Issue #58: adieu
Going over the new adieu album, V6's theme for Ultraman Tiga and the year's best TV drama songs so far
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It’s hard to compete with a year in TV which its output supplied me with three songs that made it into my personal top 10 of 2021. But a memorable pairing of song and show wasn’t as easily found this year, either with the songs from my favorite shows not being much to write home about or the shows not living up to the quality of its tie-up singles. All that said, 2022 brought about some TV drama which its story convinced its songs had more depth than what appears from first listen, or in some cases, singles strong enough for it to live outside of its associated show.
Here are six of my favorite TV drama songs of 2022 so far. The full feature will also have a bonus list of my favorite shows of 2022 so far, with some titles I unfortunately couldn’t include in the main list due to them lacking a qualifying song.
“My First Love Is Crying” by Aimyon
…from Koi Nante Honki De Yatte Dousuruno? (Mondays, 10 p.m., April 18 - June 20; Fuji TV)
If Aimyon’s latest album, Falling into your eyes Record, was any indication, tie-ups for drama shows inspire sharper songs from the singer-songwriter in part because it provides her with a loose prompt to shape the lyrics around. For “My First Love Is Crying,” the rom-com Koi Nante Honki De Yatte Dousuruno? hands her the kind of premise she excels in: after prioritizing much of her twenties to her work life with an attitude to dating as a waste of time, 27-year-old Jun (Alice Hirose) falls in and out of her first serious relationship. And it’s the breakup and post phase of the experience that Aimyon ends up illustrating in spades: “If this night ends up stealing them away / maybe it will all be fine,” she sings after crying over what’s lost. She vividly writes an imagery of a conflicting memory slowly dissipating and the burdening weight relieved from her chest via a concise pop chorus.
I wish I can talk about the attached show with the same level of praise. Koi Maji introduces too many subplots within its three main couples than it can handle. It loses sight on what to do with its characters about halfway through the season, and it’s a mess watching the show try and figure out how to resolve the various main threads. I personally wish it went more in the direction of Aimyon’s song with her singing about how you got to lose something to know it ever was real in “My First Love Is Crying.” I’d rather take that home with me with the main trio left single but wiser from the relationships than the cobbled-together good ending where everyone is happily coupled.
“Lens” by Ikuta Lilas
…from Jizoku Kanou Na Koi Desuka? Chichi To Musume No Kekkon Koushinkyoku (Tuesdays, 10 p.m., April 19 - June 21; TBS)
While it’s common practice for a drama show to needle-drop its theme song to maximize the emotional heft of a climactic scene, the cue-up of “Lens” feels more necessary than usual to deliver gravitas for the rom-com series Jizoku Kanou Na Koi Desuka? Measured on its own, the pacing and scale of Ikuta Lilas’s track feels rather typical for a made-for-TV pop ballad, even with the YOASOBI vocalist’s high tones spiking in the chorus. But when the show inserts the song, the moment feels more weighty amid the casual, almost understated affairs between the central characters of Kyoka (Juri Ueno) and Seita (Kei Tanaka).
If Jizo Koi feels more subdued than the usual perky rom-com, I took it as a result of it dealing with love as it might unfold in your thirties. Decidedly, the arising conflicts are rather less sexy than the scripts written for characters of twenty-somethings: Kyoka goes from focusing on her work with the attitude that “dating is a waste of time” to contemplating taking on marriage as well as a role of a mother figure if she’s going to take it serious with single father Seita. But after being thrown into routine rom-com arcs built around women in their late 20s, I found the domestic realities in Jizo Koi refreshing.
Album of the Week
adieu 3 by adieu [Sony]
*Recommended track: “The Edge of Summer” | Listen to it on Spotify
Adieu as a project exists separately from the personal realm of its central figure, actress Moka Kamishiraishi, but a singular vision has guided its self-titled mini albums since the first release in 2019. Her list of contributors past and present remains consistent in displayed taste as it does look impressive with her enlisting acts such as Nariaki Obukuro, Ayano Kaneko and Ohzora Kimishima for variations of artful, measured self-reflection. The artists play just as precious with the project’s granted anonymity as Kamishiraishi, never letting their voice overpower the personality at the center, and the latest and third installment of adieu mini continues the trend.
While the songs of adieu often deal with separation as expected from the project’s name, the called-upon contributors present a different, unique angle to an unifying experience. Fellow folkie Satoko Shibata offers a devastating portrait of a heart dealing with impermanence in “The Edge of Summer”: “I call out to you, but you’re no longer by my side,” Kamishiraishi sings in the chorus, her brittle, resigned sigh delivering a stinging fragility. Kai Kubota’s “anarchy sky,” meanwhile, explores a lighter take on a similar looming absence. “A love song born in a world covered in dirt / covered in scratches,” Kamishiraishi sings along the track’s pop bounce, and she traces the sweet, elliptical melody as if to convince herself that a wounded song doesn’t have to be always rendered into tragic drama.
Though adieu usually assumes the acoustic-guitar sound and the meek personality found in “The Edge of Summer,” the third mini album includes some welcoming deviations to the well-worn style. A humming guitar riff opens one of the most sprightly music from the adieu series in “tabidachi.” The breeziness of the music inspires a carefree attitude from Kamishiraishi, her defeated sighs uplifted into something closer to a shrug to express ambivalence. The project’s navel-gazing folk pivots into sensual, subtly funky soul in the EP closer “Wine,” and while he maintains the hushed volume, Nariaki Obukuro writes a series of upfront hooks for the bashful Kamishiraishi to sing: “Just hold me, darling / promise me right now, darling,” she pleads with an urgency rarely heard from the singer.
Loss and absence populate much of adieu 3, but Kamishiraishi sings of optimism in a lone song. Now consistent in three records, it has played out like tradition for an adieu EP to include one track that radiates with positivity. Though “The joy of loving” is more languid in sound than the peppy guitars strums of Ayano Kaneko’s “Tenshi” from the second installment, Fuyuko Shioiri writes for it a similar chorus that instills hope in the heart of others: “I’ll protect you, so your sorrows / please, please, give them all to me,” Kamishiriaishi sings. “The more I get to know of your joy / the more I think I want to keep on living.” The lyrics especially resonate after a series of songs with her sulking in her own sorrows, altering her position now as the healer instead of the hurt.
As with preceding EPs, adieu 3 finds the project’s main singer keeping its identity intentionally opaque. As outside songwriters fill in the blanks left by Kamishiraishi, it’d be easy to narrow the emotional palette of the project into shades of sorrow and melancholy to mold an image of a bashful singer-songwriter. The sullen tracks of adieu 3 suggest that everyone involved would excel in writing about that singular mood. But they also leave open just enough room to let in other perspectives with a song like “The joy of loving” carving out a different dimension to adieu, shaping it a newfound sense of humanity. Adieu remains a delicate balance act of personalities with its team establishing a voice that’s identifiable yet still malleable.
Singles Club
“Moonlightspeed” by Midnight Grand Orchestra [VIA / TOY’S FACTORY]
The propulsive electro-funk of “Moonlightspeed” matches in scale and power with any of the grand EDM spectacles of Taku Inoue and Suisei Hoshimachi’s latest Overture EP as Midnight Grand Orchestra. Energized as the music is, Hoshimachi pleads for it to go harder, better, faster, stronger: “Lightspeed isn’t enough,” the virtual singer cries out in the chorus, wishing for her proverbial vehicle to get there already so she can reunite with the one she loves. Like the collaboration that inspired Midnight Grand Orchestra, “Moonlightspeed” finds the duo racing against time, but here, the excitement to spend time with her favorite company trumps the dread of seeing the minutes slip away.
Listen to it on Spotify.
See also: “sisi” by gaburyu ft. Nakamura Sanso; “OVERNIGHT” by KMNZ
“STAR STATUS” by Mashinomi ft. Wez Atlas & 80KIDZ [PARK]
Since splitting from her old label last September, Mashinomi has got more adventurous with her music than she has ever been. The singer-songwriter has been making inroads moving on from sprightly piano pop, embracing more an influence from hip hop along the way, and now she dives head-first into dance music in “STAR STATUS.” For support, she recruits producer duo 80KIDZ, who supplies her and guest Wez Atlas with a tried-and-true 2-step beat, positioning Mashinomi into a possible cohort for the m-flo loves… series. Though it would be easy for her to treat the collaboration as a one-off genre exercise, the singer-songwriter doesn’t let her idiosyncracies bend to her new environment as she keeps her chatty writing style intact while she glides along to the beat.
Listen to it on Spotify.
See also: “Summer Deja Vu” by Gimgigam ft. PuniPuniDenki; “Dance with Me Tonight” by SARA-J x ONJUICY x FOFU
“Summer Solstice, Fern in a Dream” by WETNAP [DEBAUCH MOOD]
If WETNAP wanted to let you in on the kind of production that fills their upcoming new album before you press play, the band couldn’t go with a better title than gnarled. Based on the fidelity, the raucous post-hardcore of “Summer Solstice, Fern in a Dream” sounds as though you’re right in the middle of the commotion with shrieking guitars threatening to overpower the equally static-heavy vocals. It doesn’t take too hard a squint to make out the sweet emo song residing at the core of the shrouded noise, and yet WETNAP makes it evident the energy is too raw to contain in some clean lines and neat shapes.
gnarled is out October 11. Listen to a preview on Bandcamp.
See also: “poinsettia” by day’s eye; “Flying Fuck” by SOM4LI
This Week in 1996…
“Take Me Higher” by V6 [Avex Trax, 1996]
No. 1 during the week of Sept. 30, 1996 | Listen to it on YouTube
Like many young children in Japan, I grew up watching the Ultraman series as a kid. According to my mom, toddler me was apparently glued to the TV the moment I heard the guitars that opened V6’s “Take Me Higher,” the intro theme to Ultraman Tiga. Looking back, I don’t remember having that strong an attachment to the franchise compared to my own for the Super Sentai series. Even out of the ‘90s trilogy of Ultraman, I most fondly remember Gaia. All that said, there was no denying the nostalgia that hit me like a brick when I revisited “Take Me Higher” for the first time probably since I was a child watching Tiga every week.
“Take Me Higher” exudes nostalgia even without accounting for its connection to the Ultraman franchise thanks to the Eurobeat production. Those blindingly bright synths signature to the subgenre seals the track in the amber of the ‘90s. Dated as it is, “Take Me Higher” follows the lead of successful J-pop singles of its time particularly coming from V6’s home label of Avex Trax. In 1996 alone, Avex had been enjoying the success of Namie Amuro, who scored her second number-one that year with “You’re my sunshine.” Out of the groups from the Johnny’s company of its time, too, V6’s focus on Eurobeat in retrospect stood the group out as the most modern in feel.
Adopting Eurobeat turns out to be a rather daring move by the Ultraman franchise in retrospect. “Take Me Higher” stands out as an anomaly in the history of Ultraman theme songs, before and after: the subsequent themes for the ‘90s trilogy returned to a hard-rock sound bound to the ‘70s in decade, closer in feel to the era of the franchise’s original run. The embrace of Eurobeat established a clear divide within the show’s timeline as well. While the franchise remained in relevance throughout the ‘80s, putting out also one-off features in the early ‘90s, Tiga marked the first new hero in the Ultraman lineage since 1980. It introduced a new kind of Ultraman story to Heisei’s new generation of children like me.
“Take Me Higher” gets even more radical with its lyrics. While the singers for the theme songs for successors Dyna and Gaia proudly sing their respective names, V6 drops Tiga’s name as an afterthought in comparison: “Gonna Tiga, take me, take me higher,” the idols sing, the lyrics passing by in a blur across the speedy dance beat. Though the verses set up an epic scene, it’s indistinguishable from the scene-setting of any of V6’s other tracks also written to inspire optimism about the future. Themes for Dyna and Gaia clearly flesh out the respective hero’s legend; V6 reduces the hero to a dance command.
After letting the general nostalgia from “Take Me Higher” wash over me, it dawned on me that toddler me eagerly listened to Eurobeat if only within the space of the intro of my then-favorite TV show. If TRF’s take on dance and techno like hi-NRG, jungle and trance seemed niche during its time of arrival in 1993, “Take Me Higher” suggests the genre had been enjoying a good time in the mainstream. Eurobeat was palatable enough for public consumption at the time to accompany a re-introduction of one of the most visible hero franchises in the country, transmitting its busy beats to a 4-year-old’s TV screen on a Saturday night.
You can listen to all of the songs covered in this section (or what’s available) on this Spotify playlist.
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