Influencer Marin Sakata, who builds a unique worldview that fuses the Showa era and the present, is obsessed with “Neo-Showa”!

A Checkers record I listened to in the second year of junior high school.

Recently, the hashtag “#NeoShowa” has become a hot topic on SNS. We interviewed Marin Sakata, 22, the creator of the term “Neo-Showa” and a popular influencer who continues to transmit Showa culture.

Marin Sakata, 22, the creator of the term “Neo Showa” and a popular influencer who has been spreading the word of Showa culture, said, “I named it ‘Neo Showa’ to mean ‘new Showa culture’ by adding ‘Neo’ meaning ‘new’ and ‘Showa.

I have long been a fan of Showa culture and have posted pictures of girls imitating the Showa style. For example, I would wear a bubble suit but try a modern hairstyle, or dress like an old-time CA but wear trendy makeup. I don’t photograph them all as imitations of the time, but rather incorporate some elements of the current trends in certain areas.”

The reason why she started posting photos as neo-Showa, rather than as Showa-inspired photos, was because of a certain impetus.

In the beginning, I was just posting pictures of myself imitating the Showa era. Many of the people who saw them were of the generation that knew the Showa era, who felt nostalgic. That was really gratifying, but on the flip side, I realized that it was not reaching the younger generation like mine. From there, I came to the conclusion that I wanted to transmit Showa culture in a way that both young people and the Showa generation could enjoy. I tried to incorporate some elements that today’s children can relate to, and added the term “Neo-Showa” to my post. I added the term ‘Neo-Showa’ to the post, and the response was even greater than I had expected, with retweets and people copying me.

How did Sakata, who was born in 2000, become fascinated with the Showa era?

I fell in love with the Showa era when I was in the second year of junior high school. It all started when I listened to a Checkers record I found at my grandmother’s house. I dropped the needle on the record and was drawn in by the pleasant, nostalgic tone and singing voice, so much so that I lost track of time.

The Checkers had many lyrics from a student’s perspective that stuck with me at the time, and I remember listening to the song over and over again. Fumiya Fujii’s hairstyle, with his long bangs hanging down, was something new and original that I had never seen before. I found it fascinating and became interested in the Showa era at once. I got into the music of the 70s and 80s, and at the same time I watched a lot of Kadokawa movies. I began to collect information about Showa culture, such as the clothes they wore and the sundries they had.

Eikichi Yazawa sticker on his schoolbag

However, Sakata at that time felt embarrassed to be different from those around him in his interests, so he hid his love of the Showa era from everyone except his family. The turning point came when he entered high school.

He said, “High school was a school where I had almost no friends from junior high school. It was like my high school debut, but I decided to go with a bang from the start and went to school with my Showa character in full swing. I put a sticker of Eikichi Yazawa on my bag, sewed the skirt of my school uniform together to make a long, skimpy skirt, and wore my hair in a sobajou style.

Surprisingly, my friends around me were amused. From that point on, I had nothing to hide and was able to spend my three years of high school as myself. However, while everyone else was angry at me for making my skirt too short, I was the only one who kept getting angry at myself for making it too long (laughs).

Sakata’s room at home, immersed in the Showa era, is filled with valuable Showa-era treasures. Sometimes he buys mirror balls and pink telephones himself, and sometimes he gets them from older people.

Comparing Reiwa and the Showa period, I think that many things have improved in Reiwa, partly due to the development of technology, but I wonder if something important has been lost because of the overconvenience. Nowadays, we can listen to millions of songs on our smartphones. In the past, people used to put a tape recorder in front of the TV, record a song program, and listen to it over and over again. I think that’s why their feelings about those songs were totally different. The idea of finding something interesting in the midst of inconvenience is what makes the Showa period so appealing.”

While continuing to promote “Neo-Showa,” Sakata formed a duo with Karen Yoshida (20), a singer who loves Showa songs, in April of this year, and made her debut as a singer, which was also her goal. Sakata’s success caught the attention of famous music producer Nagato Daiko, who has written lyrics for such artists as Ishihara Yujiro and TUBE.

I had a longing for Showa-era idols, so I was thrilled when I was able to create a song in the style of Showa-era songs. For the younger generation, the Showa era is an unknown world that they have never experienced and do not understand. So it is not old, but rather new. And yet, I think many people are attracted to the fact that it makes them feel warm and fuzzy inside.

Showa culture has undergone new changes and has been passed on to the next generation through Sakata’s continued love for the Showa era.

Marin Sakata
Born in Osaka, Sakata Marin boasts a total of over 200,000 followers on SNS and is a leading figure in the “Neo-Showa” movement, which weaves together Showa and modern culture. In May 2011, the radio program “Sakata Marin’s Hit Night Studio” (MBS Radio), in which he serves as the main personality, was broadcast

From the August 18-25, 2023 issue of FRIDAY