via Daisuke Hara（原大輔）who sings in a number of genres including folk, New Music and chanson. This version was one of the later ones since it was released in October and it was actually his debut single under this stage name (he was born Masaki Takanashi/高梨雅樹 and was one-half of the folk group Leila（レイラ）in the mid-1970s). The single peaked at No. 19 and became the 90th-ranked song for 1984.

From what I found in Hara's file, apparently seven singers including Hara released their version of "Shuutou" in 1983, so Mizue Takada（高田みづえ）must have been the eighth since her version came out right on New Year's Day 1984. This was her 22nd single which actually reached as high as No. 22 on Oricon, selling around 136,000 records. For the yearly rankings, it placed No. 100, just 10 ranks down from Hara's version.

I found Takada's version more in the Fashion Music vein (I really have to talk more about this rather intriguing sub-genre soon) with that tinkly piano intro and even more shimmering strings. She also appeared in the 1984 Kohaku Utagassen to perform this song. The video of that performance is above this paragraph (not anymore unfortunately although I've replaced it with the actual music video), and although "Shuutou" is sad on its own, there was an added reason for all of the tears shed by Takada and some of her fellow members on the Red team. It had been announced that the singer would be retiring from show business midway through the following year so December 31st 1984 was her 7th and final appearance on the special which included 5 straight appearances up to that point.

Although I couldn't find out when exactly Teresa Teng（テレサ・テン）had released her version of "Shuutou", I felt that I needed to feature her as well for her wonderful performance. I think there was even more emotion in her take especially when it came to the refrain. Her vocals also seemed to come across as more intimate due to some of that whispery quality.

OxT -- UNION

"SSSS.GRIDMAN" is one of the new anime that my friend and I have been watching this season, and it's apparently so epic that it has to be expressed in full caps. From what my buddy explained and through Wikipedia, this Fall 2018 anime is a combination of the original tokusatsu series from the 1990s and the US adaptation of that series which came out soon after as "Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad" which would explain the quadruple S at the front of the title.

Not being a fan of squabbling and taciturn student anime, I wasn't exactly all that impressed with the first episode, but once Gridman came into the scene and the kids started getting their act together for the sake of humanity, things started looking better.

Remembering the old tokusatsu shows from the 1970s when I was a kid, the opening theme songs were always arranged as a proud battle march with kids' choruses to amplify the fact that the hero was there for the children viewers. Nowadays, I think the only tokusatsu on regular TV has been the long-running "Kamen Rider"（仮面ライダー）franchise, and it seems like the opening themes have taken on more of an uptempo pop/rock kick.

That seems to be the case for the opener for "SSSS.GRIDMAN", "UNION" by the duo OxT. The pair consists of Japanese musician/composer Tom-H@ck and singer-songwriter Masayoshi Oishi（オーイシマサヨシ）. Oishi provided the super-cheerful opening theme for last season's wacky "Back Street Girls ~ Gokudols"（ゴクドルズ）, but this time, he and Tom-H@ck have come together to bring about this song of rock-driven optimism and hope in tribute to the title character and his support alliance of high school kids and unusual super-agents/mecha. This time, it is Oishi behind both words and music.

Now, OxT's 9th single under their current name (previously in 2013 and 2014, the collaboration was known as Tom-H@ck featuring Masayoshi Oishi) won't be released for another couple of days, so it's just the opening credits for now.