Issue #68: Optics
Exploring the Koh-Gaku EPs, Naoko Kawai's number-one double A-side and Ano's viral hit "Chu, Tayousei"
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For any other anime series, it would be plenty if you got even one out of the dozen artists who contributed an ending theme for each of the 12 episodes of Chainsaw Man. Eve, Aimer, Queen Bee—some have also already handed a song for an opening or ending roll of the most popular anime shows today. But out of the impressive roster, none have made a bigger impact in J-pop and the culture beyond since its release last November than Ano and her contribution “Chu, Tayousei.” If we consider it upon its year of impact, it’s one of my top favorite singles of 2023 so far.
“Chu, Tayousei” by Ano
It’s certainly one of the most viral hits of the year, much thanks to its dance that inspired countless odottemita TikTok clips. But what plays as central to the song’s virality is its vulgar hook: “Ge-ge-ge-gero chuu,” Ano sings the chorus. The official lyric sheet writes it out as “get get get on chu,” but through Ano’s slurry mumble, you can’t hear it as anything other than “vomit (gero)” and kissing (chuu). The visual props in the mahjong-themed music video certainly frames “vomit-kiss” as the proper read, and from the impression left on TikTok and Google search results, gero-chuu has stuck enough to the front of mind of fans almost like the song’s alternative title.
“Chu, Tayousei” tucks in many other plays with rhyme and onomatopoeia. “Wo ai ni / Oh, I need (you) / Oainiku (sama).” “The back of my throat is chikun chikun / I’m dokun dokun.” The phrases in the former rhyme in particular become indistinguishable from the other, thanks to Ano’s slurry delivery. The verses echo a feeling of deja vu as words start to melt into mere syllables and the melodic cadence endlessly chases its own tail. It’s understandable why it attracts singing covers as much as dancing ones: it’s simply fun to hum along to the rhyme, like you’re reciting a spell.
The song’s obsessive focus of lyrics and language places equal weight on dizzying wordplay as the main appeal of the song as much as the actual narrative, if not more. This school of songwriting isn’t at all surprising coming from Shuichi Mabe, also the former songwriter for the band Soutaiseiriron. Listeners found a resemblance to Soutaiseiriron’s “Love Zukkyun” in “Chu, Tayousei.” Ano’s song—arranged by Taku Inoue!—wears the retro post-punk sound similar to the track by Mabe’s former band. But an equally strong link can be found in the aloof, word-drunk lyricism of both songs, performed in “Zukkyun Love” by frontwoman Etsuko Yakushimaru.
The prioritization of the song’s mechanics over message—how it sounds vs. what it’s saying—is essential in defining J-pop unique to the last decade. But while artists like Kyary Pamyu Pamyu or the Kom_I-fronted Wednesday Campanella stood out as quirky anomalies in the early 2010s, their successors now have more platforms available to make better sense of the appeal behind their songs in contexts other than pure audio. I’m thinking of a song like another viral hit, asmi’s “PAKU,” where the dazzle behind its word-salad lyrics and the chorus’s loop-de-loop top line are better presented via lyric videos or TikTok dance clips, respectively. The focus isn’t just in building the world around its artists but also the context as well as the utility of the song itself—how people can interact with its hooks and production.
Had “Chu, Tayousei” been released in 2019, it would’ve likely been a song people would now retroactively dub as being “ahead of its time,” much like Soutaiseiriron’s discography. If Ano, then still in idol group You’ll Melt More, and Shuichi Mabe, then working on the great band Group Action, had collaborated by chance in 2019, I doubt it would sound that much different than how their collaboration does now. Despite the song not tweaking much of the respective creators’ styles, the arrival of “Chu, Tayousei” feels right on time as its thrills are driven by, if not particularly designed for today’s popular media platforms. And the song’s big success speaks to the fact that the time has come for the ideas patented by 2010s J-pop to be finally embraced.
It’s been a roller coaster of a month for me, but after much delay, welcome to This Side of Japan issue #68! For this issue, I didn’t feel like writing an album review so I went ahead and blurbed about a several—funny that happens! So we got a feature in place of a single album review for the Album of the Week. This issue overall seems a bit heavier with funk, hip hop and dance as you’ll see with the singles as well as our Oricon flashback, so hope you like those.
Oh, and this upcoming weekend, I’ll be attending Anime Expo in L.A. with a few friends—my first convention of this type! Let’s see what that’ll inspire for this newsletter in the future.
Happy listening!
Album of the Week
Extended Optics: A Look into the Koh-Gaku EPs
A detailed dive into the five EPs by the production unit assembled by Tsudio Studio, HIRO.JP and SNJO
Self-production has been at the conceptual heart of Koh-Gaku since Tsudio Studio launched the project in 2020 with label mates HIRO.JP and SNJO. But as Tsudio Studio wrote in an intro blog post, the inspiration behind their endeavor seemed less about the music-production process itself but how being self-sufficient can leverage new creative opportunities.
“I don’t think I’m being too out there to say it’s popular now to produce music all on the computer,” he wrote on his site in 2020. “This method doesn’t call for a big budget or studio, so there’s a lot of people who write, compose and arrange all of the music. I thought it’d be great to have an all-rounded music-production team suited for the music-making of the times, where producers aren’t just waiting for a call from a client and can use their abilities to the fullest for their own good.”
The main appeal behind Koh-Gaku lies on how they take it on their own to call upon new collaborators, centering each new release on a different vocalist. Every guest so far has inspired from the three a different take of their settled core aesthetic of synth-funk and R&B, and the same goes for the other way around with the vocalists granted a chance to explore a realm of production outside of their familiar zone. The whole project presents an ideal, thrilling result from collaboration: everyone involved participates in a creation of something new and exciting, highlighting each other in the process.
For this issue’s Album of the Week, we dedicate the section to dig into each of the five EPs by Koh-Gaku in chronological order. The EPs have been consistently strong in quality while doubling as a fine introduction to its respective guests and their own works. (I didn’t have time to dedicate space for it, but be sure to check out the solo works of the three as well!) With their fifth entry in collaboration with singer Mandark out earlier this month, it’s a good time as any to highlight the releases of Tsudio Studio, HIRO.JP and SNJO’s pet project.
Opto1: Takano Unico
Listen to it on Bandcamp/Spotify
The first Opto EP naturally serves as a fine introduction to the sounds and concepts that inform the Koh-Gaku project. An interest in throwback funk and boogie shared between the three’s individual works form into the unit’s collective sound. That said, each producer contributes a slightly varied take that reveals his specific fixations within the defined style. While HIRO.JP goes for a straight recreation of hi-fi MOR in “Midnight Blue” that radiates with analog warmth, Tsudio Studio’s electro-funk for “Night Walk Party” glows from its digital slickness. SNJO’s angular, New Jack Swing-flavored pop in “Touch” meets them in the middle.
Had the trio been left to their own devices, their retro-funk obsessions can easily lend the resulting music to become a period piece. Takano Unico as Koh-Gaku’s first guest vocalist balances the unit out, though she doesn’t reel them back to reality than transports them instead to her world. She deals with a similar ‘80s-dreaming electro-pop sound in her own project NECO ASOBI; Tsudio Studio’s “Night Walk Party” from Opto1 gets the closest to the songs included in the singer’s PSR B1919+21 EP. But her music feels modern as it’s, ironically, more willfully steeped in the sounds but also the idea of nostalgia, especially as her dreamy vocals turns wistful, like she’s missing a memory or sensation she never actually experienced. Her presence in Opto1, too, brings in the sort of escapist relationship with styles and sounds of the past, with her and Koh-Gaku tipping its toe into another era of music but still firmly operating from vantage point of today.
See also: PSR B1919+21 by NECO ASOBI (self-released, 2020)
Opto2: Miho Tsujibayashi
Listen to it on Bandcamp/Spotify
If we can consider the music of Koh-Gaku operating in the binary of the analog and digital, Opto2 basks in the former end of their stylistic poles. The decision to do so is partly inspired by the EP’s guest, Miho Tsujibayashi. Her solo releases like 2019’s Ombre share an affinity for pop nostalgia as her collaborators, though her neo-Shibuya-kei songs reach for a slightly different definition of retro, a lane farther away from post-disco R&B. The second entry to the project opts for a tender, graceful funk, snuffing out the more strident ends of the synthesizer and drum machine.
Given his contribution in the previous Opto EP, HIRO.JP perhaps as expected excels at this assignment: he crafts a lush lite-jazz pop in “Yurameku” that rocks as dreamily as the title suggests. The chosen aesthetic ground, meanwhile, pushes Tsudio Studio to get experimental in “You,” transporting Tsujibayashi into an ethereal realm made of faint wisps of synths and flutes with hardly any percussive anchor. SNJO also indulges in a balm drift, but he can’t help but lure his guest vocalist to the dance floor. Even as their collaborator nudges them into different terrains, Koh-Gaku keeps their individualities intact.
See also: Ombre by Miho Tsujibayashi (FLY HIGH, 2019)
Singles Club
“barla” by bala [ASOBI MUSIC]
How a song involving Shinichi Osawa on production and Kenmochi Hidefumi on lyrics flew past my radar is beyond me. Thanks goes out to the remix with BBY NATE, then, for helping me get caught up with this sort-of supergroup’s debut single. The sticky house beat radiates a classic Mondo Grosso feel, reminiscent of the skip-start sample chops of French touch. Kenmochi Hidefumi, meanwhile, decides to not get fussy with the lyrics, handing the group instead a straightforward “girls just wanna have fun” anthem. Already on its debut single, bala arrives self-defined from its sound of choice to its “live in the moment” attitude.
Listen to it on Spotify.
See also: “Love Groovin’” by DE DE MOUSE ft. Hitomi Toi; “niwl” by tokiwa
“Speedy Freeky” by DJ KANJI ft. CYBER RUI & Elle Teresa [Ovahead]
It was a busy month when it came to rap collaborations, a good few spearheaded by Japan’s rap festival POP YOURS, which happened on the first weekend of June. The most irresistible hook, however, came from outside of the festival machine. “Speedy, freaky—come and get me,” CYBER RUI taunts in the titular chorus of her team-up with Elle Teresa and DJ KANJI. The latter producer’s rather minimal, hypnotic synth beat, is built to let the chorus linger and the big personalities flourish as they each coolly reiterate of her untouchable presence. That said, like its icy production, “Speedy Freeky” is driven more by restraint than opulence with its best moments subtly burrowing in the mind.
Listen to it on Spotify.
See also: “Bling Bling” by DJ RYOW ft. CYBER RUI, MaRI; “Go DJ (Hey Daddy)” by Elle Teresa
“In Bedroom” by Oyubi [MIDNIGHT CULT]
Oyubi returns with a mini sequel of sorts to the producer’s great 2021 record Finger Parade. The sole new track, “In Bedroom,” swaps the relentless thump of footwork familiar to the previous EP—the record invites Traxman and Foodman for remixes—for the dizzying beat work of drum ‘n’ bass. And as the title suggests, though the chopped drum breaks pack a punch, it’s also a more reserved affair that goes on breezier than their usual workouts inspired by the Chicago footwork.
Finger Parade -ANOTHER- is out now. Listen to it on Bandcamp/Spotify.
See also: “Camellia” by Dayzero & WRECK; “Allegory in the Raven” by Samuel Smoky Purple
This Week in 1985…
“Debut (Fly Me to Love)” / “Manhattan Joke” by Naoko Kawai [Columbia, 1985]
No. 1 during the week of June 24, 1985 | Listen to side A and side B on YouTube
Originally, I was going to write solely on Naoko Kawai’s “Manhattan Joke,” the title track to the 1985 film Lupin the Third: Legend of the Gold of Babylon. The boogie music grabbed me instantly, much funkier than its idol-standard flip side, “Debut (Fly Me to Love).” The funk is so impressive, in fact, that it has been somewhat canonized: contributors of the influential Wa Mono A to Z Japanese Groove Disc Guide chose the record for the Light Mellow, Disco & Boogie disc of the companion compilation CD in 2018. The single’s producer Yuji Ohno in general attracted the guide’s rare-groove curators, who featured many of his jazz-inspired soundtracks including the ones for the Lupin the Third series.
But listening to more of Naoko Kawai’s discography, it’s more fascinating to look at this single as a pair. By coupling both “Debut (Fly Me to Love)” and “Manhattan Joke” into one record, it presents a neat snapshot of where she was as an idol in 1985. It represents the intersection of Kawai, the singles act and album artist, and she had been heading into a curious, if not adventurous direction when it came to the latter format around this time. While her singles performed decent on the charts, they made no appearance in her albums from 1984’s Daydream Coast to 1985’s Stardust Garden. From personnel to sound to theme, these LPs aspired to exist in worlds separate from the songs familiar on TV. If the singles were handwritten letters by Kawai sent from her home, the albums were postcards with messages shared from her travels.
The separate focuses may leave an impression with the album at higher prestige over the singles, but that’s not to say her singles weren’t sophisticated or ambitious. “Debut (Fly Me to Love)” is as meticulously arranged as the next big idol-star hit with its vivacious horns and strings making an immediate impression. But perhaps because of the lyrical reference to the ocean and the coral reef, I can’t help but hear the song as a remnant of a slightly earlier idol-pop dream. To her credit, she has been handed songs like “Escalation” and “Control,” penned by lyricist Masao Urino who also wrote “Debut,” that complicate the perceived naivete of the post-Seiko Matsuda mold. But musically and lyrically, “Debut (Fly Me to Love)” gestures closely to a wholesomeness more fitting in a idol record from 1983.
Going through her early singles, it amazed me what only a few years can significantly do to a feel of an idol record. More obvious than a shift in narrative and character, the change feels obvious in musicality behind the records. Technology at the time was evolving at a rapid rate, with new instruments like synthesizers and samplers changing not only the texture but the rhythms of songs. The frolic of “Debut (Fly Me to Love)” sounds somewhat dated particularly considering some of the idol records that’d come out not even a year after. The icy laser disco of Momoko Kikuchi’s “Broken Sunset” from February 1986 sounds futuristic in comparison with its super-sleek finish and drum-machine rattling.
While her later singles eventually made its way into her subsequent LPs, this single by Kawai documents a particular time of creativity for the idol, where it appeared as though she moonlighted as a capital-A Artist with the help of auteurs and session musicians, sometimes casted from overseas. All one had to do was flip the record to recognize she was more of a singer than what just the singles suggested. And from Momoko Kikuchi to Seiko Matsuda, Kawai wasn’t the only who looked outside for other creative pursuits in 1985.
You can listen to all of the songs covered so far in this section in this playlist here.
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Next issue of This Side of Japan is out July 10. You can check out previous issues of the newsletter here.
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I was not expecting the gruesome chainsaw murder in the middle of the music video 😂