Rica Matsumoto/Shoko Nakagawa -- Type: Wild（タイプ:ワイルド）

 

Ahh, it is rather nostalgic. I used to remember not only the whole "Pokemon: GO" craze but the Pokemon（ポケモン）card mania from the late 1990s. When my mother actually asked me to get some of those cards for her employer's grandkids when I came home biannually for Xmas, I knew that this was a fad of monumental proportions; I figured that somewhere cats and dogs were living together (that's a "Ghostbusters" reference, by the way). Never got into "Pokemon" myself, though.

So, why talk about it? Well, I had this particular video in the backlog and it belongs to singer and tarento Shoko Nakagawa's（中川翔子）cover of "Type: Wild", one of the ending themes for the 1997-2002 run of the anime "Pocket Monster"（ポケットモンスター）on TV Tokyo. Coming from her December 2019 5th studio album "RGB ~ True Color", I wanted to write about it today since I heard that Nakagawa had recently gotten married so many congratulations to her and her new husband.

When I first heard about "Type: Wild" via Nakagawa, though, I hadn't known about the "Pokemon" connection since there was nothing written about it in the J-Wiki article on "RGB". It actually took the Yahoo Japan search engine to reveal several references to the anime before I realized that it had been a "Pokemon" theme song. 

"Type: Wild" was the 5th ending theme for the series and it was originally recorded by seiyuu/singer Rica Matsumoto（松本梨香）who has been on the blog before under fellow contributor Marcos V.'s paragraph on the singer's other "Pokemon" theme, "Alola!!"（アローラ!!）in his article "Special Selection Vol. II". The original "Type: Wild" was released as one of the songs on Matsumoto's 9th single, "Rival!"（ライバル!）which came out in March 1999, peaking at No. 13 on Oricon. It also appeared on her second BEST compilation "Matsumoto Rica ga Utau Pokemon Best"（松本梨香が歌うポケモンソングベスト...The Best of Pokemon Songs by Rica Matsumoto） from July 2011. 

The original song was written by Akihito Toda（戸田昭吾）and composed/arranged by Hirokazu Tanaka（たなかひろかず）. Both versions are that morning OJ for the kids to get really excited about the franchise and characters (while the parents practice saying "NO!" forcefully in turning down their charges' requests for merch), but the Nakagawa cover as arranged by Kenichi Maeyamada（前山田健一）sounds like a major otagei anthem. Make sure you have the RUB-A535 or other liniment handy when you're swiveling your waist.

Yutaka Kimura Speaks ~ Japanese City Pop Masterpieces 100: Marina Watanabe -- Anata kara Tooku e（あなたから遠くへ）

 

Number: 004

Lyricist/Composer: Sachiko Kanenobu

Arrangers: Akira Inoue and Eiichi Ohtaki

From her 1996 album: "Ring-a-Bell"

The Niagara Girl Pop sound has been passed down from Celia Paul in the 1970s through Seiko Matsuda（松田聖子）in the 1980s and then to Marina Watanabe（渡辺満里奈）in the 1990s. "Anata kara Tooku e" is a bossa nova cover of a track on Sachiko Kanenobu's（金延幸子）evergreen "Misora"（み空）that was produced by Ohtaki for the first time, and Marina's cute vocals gently cradle the dazzling Niagara sound. Akira Inoue's（大滝詠一）flowing strings are also splendid.

The above comes from "Disc Collection Japanese City Pop Revised" (2020).

Jazztronik feat. Miki Imai -- Searching for Love

 

Not quite there yet in terms of summer patio visits. Folks would probably want the temperature by some more degrees before those happen. Still, the sun has been out after a number of rainy days so we'll take what we can get right now and hope for warmer spring weather to result next week.

In the meantime, we can all get aurally comfortable and party-like with Tokyo DJ/pianist/producer Ryota Nozaki（野崎良太）and his collective Jazztronik. I wrote about his "Today" a few years ago and today I've got his even earlier "Searching for Love" from his August 2005 "Cannibal Rock".

I was wondering about that wonderful voice helping to propel the tropical dance club-loving "Searching for Love", and it happens to be veteran songbird Miki Imai（今井美樹）. There's a lot in this one that reminds me of Mondo Grosso's way of getting folks to get up and dance, and maybe it won't be too long before we can all do that again in Toronto. Daisuke Kawaguchi（川口大輔）was responsible for the lyrics.

Hey, you can listen to the Rasmus Faber remix of it as well.

Megumi Yuuki -- YOU/TWO OF US

 

Well, I figure that if I'm gonna talk about songs from the 1988 anime adaptation of the food-based manga "Oishinbo"（美味しんぼ...The Gourmet）, I simply must have something gourmet as a thumbnail. So, KKP readers, the above is a bowl of blowfish hot pot or fugu nabe. 

Actually, Rocket Brown of "Come Along Radio" and I had a conversation last weekend and the topic of the openings and endings for the anime came up. We were kinda marveling at the cityscapes during the credit sequences. Interestingly enough, I was reminded of another successful anime adaptation of the 1980s, "City Hunter", and I could see some similarities between it and "Oishinbo": smart and snarky hero in Tokyo accompanied by a long-suffering woman who may or may not have feelings for him, and cityscape credits.

Over a year ago, "Oishinbo" got its first representation on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" via Yuma Nakamura's（中村由真）"Dang Dang Ki ni Naru"（Dang Dang 気になる）which was the second opening theme of the series.

Well, the first opening theme was "YOU" by singer and TV personality Megumi Yuuki（結城めぐみ）who was around 19 years old when she released the song as her debut single in November 1988. Reminiscent of those brash and proud pop tunes by singers within and outside of anime back in that decade...we're talking about folks like Kahoru Kohiruimaki（小比類巻かほる）and Miki Asakura（麻倉未稀）..."YOU" is a pretty fitting title for the bright-lights-big-city feeling of decadence back then. Yoshikatsu Hirade（平出よしかつ）provided the lyrics while Tsunehiro Izumi（和泉常弘）made the melody for the happy urban arrangement by Kazuo Otani（大谷和夫）, who had also provided the music for the entire series.

On the B-side of "YOU" is the first ending theme also sung by Yuuki and created by the songwriters mentioned above. Not surprisingly, in contrast with the upbeat "YOU", "TWO OF US" is a softer love ballad of the city, and I think that it's good enough for a City Pop band like Omega Tribe（オメガトライブ）to cover.

The Osaka-born Yuuki released a total of five singles and one album up to 1991. According to her J-Wiki profile, she had a brief marriage to a baseball player on the current Fukuoka Softbank Hawks in the late 1990s. She has been operating a vocal training school along with an esthetic salon.

Nulbarich -- TOKYO

 

I was up late last night on the computer when I heard the alarms go off on a major earthquake in Ishikawa Prefecture (6+ on the Shindo scale) with the aftershocks. At the time of this writing, it appears that there has been one death and a little over twenty people injured, so I am hoping that the citizens in the area are doing OK and handling any damage steadily.

In the last couple of months, I've noticed that drive-loving YouTuber J Utah has put up a number of videos showing him taking those journeys through Tokyo. As usual, they sure look lovely and even for a fellow like me who used to walk on those very streets everyday for years, his material has gotten me wishing for another trip back to the old stomping grounds. I can only imagine how folks who have never visited one of the largest metropoles on the planet but would love to go currently feel. Well, I've got three friends who are on the way there.

This music video of the band Nulbarich's "TOKYO" will just "exacerbate" those yearnings. Yup, it's a lovely shiny day in Tokyo...almost like how New York City was depicted in the 1998 movie "You've Got Mail" with Tom Hanks. If the mixture music of thrummy synthpop (kinda like the ambient noise of the city) and R&B by Nulbarich leader and singer-songwriter Jeremy "JQ" Quartus and happy images of Tokyoites going about their daily lives lend to that aura of feel-goodness, his lyrics also do relate that it's not all wine and roses. Perhaps it's more of a stable marriage between citizen and city with the usual ups and downs. Convenience vs. high monthly National Health Insurance premiums and city tax, the crowds vs. the vitality, the cool winters vs. the torrid summers, I can certainly relate to that.

"TOKYO" was released as a digital single in January 2021 and it was also a part of Nulbarich's 4th album "New Gravity" which came out in April that year and hit No. 14 on Oricon. The band debuted in 2016 and have so far released four albums, one mini-album, three EPs, one CD single, two vinyl singles, and fifteen digital singles. Nulbarich's sound has been informed by R&B, pop, rock and acid jazz (comparable to Suchmos) with song lyrics usually incorporating both Japanese and English according to this interview. As for the unusual name of the band, Nulbarich is a merging of the words "null but rich" meaning that one can still be satisfied despite having nothing.

Taro Hakase -- Jounetsu Tairiku（情熱大陸）/Kei Haneoka -- Muscle Queen

 

Violinist extraordinaire Taro Hakase（葉加瀬太郎）is someone that has been mentioned on the pages of KKP because of his work within the musical trio KRYZLER & KOMPANY. I've also noted that I used to see him a fair bit on television in Japan not only for his performances but also as a tarento along with his wife Mayuko Takada（髙田万由子）. What I hadn't known was that both of them could speak English as they are doing above while being interviewed by the BBC several years ago.

I saw him last week, in fact, as a guest on the popular NHK information variety series "Chiko-chan ni Shikarareru!"（チコちゃんに叱られる!...Don't Sleep Through Life!）. He was as charming and amiable as ever, and I was reminded of a song that he composed and performed as a soloist years ago which hit me through the airwaves. I never saw the TBS late-night human interest program "Jounetsu Tairiku" (Continent of Passion) which began in 1998 but I think that its theme with the same title has become even more well-known than the program itself and apparently it has become one of Hakase's most famous pieces. According to J-Wiki, though, the song wasn't used until over half a year into the program's run.

To be honest, I thought "Jounetsu Tairiku" was something that was used in commercials, and it probably was used in the ads for the source program. It's quite the heroic and snazzy number with the salsa and good dollops of jazz solos accompanying Hakase's wicked playing. Perhaps it's safe to say that it can almost be like his own theme tune. "Jounetsu Tairiku" has been placed onto the violinist's album "Songbook" released in 2021.

"Jounetsu Tairiku" has also been one of the many songs that were ripe for clever parody by composer Kei Haneoka（羽岡佳）for the anime "Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai"（かぐや様は告らせたい...Kaguya-sama: Love is War）. Given the unlikely title of "Muscle Queen" due to a new nickname give to the title character herself in Season 3 last year, it's unmistakably a tribute to Hakase, and it's a part of "KAGUYA Music Collection Season 3" which came out at the end of March this year.

However, I remember "Muscle Queen" being played for another notorious scene in Season 3. Sigh...young people these days; no sense of control.😋

Kohei Matsushita -- Taion（体温）

 

Last year, I wrote about actor/singer Kohei Matsushita's（松下洸平）"Tsuyogari"（つよがり）after his appearance on an episode of "Uta Con"（うたコン）. The feeling was that he was going for the more soulful line of singing.

And such is the case here, too. "Taion" is a track from his November 2022 debut album "POINT TO POINT". "Taion" literally means "Body Temperature" but that sounds a little too clinical for this very heartfelt romantic ballad, so maybe "Your Warmth" sounds a little more wholesome. 

With Matsushita handling the lyrics along with the melody, the composition was also worked on by Shinsuke "Synthke" Hirano（平野晋介）. I gather from the comments for "Taion" under the YouTube video, it is indeed those lyrics that have been getting their own warmth as a man has a brief but pleasant chance encounter with a woman perhaps on a beach near the end of summer. He ends up keeping things polite and not making any overt moves but he realizes a little too late that the encounter was potentially a life-changing one as he notices that up until then, his life had been a lonely one. The couple parts company but now he might have to try and track her down.

There were three singles released from "POINT TO POINT" with one being the aforementioned "Tsuyogari" but not "Taion". Perhaps "Taion" should have been released as such.