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

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