Mayonaka wa Junketsu


"Mayonaka wa Junketsu" is Japanese singer Ringo Sheena's 6th single and it was released on March 27, 2001 by Toshiba EMI / Virgin Music.

Background

In this single, Sheena canceled her partnership with Seiji Kameda, with whom she had arranged her songs up to that point, and asked musicians of various genres to arrange her songs. She arranged three songs in a "night, daytime, and a morning" order, according to the title, and she showed the reading of these song titles by writing katakana.
All players of each song were named "- Paradise Orchestra" on "Mayonaka wa Junketsu" which is the title tune of this single.
Shin Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra is a Ska band, and Higashi-Nihon Swing Paradise Orchestra is a big band, and Zen-Nihon Scherzo Paradise Orchestra is the trio of a pianist, a bassist, a drummer, with accordionist coba.
Sheena intended to record "Mayonaka wa Junketsu" and "Aisaika no Chōshoku" on the third album Kalk Samen Kuri no Hana.
However, she judged that they weren’t suitable for the view of the world of the album while she was producing that, and she shelved the adoption of the two songs for the album.
The literal translation of song titles is slightly different from the official English title.
The song was covered by Mino Kabasawa on her piano cover album Piano Pure: Memory of 2001, by Rieko Miura, Atsuko Kurusu and Saki Kamiryo on the NTV variety show The Yoru mo Hippare: Aki no Special on September 22, 2001 and by Max on the NTV variety show The Seiya mo Hippare: 2001 Christmas Special on December 15, 2001.

Music video

"Mayonaka wa Junketsu" was accompanied by an animated music video. Originally, the music video was filmed by live action. The story was that a mysterious woman fights with a baldheaded leader of an evil secret society. Sheena played the woman and Masato Minagawa, a keyboard player of her band, played the enemy's leader.
However, Sheena's pregnancy came to light while filming, so the video was hurriedly changed into animation. The story remained as it was and the character design was also modeled on Sheena and Minagawa. Her pet cat "Goethe" also appears in the music video as a cyborg cat. The heroine was named "Mayo Kiyozumi" according to the anagram of the song title.

Credits and personnel

  1. Mayonaka wa Junketsu
  2. : with Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra
  3. * Trumpet: Nargo
  4. * Trombone: Masahiko Kitahara
  5. * Alto Saxophone & Agitator: Tatsuyuki Hiyamuta
  6. * Tenor Saxophone: Gamou
  7. * Baritone Saxophone: Atsushi Yanaka
  8. * Piano: Yuichi Oki
  9. * Electric Bass: Tsuyoshi Kawakami
  10. * Electric guitar: Takashi Kato
  11. * Percussions: Hajime Ohmori
  12. * Drums: Kin-ichi Motegi
  13. Sido to Hakuchūmu
  14. : with Higashi-Nihon Swing Paradise Orchestra
  15. * Electric guitar: Jun Sumida
  16. * Double bass: Benisuke Sakai
  17. * Drums: Shuichi "Ponta" Murakami
  18. * Electronic organ: Nobuo Kurata
  19. * Trumpet: Eric Miyashiro, Shiro Sasaki, Yusuke Hayashi, Isao Sakuma
  20. * Trombone: Eijoro Nakagawa, Osamu Matsumoto, Satoshi Sano
  21. * Bass Trombone: Junko Yamashiro
  22. * Alto Saxophone & flute: Bob Zung, Kazuhiko Kondo
  23. * Tenor Saxophone: Osamu Koike, Osamu Yoshida
  24. * Baritone Saxophone: Masakuni Takeno
  25. * Harp: Yuko Taguchi
  26. * Vibraphone & Glockenspiel: Hitoshi Hamada
  27. Aisaika no Chōshoku
  28. : with Zen-Nihon Scherzo Paradise Orchestra'''
  29. * Piano & Programming: Toshiyuki Mori
  30. * Contrabass: Hitoshi Watanabe
  31. * Drums: Takashi Numazawa
  32. * Accordion: coba Yasuhiro Kobayashi