October 24, 2005

A Chorus of Jap Children

Here’s a record I bought, on my Japanese vacation, for 1200 yen:

I watched Ultraman when I was a kid. Not many people know this, but I used to be able to pose on one knee, cross my wrists and shoot laser beams at my enemies. This 7” has six Ultraman themes, typically a crooning adult male leading a chorus of Nippon waifs to bombastic 1960s pop-martial arrangements, cheesy as can be. I picked three of them for ya.

Ultraman track 1 (MP3)
Ultraman track 2 (MP3)
Ultraman track 6 (MP3)

That last one is a softer version of the theme song I remember from the Ultraman TV show.

This reminds me of one of my most treasured LPs, stolen from me by some psychologically ugly, cold-blooded creature in the 1990s. It was a Japanese collection of soundtrack music for animation shows such as Astroboy, Gigantor and 8-Man. It included super-fine quality stickers and pages of beautiful artwork including frigging schematics for Astroboy! Well, now it’s probably been sold for drugs. Fortunately, I still have one of the best tunes left on a crusty old cassette I’d made long ago. If you can identify the following music, go ahead and rub my nose in it.

Japanese TV theme (MP3)

Rick at 10:30 pm

Comments (6)

6 CommentsÈ

Okay, this totally makes up for no “Kick in the Butt.” Jeez, the crazy chirping of the flower of Nippon’s galactic monster-fighting youth is scrambling my brains: I’m gonna go Netflix some Ultraman NOW!

Comment by Ivan Lerner Ñ October 25, 2005 @ 5:31 pm
Wow, that takes me back! The moment I heard Track 6, I was instantly taken back to my childhood. I must have been three years old. My mother would rock me to sleep while reciting the entire theme from start to finish. Mother would sing with one hand crushing her larynx, resulting in a remarkably realistic Japanese children’s chorus. It brought tears to my eyes just hearing it again after so many years! Thank you, sir!

Comment by Balb Kubrox Ñ October 28, 2005 @ 8:09 pm
1) You need to run a filter on your recording too much hiss.
2) Yeah ULTRAMAN weeeeeee!

Comment by manny Ñ October 29, 2005 @ 8:37 am
HAPPY NOW

Comment by manny Ñ October 29, 2005 @ 8:38 am
You know, there’s a reason why we dropped two A-bombs on those rice-eating, carp-raising, sneak-attacking, kimono-wearing so-and-sos. Best get on the trolley, pal.

Comment by Myopic Floyd Ñ November 1, 2005 @ 5:15 pm
i want all! i want all!

lol.. brings back all the memories.
ultraman rocks!

Comment by adam Ñ November 19, 2006 @ 7:22 pm