As Seen on TV: 4 Favorite J-Drama Songs of 2023
Discussing the few great J-drama music tie-ins from this year and their respective shows
This feature is part of This Side of Japan issue #70. You can return to the main newsletter here.
Half way into my year with J-dramas, the keepers have been slight and great combos of show and title tracks even slighter. Admittedly, not every show can be like last year’s Elpis: Kibou, Aruiwa Wazawai and its ambitious music direction, which with the help of STUTS and his commissioned band Mirage Collective produced five different, ever-evolving versions of the same song for its ending credits. And sometimes, an artist can’t be convinced no matter how great the show: as much as I loved Nichiyo No Yoru Gurai Wa as well as the trio of actresses driving it, I still can’t be persuaded even a little bit by Mrs. Green Apple.
But a lovely rom-com did get me to listen to SEKAI NO OWARI, another band I didn’t bother with in the past. Another show managed an impressive feat in delivering great songs for both the opening and ending rolls. TV can reward with discoveries to new J-pop music, and here are some of that in play.
“Hoho Ni Hitokuchi” by kojikoji [A.S.A.B. / BROTH WORKS]
from Kashimashi Meshi (Mondays, 11p.m., April 10 - May 29; TV Tokyo)
At a glance, Kashimashi Meshi resembles the many other dramas today operating in the genre of food and cooking. But while it often features some delicious-looking food, the show doesn’t focus much on the preparation of the meal. Kashimashi Meshi instead explores why we gather around the table to dine together through the friendship of newly reunited ex-college mates Chiharu (Atsuko Maeda), Nakamura (Riko Narumi) and Eiji (Akihisa Shiono). As an ara-saa myself, I personally found vicarious comfort in seeing characters in their late 20s rekindle a relationship long after college as life presents increasingly less opportunities to develop new social bonds.
“I don’t need any answers / I just want someone to listen to me about my day,” kojikoji sings in “Hoho Ni Hitokuchi,” the ending theme to Kashimashi Meshi. The hushed, acoustic-strummed R&B tune is comparatively low key to the show’s opening theme, KIRINJI’s also-great lite-funk jingle “nestling.” It’s made to slot into those quiet, vulnerable moments depicted in the show where we’d prefer to wade through with the presence of another. Lucky for the trio, they’re safe in the knowledge that they will be welcomed by company once they get home after a bad day. A round of delicious food, too, might be in stores.
Listen to it on Spotify.
“Butterfly Effect” by SEKAI NO OWARI [Universal]
from Watashi No Oyomekun (Wednesdays, 10 p.m., April 12 - June 21; Fuji TV)
SEKAI NO OWARI became impossible to ignore thanks to last year’s “Habit.” For someone who had spent little time with the band’s music prior, the viral smash introduced a sardonic, anti-social band whose rise in popularity being driven by social-media chatter proved almost too ironic. With that kind of impression in mind, it seemed rather uncharacteristic for the band to handle opening and ending song duties for a cartoonish rom-com like Watashi No Oyomekun, let alone writing a twinkling country-pop tune like “Butterfly Effect.”
If anything about the personality behind “Habit” carries over in “Butterfly Effect,” it’s in the insecurities and self-diagnosing tendencies exhibited by the narrator. The chugging drum beat and twangy riffs brighten the scene on the surface, but the lyric sheet displays countless episodes of mishaps and falling face first. “I wonder why / I’m unbelievably clumsy / the days are just repeats of mistakes and regrets,” they sing a confession you can also easily assign as dialogue from either of the main couple of Watashi No Oyomekun.
The sour, judgmental narrator of “Habit” would likely scoff at Watashi No Oyomekun and its wholesome comedy. More than its twists of the rom-com gender role, of the younger man (Mahiro Takasugi) as the housewife and the older woman (Haru) as the breadwinner, its cast of side characters who love to butt in the relationship keeps the growing office love an entertaining development. It’s going to be very difficult for any new drama this year to top Sawa Nimura as Akamine, the diabolical colleague whose obsessive admiration for Haru’s Honoka inspires her to go a great, comical length to block any undesirables to get near her beloved workplace idol. In between spring dramas exploring more existential ennui, the comedy of Watashi No Oyumekun offered a fine reprieve.
Turquoise / Saraba / Butterfly Effect is out now. Listen to it on Spotify.
“Algernon” by Yorushika [Universal]
from Yuugure Ni Te Wo Tsunagu (Tuesdays, 10 p.m., Jan. 17 - March 21; TBS)
While it’s too jingle-like for it to land on my daily rotation, King & Prince’s “Life goes on” more accurately captures the happy-go-lucky tone of Yuugure Ni Te Wo Tsunagu. The serendipity driving the first act of the “country girl drops everything to move to Tokyo” story steered what could’ve been a typical narrative into an unpredictable course. There was no telling of what was next for Soramame (Suzu Hirose), who was correctly described by another character as being like a boar: charging head-first into everything without thinking of the consequences.
But give the story time to develop, and Yorushika’s “Algernon” starts to hit more poignant as the song grows more pertinent. Soramame starts to have feelings for her roommate, aspiring pop songwriter Oto (Ren Nagase). They get closer in a way seen by high school classmates, childishly arguing all the time yet secretly admiring the other from afar. For unpredictable as the story gets, the two shy away from dealing with their real feelings for each other in rather classic ways, like confessing their love via LINE only to delete the message minutes later. As their lives get more busy after hitting it big in their respective artistry, the two inevitably grow distant as they see each other less around the house.
Yorushika captures this fade-out in “Algernon,” and the emotional devastation comes not from any huge, melodramatic sweeps but instead from the subtlety in which it documents the dissolve: “Like gazing at a gently crumbling tower,” as they put it. The picturesque music drifts about so tenderly, it seems unaware of the developing fissure. The slow drip turns tragic moments like separation into something more banal: it happens, and so it goes. The reality-biting ballad resolves the serendipitous drama like a coolant, bringing it back down to earth.
Listen to it on Spotify.
“Ai No Hana” by Aimyon
from Ranman (Every weekday, 8 a.m. - 8:15 a.m., April 3 - ongoing; NHK)
It’s honestly surprising Aimyon is just now contributing a song for an NHK asadora. Much like Dreams Come True or the songwriter’s own hero Masamune Kusano of Spitz, her acoustic-pop is built to please the everyday person in Japan. And fitting for the occasion, the arrangement for “Ai No Hana” leans more formal even by the songwriter’s standards with nothing really more than the patient strum of an acoustic guitar and a subtle twinkle of pianos. Much scaled back in comparison to the soaring orchestral push behind Back Number’s previous asadora tune, the song and its intimate, one-on-one atmosphere suits the show’s eye-level perspective in which the main character (Ryunosuke Kamiki), an figure modeled after botanist Tomitaro Makino, constantly admires his beloved species of plants.
While Ranman inspires Aimyon to take on tenderness in place of the cynicism that occupies her songs, it also inevitably lends some loss to inform the lyrics: part of Makino’s origin story and the spark of his indefatigable love of plants hinges on observing the death of his mother at an early age. A seed blooming into a flower then serve as a fine metaphor of old memories giving life to the new. “The tears are for tomorrow / seeds of a new flower,” she sings in the chorus of a loss not taken for granted. Leave it to Aimyon to sing about the ups and down of a long life so concisely and evenhandedly.
Listen to it on Spotify.
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Bonus - 5 favorite TV shows of 2023 so far:
Kashimashi Meshi
Watashi No Oyomekun
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