20-09-2025
I wanted to write this post for a while now, as a sort of tribute to the lyrics that I have posted on this website's homepage. I realized that I have been using those lyrics in my website for a while now, and I never really explained why, or what they even are. So, this is the story of how I, Vivian, a 21 year old Greek girl, got to truly love a Japanese singer from the 80s.
The story of me and my weird affinity for Japanese music, and culture more generally, started from a young age. When I was around 5 or 6, a TV channel in Greece would broadcast episodes of Takeshi's Castle, a Japanese game show from the 80s. I remember that, as a kid, I would religiously watch this show and laugh at the hilarious challenges the players had to face, or how the commentators were quick to make jokes at the overly excited contestants right before they were absolutely humiliated. However, with music more specifically, it started when I was around 15, on my trip with my school's Model UN club to the Netherlands, one of the omost memorable trips of my life. The professor accompanying us told us about one of the most legendary videos of Greek YouTube, To Krasaki tou Tsou, translated in English as Chu's Wine. A parody of a Japanese song featured in Karate Kid, Shura no Hana, Chu's Wine was hilarious. The main concept was an effort to "hellenize" (with some English sprinkled here and there) the lyrics of the original song. Sutemashita would become "shoot 'em up σ' είπα", "I told you, shoot 'em up!" Not only that, but the video's creators made an entire video where they were theatrically enzcting those hellenized lyrics. It was astonishing. I watched that video a ton of times. And this led me to other parodies of other Japanese songs of a similar or slightly later era, into the 70s and 80s. While the original intent was to laugh at the parodies, I was gradually getting accustomed to them, to the point where I even began enjoying the songs themselves.
And then, city pop happened. As I was scrolling through Reddit, I ran into a meme, featuring Miki Matsubara's Stay with Me. And then, another one with the same song. There was something beautiful about this song. And then another song. And another one. And soon, city pop had become one of my favorite genres of music. Once this had been established, it was easy to jump to more popular forms of Japanese pop music from that time period. And that led me to the singer that this article is even written about.
For me, there is something absolutely beautiful in Akina Nakamori's music, and career overall. A massively popular singer in Japan in the 80s. Someone who, while she started as a generic idol, managed to stick out by means of her (imo) absolutely beautiful voice, and even got to expand out of the more typical music styles an idol of that time was adhering to. And don't get me started on the whole being cheated on by her partner, making a suicide attempt because of said incident that ruined her fame, and then still coming back and singing anyway. I'm amazed by her resilience after the incidence.
Four years after said attempt, in 1993, she sang a song named Aibu. At its core, a breakup song without too much to note (I mean, for all I love Akina, she's a pop singer, not a music revolutionary). However, the combination of her voice in the song, and Tetsuya Komuro's composition, made a song that just sounds absolutely amazing to my ears. I don't get to understand a lot, since most of the lyrics are in Japanese. But this only makes it easier for me to get lost in it. The chaos that seems to get progresively bigger before bursting into a last, more optimistic note, while Akina's voice remains at a fairly consistent pitch, ever so slightly changing tone.
However, I have a much more personal connection to this song.
It was December 2023, in Boston, at my aunt's apartment, where I was staying for a week. My aunt had a new partner at the time, and she invited him to have dinner with us. However, at that dinner time, I struggled with eating the food my aunt made. Some pasta dish with seafood that made my texture sensitivities scream. My aunt made a comment that I was taking long to finish up. While I objectively didn't like it, I also felt bad not to eat it, especially in front of a stranger for me and her new partner. After the dinner was over and she and her partner got invested in a more personal talk, I headed to my room. A room on the 12th floor, with a stunning view of the Boston harbor. I laid down to admire the nightly view. And I decided to put on a song. I had downloaded Unbalance+Balance and I wanted to play that album. But I got stuck on the second song, Aibu. It was absolutely beautiful. I listened to it around 17 times in a row. I was enmeshed into it at that moment. Only after that I came out of my room and tried to see what my aunt and her friend were up to.
My perceived beauty of that song, combined with the amazing view of the Boston harbor at night, provided me with an extremely optimistic image. At some point in my life, I would be able to obtain a convenient life for myself as my aunt had done. And this would be done on my terms. It gave me a push to pursue, among others, my really big desire to transition. And the hope that, one day, all of the struggle I put would be rewarded into a nice, convenient life for me.
I was already pretty much into Akina's music at the time, but that song and that moment solidified her as my favorite singer. When a friend of mine went to Japan in March 2025, I asked him to get me a couple of her records (ironically, not Unbalance+Balance). And he did. And now the records are some of my most cherished belongings.
Before I close this post, a little bit about the lyrics. I have always felt a profound sense of loneliness in my life. People would never truly be able to comprehend the complexities of my psyche. People would never be willing to forge a consistent relationship with me. When I got into a new environment, they would be quick to form friendly relationships with me; the moment I left, those friendships immediately started fading, to the point where even the best of them died out. I'm really concerned that this will start happening again in June 2026, with my UChicago friends, after I graduate, especially since I struggle with a lot of interpersonal communication and planning things with them. So, I distanced myself from the goal of making many friends and connections, and instead focused on the thing I could do. As long as I would have a life, i would choose to live it on my terms, passionately, authentically. And I think that those lyrics from my favorite song perfectly capture this feeling of having your friends appear and disappear, and you trying to live your life in the realest way possible.
So, there you have it: That's the story of the lyrics I posted. I hope my tribute's been fair.