Held twice a year, finding a venue was a challenge… What was “Kohaku” like when “Boogie Woogie” Shizuko Kasaoki was on the show?

NHK’s Kohaku Uta Gassen…The Backstory Behind the “Omisoka” Event

The season of the “Kohaku Uta Gassen,” the annual annual New Year’s Eve tradition, has come again this year, for the 74th time. The year 2011 marks the 70th year of TV broadcasting. Broadcasting began on February 1, 1953, and a program introducing famous songs of the era born from television will be broadcast with Tetsuko Kuroyanagi as a guest.

In fact, this year of the start of TV was the first year that “Kohaku” was held twice a year. The third and fourth “Kohaku” were held twice in 1953. What does this mean? In fact, “Kohaku Uta Gassen” had been a special New Year’s program until the third edition.

However, after three years, the popularity of the program grew, and the following year, NHK decided to open the program to the public by moving it out of its previous studio in Uchisaiwaicho and letting the audience in.

Naturally, the fourth program was to be held on New Year’s Day in 1954. NHK did not yet have its own hall. So, we tried all the outside theaters, but none of them would rent us a theater.

The theaters were in the midst of their New Year’s performances. It was not that they would not rent to us, but rather that they had no vacancies.

Thanks to the efforts of Kazuo Kikuta, the writer of the NHK radio drama “Kimi no na wa” that had just become a nationwide sensation, the Nippon Theatre in Sukiyabashi, where “Kimi no na wa” was set, somehow agreed to rent it to us. However, the theater was not open during the New Year’s holiday. However, the theater was not open on New Year’s Day.

However, in those days, New Year’s Eve was a time for families to spend together in a relaxed atmosphere. There were no New Year’s Eve live concerts or countdowns, as is the case today, and so the question arose, “It’s good to have a large theater with popular singers, but will it really draw an audience? But would they be able to attract an audience? Unfortunately, it was snowing in Tokyo on the day of the event.

Shortly before the doors opened, however, a long line formed and the Nichigeki Theater was packed to capacity.

New Year’s Day and New Year’s Eve…Shizuko Kasagi appeared twice in “Kohaku” in 1953.

Shizuko Kasagi (then known as Shizuko) appeared on both New Year’s Day and New Year’s Eve in 1953. She is the model for Suzuko Fukugi, the main character in the current NHK morning TV series “Boogie Woogie.

The song “Tokyo Boogie Woogie”, which she danced and sang on stage, echoed through the dark postwar streets. It seemed to symbolize the arrival of a new era in Japan, which until then had been dominated by military songs.

When U.S. soldiers stationed in Japan at the time saw Kasagi on stage, they looked at her and wondered, “Is that really a defeated Japanese citizen? The common people saw courage and hope in Kasaki’s rousing singing voice, as if she were releasing something that had been pent up in their hearts.