As Seen on TV: 5 Songs from Summer 2024 Dramas
Blogging about the music in this season's Japanese dramas, from an idol group produced by Tsunku, Yorushika and more
As Seen on TV is a side column of This Side of Japan dedicated to music featured on Japanese TV shows.
This summer season, I’m back to my busy ways with at least one show keeping me occupied nearly every day of the week. The actual quality varies from “a just-fine watch featuring my favorite actors” to “very refreshing comedy after a season dry of them,” but at least I got more than enough to watch. The songs oscillate even more drastic in quality with some real good ones mixed in with, well, a Back Number song that is reliably them—sentimentality so orchestrated and built-to-package, it might as well come with preheat instructions. Despite being up in count for shows, I took home less songs that I like this season, and so for this column, I added some singles from shows that aired in the spring that I caught up with during my off season. Come for a tune by a great fictional idol group and stay for recommendations on a heartfelt drama about making TV.
“Bakkyaro! LOVE” by Furukusai Machikado No Sukebanz [TV Asahi Music]
…from Densetsu No Head Sho (Fridays, 11:15 p.m.; TV Asahi)
Furukusai Machikado No Sukebanz, or Machi Suke, so far takes up a sub-plot level of importance in Densetsu No Head Sho, now four episodes deep as of this writing. Yet based on the amount of detail poured to make this fictional sukeban concept idol group come to life, I wouldn’t blame anyone mistaking this comedy centering on a ring of teen yankis for a drama celebrating idol-otaku culture. As an idol fan myself, it’s a delight taking in all of the fake merch owned by main character Tatsuhito (Fumiya Takahashi) of his oshi Aya-ne (Nagisa Sekimizu). But while Machi Suke has everything from posters, acrylic stands to even a dakimakura, the real deal is the group’s title track written by none other than Tsunku.
“Bakkyaro! LOVE” should incite a strong feeling of deja vu for Hello! Project fans as it has the producer’s fingerprints all over it. There’s the bombastic production featuring one sleazy glam-metal riff, courtesy of longtime Morning Musume arranger Kaoru Ookubo, but also that peculiar cadence in the chorus that all draws out from the vocalists a kind of gothic melodrama that recalls for me a 2000s company classic like “SHALL WE LOVE?” And it wouldn’t be a Tsunku idol record without a cheesy dialogue section: “Hey, asshole… why do you have to be so hot?,” so I’d translate Aya-ne’s script, one I’m sure Tatsuhito loves to hear every time he goes to their shows with an uchiwa in hand.
Listen to it on Spotify.
“Palette” by Hashimero [self-released]
…from Ayaka-chan Wa Hiroko Senpai Ni Koishiteru (Thursdays, 1 a.m.; MBS)
For her contribution with MAISONdes for the Urusei Yatsura reboot, Hashimero carried on the obsession fully displayed in the anime’s main, love-crazy anthem “Ai Wana Muchuu.” And so it’s fitting to see the singer-songwriter involved in a show with a smothering title like AYAKA is in LOVExLOVExLOVE with HIROKO—my favorite rom-com this season. “It’s all your fault / Even if I was born again, I want to be wrong,” she sings atop zig-zagging synth-pop in “Palette.” Cute and sprightly on the outside yet restlessly scheming on the inside, the opening theme seems to channel the personality of the young OL Ayaka (Shiho Kato) who, yes, tries her damn best to woo her boss Hiroko (Kanna Mori). Except the latter, a lesbian who hides her queer identity in the office, goes to hilarious lengths to convince herself the former is totally straight and her gestures strictly platonic.
I recommend watching the show’s opening roll to take in “Palette.” As Ayaka and Hiroko, Kato and Mori play tag in the office like a slice from Ayaka’s fantasies, the scene more daydream-like paired with MIMiNARI’s bubbly synth-pop arrangement. The two relish in the stickiness of Hashimero’s hook in the chorus as they lip-sync it back to each other in quick succession. The sweetness of it all hides just how much of a wreck it must be inside the singer’s sprung-out mind, but Hashimero seems to delight being in the thick of the intoxicating whirlwind.
Listen to it on Spotify.
“Forget It” by Yorushika [Polydor]
…from Go Home: Keishicho Mimoto Fumeinin Sodanshitsu (Saturdays, 9 p.m.; Nippon TV)
An episode in Go Home: Keishicho Mimoto Fumeinin Sodanshitsu so far is largely comprised of Sakura (Fuka Koshiba) and Makoto (Yuko Oshima) voluntarily investigating what really went behind a person’s death. Finding the story of a body isn’t part of their job description as they handle the day-to-day in the unidentified bodies department of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police; all they have to do is figure out who they exactly are. Yet they search anyway to offer closure for a loved one related to the deceased but also for themselves. Once they finally get to share the true, moving story, that’s when this Yorushika song drops to tug at the heart.
This is the third show since I’ve started blogging about TV dramas and music to get help from the band to deliver that extra emotional oomph, and I’ve yet again fallen for their tricks. n-buna’s production for the band’s drama songs remain simple in build: a low-key piano riff, hand claps as percussion, casual acoustic-guitar noodling. “Forget It” sounds sketch-like in its sparseness, almost like a bedroom-pop demo, but it’s the song’s handcrafted feel that precisely invites the fuzzies. Suis brings it all home through her tender vocals but also comforting lyrics that offer resolution to the dead. “Give me heart / and I’ll give you flowers,” she sighs in the chorus. And you see Sakura visiting the site of death to meet the deceased one last time, everyone finally at peace.
Listen to it on Spotify.
“Tabibito” by C&K [U-ENS]
…from VR Ojisan No Hatsukoi (Monday - Thursday, April 1 - May 23, 10:45 p.m.; NHK)
Atop a mellow acoustic-folk tune, C&K describe the two characters behind the complicated relationship at the heart of VR Ojisan No Hatsukoi as “journeymen.” The pop duo in “Tabibito” partly references what brings back Naoki and Honami in the virtual world of the fictional online game Twilight: they meet each other as their digital avatars to see the edge of the game world before Twilight goes offline. But this relationship also throws Naoki on hell of a journey, both online and IRL, eventually pushing the antisocial recluse to help reconcile a decades-long rift between Honami and his daughter.
Through its 15-minute episodes, the drama does explore topics you might expect from a manga-turned-show titled An Older Guy’s VR First Love, where a 40-something man falls in love with a much older man while both assuming digital forms of young girls. Conversations between characters touch on the potentials of VR technology, separation between online and offline, and queer love, but the story places less focus on the peculiarities behind the relationship of Naoki and Honami. Instead, the show puts great care in sharing how one can forge the most unexpected bond when they least expect it and how it can push them in unpredictable, life-changing ways.
Through one odd encounter in a VR game, the miserable Naoki grows into someone hopeful to see tomorrow. Thanks to Honami, he starts to open up to others, take the wildest chances and care deeply about someone who he least expected to meet. Once mired from uselessness, he can perhaps now feel for “Tabibito” and its chorus about seeing things through despite it all seeming initially pointless.
Heartbeat is out now. Listen to it on Spotify.
“Kirameki” by Inner Journey [Tsurumi River]
..from Percent (Saturdays, May 11 - June 1, 10 p.m.; NHK)
Images, frames and all of the visual-arts metaphors used to tell the relationship rift in Inner Journey’s “Kirameki” turns literal when layered with its accompanying TV series Percent. The four-part series chronicles a drama about making a drama through Miku (Marika Ito), a young AD whose series proposal gets the green light but with one change in her plan: the protagonist for her rom-com will be in a wheelchair to fit the show in the network’s Diversity Month campaign. As the ball gets rolling, Miku’s got a lot to overcome with her greenness in everything from the TV production process, to quality storytelling, to treating people with disabilities.
Like the relationship unraveled in “Kirameki,” the project turns smooth once Miku, her hired lead actress Haru (Yui Wago), and the entire production team finally see eye to eye with each other. “Try not to let go of the world that belongs only to you,” Inner Journey sing in their tie-up song as if the indie-rockers are out to remind our aspiring TV producer what to keep close when she’s creatively lost. After evaluating again and again about why she was so passionate to put her vision to the screen in the first place, Miku ends up with a picture she’s happy with.
Listen to it on Spotify.
***
Other shows I’m currenly watching this summer:
Geeks: Keisatsusho No Henjintachi
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