Tokyo Reborn: Dark Superstar

Chapter 182 NHK Red and White Song Contest Rehearsal
Kyoko Koizumi also attended the celebration party for Akina Nakamori's single "Kokoro-zu shi" (Psychological Effect), which achieved cumulative sales of over 100 million.

Both Koizumi Kyoko and Nakamori Akina were active in the 20s and were members of the same group, "Hana no 80-year Group".

The two have performed on the same stage many times and collaborated on a TV series in 1992. They also have a very close relationship in private and can be said to be good sisters.

It's just that at that time, Takakura Bunta went to Aqaba, Jordan's second largest port city, to give a complete home to his three children who had just lost their father, and to take care of the widow, Princess Rania, every day.

Therefore, Bunta Takakura missed the opportunity to meet Kyoko Koizumi.

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Takakura Bunta himself still has certain feelings for the last three great singers of the Showa era.

Not to mention the media is frantically promoting that the era of divas is over, the idol ice age is coming, and the era of groups represented by SMAP, Beasts, and Arashi has arrived...

Against this background, the meeting between Bunta Takakura and Kyoko Koizumi is of historical significance.

That is to say, there were no reporters present, otherwise I would have taken photos like crazy, and then wrote this with tears on my keyboard:
"The End of the Showa Utaha Era: The End of the Japanese Entertainment World..."

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But this is not wrong.

"Eternal idol" Seiko Matsuda did not win any awards at any music award ceremonies this year, the first time this has happened in her 19 years of debut.

Her lifelong enemy, Akina Nakamori, did not release any works after the "Golden Screen" incident, except for the single "Kokorozushi" (Psychological Effect) by the Beasts Band, and began to enter a semi-retired state.

Akina Nakamori's heyday was in the mid-20s, when enka was declining, new music by people like Yumi Matsutoya was just emerging, and female idols continued to emerge.

For example, Yamaguchi Baihui, Iwasaki Hiromi, Ogino Yoko, Matsuda Seiko, Yakushimaru Hiroko, Koizumi Kyoko and even the early Takeuchi Maria...

The era of female idols was in its heyday.

In 1980, Yamaguchi Momoe retired, which led to the start of a competition in the idol world. In the same year, Matsuda Seiko made her debut and became a hit, and she dominated the industry until 1985 when Matsuda got married for the first time and retired temporarily.

It was not until Akina Nakamori made her debut in 1982 that she got the chance to truly dominate, and she became a legend between 1985 and 1988.

She and Seiko Matsuda can be said to be the representatives of idols in the 80s. In the 10-year sales, Seiko Matsuda ranked first and Akina Nakamori ranked second. The total sales of Seiko Matsuda were 3000 million and Akina Nakamori were 2300 million, ranking first and second among the singers who became famous in the 80s.

Akina Nakamori has won the annual sales championship four times, entered the top 3 of the Oricon chart seven times, had four top 10 selling albums in six years, and ten annual top 10 selling singles.

In any era, this result is very terrifying, "the national singer is undoubtedly the best."

His representative works "The Unbreakable Ship" and "DESIRE -Passion-" ranked 41st and 35th in the Japanese music classics of the past years.

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Now, adding the first generation of advertising girlfriend king, Koizumi Kyoko, who was the "best mature woman" worshipped by urban white-collar workers with her sweet smile all over the country, has fallen into the vortex of negative death love affair like the other two of the three great singers of the Showa era.

She married actor Masatoshi Nagase two years ago.

But the one that Masatoshi Nagase liked was Kyoko Koizumi when she had short hair and wore boys' school clothes.

Now she has long hair...

So, Nagase Masatoshi, who was gentle before marriage and was known as "Japan's most gentlemanly male artist", turned into an iron-fisted man when he returned home. He punched and kicked Koizumi Kyoko every day, and especially liked to play "kicking game" and volley.

It even led to Kyoko Koizumi being hospitalized for a while and undergoing breast congestion removal surgery.

This caused Koizumi Kyoko to be in a very bad working state. She breached the contract on many performances and was even revealed by Weekly Modern to have to pay the penalty with her real estate.

In the original plane, Kyoko Koizumi was always involved in family disputes and only successfully divorced nine years later. After the divorce, Masato Nagase admitted that he was a male.

Then she fell in love with married actor and singer Toyohara Kosuke and was his mistress for five years, but they eventually broke up.

This time, when Takakura Bunta met with Koizumi Kyoko, he gave her a business card of Miki Law Firm, a subsidiary of Totland Capital.

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The era of the last three singing girls of the Showa era dominating the Japanese entertainment industry has officially come to an end...

After the Showa idol era came to an end, someone naturally had to take up the responsibility.

At present, the two most promising flags of the group era are Beast Band led by Bunta Takakura and SMAP led by Takuya Kimura.

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As for Arashi, they are popular enough, but most of the success was due to the Johnny & Associates piling up resources and promoting them. Their achievements in all aspects are still far behind those of Beasts and SMAP.

Now with the pressure from the Beasts band, many people are questioning the title of Johnny's new generation pillar.

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After chatting for a while, Takakura Bunta and Koizumi Kyoko returned to their dressing rooms. Some newcomers also came to visit and chat with him, but most of the female artists returned disappointed because they did not get the legendary Tokyo Night Club admission card.

Southern All Stars' lead singer Keisuke Kuwata also came.

The Southern All Stars wanted to cover "Kill That Tokyo Man", and Takakura Bunta agreed. Kuwata Keisuke didn't leave after he finished his work, and stayed to chat with Takakura Bunta for a while.

The Southern Stars are very successful in the entertainment industry thanks to their good social skills and wide network of contacts. During their peak period, they had friends among actors, singers, directors, screenwriters and producers from both sides of the Taiwan Strait and Hong Kong.

In a sense, it is in an unrivaled position.

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As a band, they went to the capital of the Red Earth Continent to hold a concert in 1992 and sang in the Forbidden City.

The composers and original singers of many classic Chinese songs by Teresa Teng, Nick Cheung, Vivian Chan and Gu Juji are all from the Southern Stars.

There is no need to elaborate on how many awards the Southern All Stars have won and how many records they have set.

What really makes this band feel unrivaled is its huge commercial value.

In Japan, if you are shooting a commercial and can’t find a jingle or background music, just find one from the Southern All Stars music!

From wine to cars, from sanitary products to life insurance, Uniqlo, KFC, Shiseido...

That's really all-encompassing...

There are not many bands in the world that can do this.

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Southern All Stars has been with the band for almost the entire history of JPop (Japanese pop music), maintaining sufficient popularity from the 20s to the 70s and occupying an important position in the Japanese music scene during the same period.

The undisputed Japanese veteran band.

In the early summer of 1978, the six-piece band released their first single.

For a country where many new bands debut every year and many old bands disband or cease activities, this is simply a trivial matter, not to mention that this band seems to be just playing around...

I didn't spend much time thinking about either the band name or the single title.

The band's name is "SOUTHERN ALL STARS" which is a combination of Neil Young's song "Southen Man" and the American band "Fania All-Stars".

The title of the single was taken from two hit songs of the year, Kenji Sawada's "Victory Hand ni Shiyagare" and Pink Lady's "Nagisa no Shindo Bag", and was spelled out as "Victory Hand ni Shindo Bag", which has nothing to do with the content of the lyrics.

Can you become famous by copying the title of a popular song?
Funny, right?

When this single was first released, it didn't even make it into the top 500 on the Oricon chart.

At that time, no one would have thought that this band consisting of the following six people would become the greatest pop band in Japanese history decades later.

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Compared to the Southern All Stars, the Beasts, as a new band, are still too inexperienced and cannot yet be ranked first among the singers of the NHK Red and White Songs Festival.

Whether it is SMAP, the mainstay of Johnny's, or traditional giants such as Southern All Stars, Sachiko Kobayashi, and Sen Masao, they all have a deeper foundation than the Beasts Band.

After all, he has appeared on NHK's Red and White Songs Festival several times, and the audience has a more profound impression of him.

If the Beasts band wants to become the representative singer of NHK Red and White Songs Festival, they need to perform in a few more sessions and make themselves familiar to the national audience.

For the new generation of singers in Japanese entertainment, whether or not they have appeared on the NHK Red and White Songs Contest is an important measure of their fame.

The NHK Red and White Songs Contest can not only increase his popularity among the people, but also help him to befriend NHK, the giant official media. More importantly, it can consolidate his position in the music world and even the entire entertainment industry.

Therefore, although Bunta Takakura does not expect to perform in every NHK Red and White Song Festival, he would like to perform in as many as possible if conditions permit.

Until the day when he no longer needs the NHK Red and White Song Contest to boost his popularity among the nation.

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After chatting with the lead singer of Southern All Stars, Keisuke Kuwata, we started the fifth round of rehearsals in the afternoon and officially confirmed the program for this year's NHK Red and White Songs Festival.

Then, all the singers stayed back and recorded the audio again to create a mixed effect, which is commonly known as "semi-lip-syncing".

Last year, NHK's Red and White Songs Contest held a live singing event, but there were constant car accidents. NHK's Red and White Songs Contest learned a big lesson, so it does not plan to hold a live singing event again.

All singers will record once first. Singers can sing live at the party, but the live TV broadcast will play pre-recorded audio to ensure the program effect when it is broadcast on TV. A semi-open mic mode is adopted, which is half real and half fake.

There is also a group of millionaire tuners ready to intervene at any time to prevent any accidents.

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It is understandable that NHK Red and White Song Contest did this to ensure a smooth live broadcast.

After all, with such a big stage and hundreds of millions of viewers, it is inevitable that one must play it safe and take the lead.

When Bunta Takakura returned to Shibaura Building in Tokyo's Minato Ward from NHK TV station, news about the NHK Red and White Songs Festival began to dominate the headlines.

(End of this chapter)