2011 61st Annual NHK Kohaku Uta Gassen

Oh, krapp! I slept thru the first hour of the Kohaku! Once again, I sit in front of the TV on New Year’s Day watching the local delayed broadcast of the NHK “Red and White Song Festival”. Let’s get to it forthwith. Hopefully I can catch the beginning in rebroadcast later… Going live!

Never shy about giving themselves a pat on their own shoulder, this year’s theme seems to be revolving around NHK’s morning drama, “Ge Ge Ge no Nyoubou”.

• Kodai Natsuko – Enka. 
• Hosokawa Takashi – Enka.  Not quite as on-key as he’s been in the past.
• Pornografitti – Sorry, I blinked and missed it… was it that uninteresting?
• Nishino Kana – Cute, but her song was somewhat uninteresting pop. More-or-less on-key, but a lot of the high notes were above her range.
• Funky Monkey Babys – Another rather generic pop song, but technically very good singing live.  There are three guys… is the middle guy the DJ?  He’s not scratching on those turntables…  Scratch damn you!
• Kawanaka Miyuki – Enka.  Another good performance like last year.
• HY – This year’s trendy Okinawan contemporary pop band.  Female vocalist/keyboardist is very good with good range, but male vocalist/sanshin player is way off-key! 
• Kumiko – Vocalist?  Loads of breathless vibrato, but at the sacrifice of being on-key.  The song is probably forcing her to sing too high.  In the lower ranges, her voice is much better – more powerful and significantly more on key.
• Mizumori Kaori – Enka.  Back again with another great performance.  With younger performers like her, Hikawa Kiyoshi, and Jero, Enka will continue into another generation. 
• Tokunaga Hideaki – Vocalist.  He’s got a higher vocal range (his voice disappears at lower ranges), but he’s not particulaly good nor animated live.  The blue background made him look even more undead…
• Mizuki Nana – Seiyuu/pop artist returns with her “Phantom Minds” single.  Not as good as her performance last year.  Sounds like the same songwriter/arranger as the people who did the Hayashibara Megumi Slayers-era theme songs, considering she’s on the same label. 
• L’arc~en~Ciel – Contemporary rock.  This might be a good studio track, but live, the vocalist couldn’t hold a breathless note.  Unremarkable. 
• Tendou Yoshimi – Enka.  A more traditional offering than last year.  A pitch-perfect, powerful performance from one of the queens of Enka.
• Mori Shinichi – Enka.  A bit more breathless and flat than in previous years.

Okay, it’s time for an “everybody” medly – time to skip out to get something to eat…

• Go Hiromi – Mister Ambiguous is back looking somewhat gaunt and long in years – it’s like he suddenly got old, or the makeup artists flaked.  His voice is still going strong though.  He got a lot of airtime with his medly piece.
• aiko – Painfully flat again this year too, but another record-company-producer’s-wet-dream chart-topping pop song.
• Perfume – Oh man, another year of their incessant autotune vocals… hey, was that the Riverdance?  Okay, in all honesty, that wasn’t a particularly terrible pop song.  The choreography however did make me want to kill…
• TOKIO – The pretty-boy rockers are getting older and fatter, but they can still play.  The vocals were on-key, but were once again lacking in any form of impact.
• Kouda Kumi – Japan’s number-one soul sister is back again this year with a medly of past hits and a more conservative look (she doesn’t look like a amateur ganguro AV star)… Uh-oh… costume change – now that’s the Kouda Kumi we all know!
• Itsuki Hiroshi – Enka.  One of the gods of enka returns with another perfect performance.  His wide vocal range and signature dynamic range modulation are amazing.  He is a master of his art.  It’s gotten to the point that even though I don’t know his works, I can identify him within a verse when I hear him on the radio!

Okay, a “furusato” (hometown) medly – time for more leftover Chinese food…

• Wada Akiko – Enka.  The contralto queen of Enka is back for another year with a medly backed by the entire red team.  Again, her pitch isn’t perfect, but that is made up for in sheer impact.
• Kayama Yuuzou – Japanese 1960’s surf rock pioneer is back with a retrospective of the “Wakadaisho” films.  As an odd side note, he is the owner of the Kayama Captain Coast ski area in Yuzawa-machi, Niigata-ken as featured in the Honshuu portion of the snowboarding film Car-Danchi 3.
• Fukuyama Masaharu –  The star of last year’s Sakamoto Ryoma NHK Taiga Dorama gets the long hair grown for the period drama cut on live TV!  Unlike his lip-synched performance last year, he actually sings live this time around.  Although his singing is mostly on-key, the song is unremarkable.
• Kobayashi Sachiko – Enka.  What will they do this year?  The silver and white feathered gown with winged hat was like a Go Nagai/Hide/Amamiya Keita fantasy that reflected the giant animatronic crane that rose her up above the stage.  Not quite as extravagant as previous years.  Her performance was flawless as usual.
• Kobukuro – On their 6th Kohaku, this pop duo finally seems to have gotten it down.  The guitarist’s singing was always better, but he was on it this year.  The sun-glasses-guy was still flat here and there, but he was significantly better than last year.  They managed some two-part-harmony, but because their vocal ranges are so different, it was still a bit weird.  They need like one more guy in the middle…
• Uemura Kana – Solo vocal pop with solo guitar.  Very well-done and on-key, but that’s pretty easy to do on a super-simple song that you wrote yourself… and yes, she did say “toilet” – otherwise, it would be a candidate for a nostalgic Studio Ghibli soundrack song.
• Arashi – I guess these guys have graduated into the ranks of “old guys who aren’t producing new material”, since they’ve been reduced to doing a medly of past hits instead of performing something new.  Amazingly they can still hold a note, unlike SMAP who were never on-key live.  I can’t really tell if their choreography is recycled from stock moves that they always use, since I really don’t pay attention to pretty boy bands.
• Ikimono-gakari – A studio-worthy performance of their “Arigatou” theme from the keynote Ge Ge Ge no Nyoubou morning drama with orchestral backing.  The band’s formation and concentration as a three-person street/live-house ensemble is clearly visible in their solid live performances. 
• Kuwata Keisuke – Southern All-Stars frontman on the mend from treatment for esophageal cancer diagnosed in July of last year performs once again in advance of the release of his latest album on February.  He still has it.
• Ishikawa Sayuri – Enka.  An outstanding performance of her signature “Amanokoe”.  Surprisingly, she either had the freaky chin-mole removed, or they really packed on the makeup this year.
• Kitajima Saburo – Enka.  In homage to his Hokkaido roots, The Great God of  Enka renders a flawless rendition of his 1980’s hit “Fuusetsunagare tabi”.  Awesome!
• Sakamoto Fuyumi – Enka.  A tearful performance of her signature “Mata Kimi ni Koishiteru”.
• Hikawa Kiyoshi – Enka.  Dressed as a theatrical Persian prince with a harem of backing dancers, Kiyoshi belts out an Enka power ballad.
• DREAMS COME TRUE – Yet another poor performance of a mundane, repetitious song from DCT.  The brass band can’t save you.
• SMAP – Another medly -yeah, you know the story.  I used to think that Nakai was the only one who was really flat, but now that I listen carefully, they’re all really bad, but singing all at the same time, you can’t really hear when one is off-key.  Okay, Nakai and Inagaki are particularly terrible, but Kimura’s voice, while moslhy on-key, is always on the verge of breaking from trying to force the volume.

The five-hour spectacle ends with the white (men’s) team winning.  Time for some ice cream and anime.  Hopefully I can catch the beginning in rerun.  I’ll add an update later if  I do.

Okay, Root hooked me up with a download of the show, so I got to see the beginning that I missed “live”-ish.  Who is this Ishikawa dude? Some athlete? Meh. Whatever. Whoa! Wada Akiko slipped on the stairs and stumbled a little during the opening walk-in. Luckily Kouda Kumi was there to save the day!  Hooray Kumi!  You’re my hero!

• Hamasaki Ayumi – I don’t think I’ll ever get why people think she’s talented. Her forced attempts at vibrato make her sound breathless, and since a lot of the notes are below her vocal range, her voice goes almost silent in parts. Of course, it doesn’t help that she’s flat most of the time. Her look is getting more haggard and fried-out. The dangly things on her manicure are unattractive. I really wish she’d get married for real and retire from the business already.
• EXILE – Man, were there always that many members? Are they just the backing dancers? They were out on stage at the outset though, so it would appear that they are members instead of garnish. Looks like 2-dozen guys and then some! Are they trying to be the male hip-hop version of AKB48? Okay, the song started with autovoice distortion. They already lost me, even if the song wasn’t repetitious and derivative.
• AKB48 – I really can’t tell if they are actually singing live or are lip-synching, but it just doesn’t matter. Just as I was about to complain about the heavy rainwear costumes, off they come! Yay! This is just so wonderful on so many levels. They may be dismissed by the mainstream as bubblegum pop, but if you listen, there really is some underlying talent in there, although with that many members, it is somewhat difficult to distill what that specific goodness is. Well, the one obvious one is that they’re ON KEY.
• NYC – They dropped the “Boys” part of their name on this second appearance on the Kohaku, stepping up a level from the “Kid’s Kohaku” featurette to a fully qualified act. The dance moves, costumes, and makeup are so painfully effeminate, but I guess that is catering to their target audience, whoever that may be… Again like last year, they are actually talented, no matter how painfully insipid their material is. Hopefully for them, they can manage the transition when their voices change.
• Angela Aki – No matter how talented she is and how well she performs live, I can’t get used to looking at her. She’s one of the mixed ethnicity people who pulled all the discordant features from the DNA grab bag. I keep hoping that she’ll mix it up musically someday, but whether she’s solo with her guitar or backed by the NHK orchestra, she’s really a one-trick-pony sitting in her comfort zone singing slightly different iterations of essentially the same song. The potential is there, but not the motivation or resolve to progress.
• A A A (Attack All Around) – This is the first time for this ensemble on the Kohaku. Seems like a dance/hip-hop/pop group. Seven people and not one can sing on key, even with all the wireless earpieces. The shiny gold outfits didn’t manage to draw enough attention away from the dismal performance.
• Nakamura Mitsuko – Audience participation was the theme of this enka piece, bringing a matsuri party atmosphere to the NHK Hall, replete with Haruna Ai and creepy gorilla-ish mascot characters. There was so much going on visually, the song was mostly lost.
• flumpool – For their second appearance on the Kohaku, this pop rock group fell flat for the second time, even with an energetic, spirited performance. The beginning of the song was well below the vocal range of the singer, and his voiced cracked when he tried belting out the chorus.
• Hirahara Ayaka – contemporary female vocalist singing off-key outside her vocal range while dressed like Hamasaki? Is this the person who sang the Daimjin Kanon theme song?
• Kamiji Yuusuke – Hey, he’s got a DJ! Is he really scratching, or is it just for show? Unimpressive, pedestrian lite hip hop. He was mostly on-key, but the song was truly forgettable. What was I listening to again?

The first intermezzo was the “Character Kohaku Uta Gassen”, with an odd mix of things contemporary and arcane. Being as this year NHK is trying to ride on the groundswell of their Ge Ge Ge no Nyoubou series and even invited the original titular person herself to be a guest judge, this part would not be complete without a reference to Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro.

• Okaasan to Issho cast (Mitani Takumi, Yokoyama Daisuke, Kobayashi Yoshihisa, Itou Mayu) – the human cast and freaky suited characters from the kids educational program sing about mushrooms. If this performance is anything like the actual television show, no wonder kids grow up to be demented adults in Japan…
• The live-action drama cast from the 2010 remake of the 1960’s Kaibutsu-kun anime sing the “Yukaikai Kaibutsu-kun” opening theme song.  The main character is the lead singer from Arashi.
• Mizuki Nana and three of the AKB48 girls do the HeartCatch Pretty Cure theme along with , of course, freaky suited characters.
• Kumakuro Kazuo – Reprises the original Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro animation opening theme song backed by suited characters. The choreography at least was more imaginative than the other segments.