{"id":4495,"date":"2011-01-01T18:24:04","date_gmt":"2011-01-02T04:24:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.studionewmedia.com\/blog\/?p=4495"},"modified":"2011-01-01T18:24:04","modified_gmt":"2011-01-02T04:24:04","slug":"2011-61st-annual-nhk-kohaku-uta-gassen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studionewmedia.com\/blog\/index.php\/2011\/01\/01\/2011-61st-annual-nhk-kohaku-uta-gassen\/","title":{"rendered":"2011 61st Annual NHK Kohaku Uta Gassen"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Oh, krapp! I slept thru the first hour of the Kohaku! Once again, I sit in front of the TV on New Year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Day watching the local delayed broadcast of the NHK \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Red and White Song Festival\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s get to it forthwith. Hopefully I can catch the beginning in rebroadcast later&#8230; Going live!<\/p>\n<p>Never shy about giving themselves a pat on their own shoulder, this year&#8217;s theme seems to be revolving around NHK&#8217;s morning drama, &#8220;Ge Ge Ge no Nyoubou&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Kodai Natsuko &#8211; Enka.\u00c2\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Hosokawa Takashi &#8211; Enka.\u00c2\u00a0 Not quite as on-key as he&#8217;s been in the past.<\/li>\n<li>Pornografitti &#8211; Sorry, I blinked and missed it&#8230; was it that uninteresting?<\/li>\n<li>Nishino Kana &#8211; Cute, but her song was somewhat uninteresting pop. More-or-less on-key, but a lot of the high notes were above her range.<\/li>\n<li>Funky Monkey Babys &#8211; Another rather generic pop song, but technically very good singing live.\u00c2\u00a0 There are three guys&#8230; is the middle guy the DJ?\u00c2\u00a0 He&#8217;s not scratching on those turntables&#8230;\u00c2\u00a0 Scratch damn you!<\/li>\n<li>Kawanaka Miyuki &#8211; Enka.\u00c2\u00a0 Another good performance like last year.<\/li>\n<li>HY &#8211; This year&#8217;s trendy Okinawan contemporary pop\u00c2\u00a0band.\u00c2\u00a0 Female vocalist\/keyboardist is very good with good range, but male vocalist\/sanshin player is way off-key!\u00c2\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Kumiko &#8211; Vocalist?\u00c2\u00a0 Loads of breathless vibrato, but at the sacrifice of being on-key.\u00c2\u00a0 The song is probably forcing her to sing too high.\u00c2\u00a0 In the lower ranges, her voice is much better &#8211; more powerful and significantly more on key.<\/li>\n<li>Mizumori Kaori &#8211; Enka.\u00c2\u00a0 Back again with another great performance.\u00c2\u00a0 With younger performers\u00c2\u00a0like her, Hikawa Kiyoshi,\u00c2\u00a0and Jero,\u00c2\u00a0Enka will continue into another generation.\u00c2\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Tokunaga Hideaki &#8211; Vocalist.\u00c2\u00a0 He&#8217;s got a higher vocal range (his voice disappears at lower ranges), but he&#8217;s not particulaly good nor animated live.\u00c2\u00a0 The blue background made him look even more undead&#8230;<\/li>\n<li>Mizuki Nana &#8211; Seiyuu\/pop artist returns with her &#8220;Phantom Minds&#8221; single.\u00c2\u00a0 Not as good as her performance last year.\u00c2\u00a0 Sounds like the same songwriter\/arranger as the people who did the Hayashibara Megumi Slayers-era theme songs, considering she&#8217;s on the same label.\u00c2\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>L&#8217;arc~en~Ciel &#8211; Contemporary rock.\u00c2\u00a0 This might be a good studio track, but live, the vocalist couldn&#8217;t hold a breathless note.\u00c2\u00a0 Unremarkable.\u00c2\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Tendou Yoshimi &#8211; Enka.\u00c2\u00a0 A more traditional offering than last year.\u00c2\u00a0 A pitch-perfect, powerful performance from one of the queens of Enka.<\/li>\n<li>Mori Shinichi &#8211; Enka.\u00c2\u00a0 A bit more breathless and flat than in previous years.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Okay, it&#8217;s time for an &#8220;everybody&#8221; medly &#8211; time to skip out to get something to eat&#8230;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Go Hiromi &#8211; Mister Ambiguous is back looking somewhat gaunt and long in years &#8211; it&#8217;s like he suddenly got old, or the makeup artists flaked.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0His voice is still going strong though.\u00c2\u00a0 He got a lot of airtime with his medly piece.<\/li>\n<li>aiko &#8211; Painfully flat again this year too, but another record-company-producer&#8217;s-wet-dream chart-topping pop song.<\/li>\n<li>Perfume &#8211; Oh man, another year of their incessant autotune vocals&#8230; hey, was that the Riverdance?\u00c2\u00a0 Okay, in all honesty, that wasn&#8217;t a particularly terrible pop song.\u00c2\u00a0 The choreography however\u00c2\u00a0did make me want to kill&#8230;<\/li>\n<li>TOKIO &#8211; The pretty-boy rockers are getting older and fatter, but they can still play.\u00c2\u00a0 The vocals were on-key, but were once again lacking in any form of impact.<\/li>\n<li>Kouda Kumi &#8211; Japan&#8217;s number-one soul sister is back again this year with a medly of past hits and a more conservative look (she doesn&#8217;t look like a amateur ganguro AV star)&#8230; Uh-oh&#8230; costume change &#8211; now that&#8217;s the Kouda Kumi we all know!<\/li>\n<li>Itsuki Hiroshi &#8211; Enka.\u00c2\u00a0 One of the gods of enka returns with another perfect performance.\u00c2\u00a0 His wide vocal range and signature dynamic range modulation are amazing.\u00c2\u00a0 He is a master of his art.\u00c2\u00a0 It&#8217;s gotten to the point that even though I don&#8217;t know his works, I can identify him within a verse when I hear him on the radio!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Okay, a &#8220;furusato&#8221; (hometown) medly &#8211; time for more leftover Chinese food&#8230;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Wada Akiko &#8211; Enka.\u00c2\u00a0 The contralto queen of Enka is back for another year with a medly backed by the entire red team.\u00c2\u00a0 Again, her pitch isn&#8217;t perfect, but that is made up for in sheer impact.<\/li>\n<li>Kayama Yuuzou &#8211; Japanese 1960&#8217;s surf rock pioneer is back with a retrospective of the &#8220;Wakadaisho&#8221; films.\u00c2\u00a0 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\u00c2\u00a0Car-Danchi 3.<\/li>\n<li>Fukuyama Masaharu -\u00c2\u00a0 The star of last year&#8217;s Sakamoto Ryoma NHK Taiga Dorama gets the long hair grown for the period drama cut on live TV!\u00c2\u00a0 Unlike his lip-synched performance last year, he actually sings live this time around.\u00c2\u00a0 Although his singing is mostly on-key, the song is\u00c2\u00a0unremarkable.<\/li>\n<li>Kobayashi Sachiko &#8211; Enka.\u00c2\u00a0 What will they do this year?\u00c2\u00a0 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.\u00c2\u00a0 Not quite as extravagant as previous years.\u00c2\u00a0 Her performance was flawless as usual.<\/li>\n<li>Kobukuro &#8211; On their 6th Kohaku, this pop duo finally seems to have gotten it down.\u00c2\u00a0 The guitarist&#8217;s singing was always better, but he was on it this year.\u00c2\u00a0 The sun-glasses-guy was still flat here and there, but he was significantly better than last year.\u00c2\u00a0 They managed\u00c2\u00a0some two-part-harmony, but because their vocal ranges are so different, it was still a bit weird.\u00c2\u00a0 They need like one more guy in the middle&#8230;<\/li>\n<li>Uemura Kana &#8211; Solo vocal pop with solo guitar.\u00c2\u00a0 Very well-done and on-key, but that&#8217;s pretty easy to do on a super-simple song that you wrote yourself&#8230; and yes, she did say &#8220;toilet&#8221; &#8211; otherwise, it would be a candidate for a nostalgic Studio Ghibli soundrack song.<\/li>\n<li>Arashi &#8211; I guess these guys have graduated into the ranks of &#8220;old guys who aren&#8217;t producing new material&#8221;, since they&#8217;ve been reduced to doing a medly of past hits instead of performing something new.\u00c2\u00a0 Amazingly they can still hold a note, unlike SMAP who were never on-key live.\u00c2\u00a0 I can&#8217;t really tell if their choreography is recycled from stock moves that they always use, since I really don&#8217;t pay attention to pretty boy bands.<\/li>\n<li>Ikimono-gakari &#8211; A studio-worthy performance of their &#8220;Arigatou&#8221; theme from the keynote Ge Ge Ge no Nyoubou morning drama with orchestral backing.\u00c2\u00a0 The band&#8217;s formation and concentration as a three-person street\/live-house\u00c2\u00a0ensemble is clearly visible in\u00c2\u00a0their\u00c2\u00a0solid live\u00c2\u00a0performances.\u00c2\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Kuwata Keisuke &#8211; 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.\u00c2\u00a0 He still has it.<\/li>\n<li>Ishikawa Sayuri &#8211; Enka.\u00c2\u00a0 An outstanding performance of her signature &#8220;Amanokoe&#8221;.\u00c2\u00a0 Surprisingly, she either had the freaky chin-mole removed, or they really packed on the makeup this year.<\/li>\n<li>Kitajima Saburo &#8211; Enka.\u00c2\u00a0 In homage to his Hokkaido roots, The Great God of\u00c2\u00a0 Enka renders a flawless rendition of his 1980&#8217;s hit &#8220;Fuusetsunagare tabi&#8221;.\u00c2\u00a0 Awesome!<\/li>\n<li>Sakamoto Fuyumi &#8211; Enka.\u00c2\u00a0 A tearful performance of her signature &#8220;Mata Kimi ni Koishiteru&#8221;.<\/li>\n<li>Hikawa Kiyoshi &#8211; Enka.\u00c2\u00a0 Dressed as a theatrical Persian prince with a harem of backing dancers, Kiyoshi belts out an Enka power ballad.<\/li>\n<li>DREAMS COME TRUE &#8211; Yet another poor performance of a mundane, repetitious\u00c2\u00a0song from DCT.\u00c2\u00a0 The brass band can&#8217;t save you.<\/li>\n<li>SMAP &#8211; Another medly -yeah, you know the story.\u00c2\u00a0 I used to think that Nakai was the only one who was really flat, but now that I listen carefully, they&#8217;re all really bad, but singing all at the same time, you can&#8217;t really hear when one is off-key.\u00c2\u00a0 Okay, Nakai and Inagaki are particularly terrible, but Kimura&#8217;s voice, while moslhy on-key, is always on the verge of breaking from trying to force the volume.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The five-hour spectacle ends with the\u00c2\u00a0white (men&#8217;s)\u00c2\u00a0team winning.\u00c2\u00a0 Time\u00c2\u00a0for some ice cream and anime.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Hopefully I can catch the beginning\u00c2\u00a0in rerun.\u00c2\u00a0 I&#8217;ll add an update later if\u00c2\u00a0 I do.<\/p>\n<p>Okay, Root hooked me up with a download of the show, so I got to see the beginning that I missed \u00e2\u20ac\u0153live\u00e2\u20ac\u009d-ish.\u00c2\u00a0 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!\u00c2\u00a0 Hooray Kumi!\u00c2\u00a0 You&#8217;re my hero!<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Hamasaki Ayumi \u00e2\u20ac\u201c I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll ever get why people think she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t help that she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d get married for real and retire from the business already.<\/li>\n<li>EXILE \u00e2\u20ac\u201c 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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t repetitious and derivative.<\/li>\n<li>AKB48 &#8211; I really can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t tell if they are actually singing live or are lip-synching, but it just doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t 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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re ON KEY.<\/li>\n<li>NYC \u00e2\u20ac\u201c They dropped the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Boys\u00e2\u20ac\u009d part of their name on this second appearance on the Kohaku, stepping up a level from the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Kid\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Kohaku\u00e2\u20ac\u009d 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\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 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.<\/li>\n<li>Angela Aki \u00e2\u20ac\u201c No matter how talented she is and how well she performs live, I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get used to looking at her. She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s one of the mixed ethnicity people who pulled all the discordant features from the DNA grab bag. I keep hoping that she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll mix it up musically someday, but whether she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s solo with her guitar or backed by the NHK orchestra, she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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.<\/li>\n<li>A A A (Attack All Around) \u00e2\u20ac\u201c 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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t manage to draw enough attention away from the dismal performance.<\/li>\n<li>Nakamura Mitsuko \u00e2\u20ac\u201c 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.<\/li>\n<li>flumpool \u00e2\u20ac\u201c 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.<\/li>\n<li>Hirahara Ayaka \u00e2\u20ac\u201c 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?<\/li>\n<li>Kamiji Yuusuke \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Hey, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The first intermezzo was the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Character Kohaku Uta Gassen\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, 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.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Okaasan to Issho<\/em> cast (Mitani Takumi, Yokoyama Daisuke, Kobayashi Yoshihisa, Itou Mayu) \u00e2\u20ac\u201c 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\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/li>\n<li>The live-action drama cast from the 2010 remake of the 1960&#8217;s <em>Kaibutsu-kun<\/em> anime sing the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Yukaikai Kaibutsu-kun\u00e2\u20ac\u009d opening theme song.\u00c2\u00a0 The main character is the lead singer from Arashi.<\/li>\n<li>Mizuki Nana and three of the AKB48 girls do the <em>HeartCatch Pretty Cure<\/em> theme along with , of course, freaky suited characters.<\/li>\n<li>Kumakuro Kazuo \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Reprises the original <em>Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro<\/em> animation opening theme song backed by suited characters. The choreography at least was more imaginative than the other segments.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Oh, krapp! I slept thru the first hour of the Kohaku! Once again, I sit in front of the TV on New Year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Day watching the local delayed broadcast of the NHK \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Red and White Song Festival\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s get to it forthwith. Hopefully I can catch the beginning in rebroadcast later&#8230; Going live! Never shy [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[7,13],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paJYlx-1av","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studionewmedia.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4495"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studionewmedia.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studionewmedia.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studionewmedia.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studionewmedia.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studionewmedia.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4495\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studionewmedia.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studionewmedia.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studionewmedia.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}