Viewer rating 78.1%, on the verge of a “broadcast accident”… The truth behind Harumi Miyako’s “Kohaku” blank 45 seconds, and the geniuses who put down the microphone at the peak of their careers.

Big stars who chose to be the “first to retire” in Kohaku

There are singers who have been popular enough stars to make “Kohaku” but have since retired. Their representative would be Yamaguchi Momoe and Amuro Namie. Some singers say that the place of their retirement was “Kohaku”. The first such singer was Minoru Obata in 1957.

After the war, he sang “Nagasaki no Pomelo Seller” and “Hoshikage no Lane,” which was covered and recorded by Naomi Chiaaki and used as a commercial song in the Heisei era.

He was the male No. 1 since 1952 in the annual popularity poll of the entertainment magazine “Heibon,” which was a barometer of popularity at that time. The female No. 1 was then 15-year-old Hibari Misora. It is amazing that more than 70 years later, Hibari’s image will be shown in this year’s Kohaku, but the reason for the retirement of Minoru Obata, whose popularity was evenly matched by that of Hibari, is also amazing.

In 1955, however, she lost the top spot to Hachiro Kasuga, who had sung “Otomi-san,” the “biggest hit song of the postwar period,” the year before. The next year, he tried to regain the No. 1 position, but was unable to do so, and in 1957, the following year, Michiya Mihashi took the top spot instead of Kasuga. The following year, in 1957, he replaced Haruhi and took over the top spot. In that year, young new stars such as Kasuga in second place, Koichi Miura in third place, and Kazuo Shirane in sixth place, all of whom passed away this year, caused Obata to drop to 10th place.

At that time, Obata gave up on his career as a singer, saying, “A singer is a flower when he is popular, so I should retire before my popularity declines.

He sang “Kogen no Ekiyo, Sayonara (Farewell, Highland Station),” another big hit song of the postwar period. Tear-stained, she said, “Thank you very much for your long years of service. I would like to express my deepest gratitude.” Without delay, announcer Keizo Takahashi, the host of the white team, said, “Now the game is decided. The CD “Nihon no Ryuko Uta Stars (56),” a collection of Obata’s sound recordings from that time, with supervision and commentary, will be released on January 21.

After that, Obata went to the U.S. to manage a hotel and provide compositions for Frank Nagai,Yukio Hashi, and others, but during the “natsu mello boom” of the 1960s, there were calls for a comeback for Obata, who had been the most popular singer until about ten years ago. In 1969, he resumed his singing career.

Saori Minami and Candy’s “legendary moment” in Kohaku

The first singer to retire from “Kohaku” was Harumi Miyako in 1984, but before that, there was Saori Minami. Minami, aka “Cynthia,” made her debut in 1971 with “17 Sai,” which later became a revival hit sung by Chisato Moritaka, and had a series of hits including “Junketsu,” “Irozuke Machi,” “Hitokakera no Junjo,” and “Hito Koishite. In 1978, she retired from singing in order to concentrate on her studies at Sophia University, where she was a student at the time. She then married photographer Kishin Shinoyama, with whom she had begun a relationship, and became the mother of three sons.

Cynthia suddenly made a one-day comeback to the “Kohaku” in 1991. At that time, “Kohaku” had a “21st Century Quota” for “Songs to be passed on to the 21st century,” and Kenichi Mikawa and Linda Yamamoto, who were in the midst of a boom that year, as well as Ouyang-Philippe, who was unable to participate in “Kohaku” the year of her hit, appeared with “Love is Over. Cynthia fans at the time were overjoyed to see Minami’s first appearance on a CRT in a long time. However, Cynthia did not restart her career as a singer on this day only.

Like Saori Minami, the 28th Kohaku in 1977 was the last appearance by the three Candies. During a concert in the summer of that year, she hastily shouted, “I want to be a normal girl again. I want to break up and retire in September of this year,” they said, without having discussed this at all with their company Watanabe Productions. After discussions that began the next day, the breakup and retirement were postponed for six months, but “Yasashii Devil” was to be the last song sung in “Kohaku,” and after the “Farewell Concert” in 1953 (1978), the Candies disbanded and the three retired.

However, Ran Ito a.k.a. Ran and Yoshiko Tanaka a.k.a. Sue returned to the entertainment world only two years later in 1980. Ran married actor Yutaka Mizutani in 1989, and she lived her life first as a wife and then as a mother to her eldest daughter, actress Shuri. In Reiwa (2019), she released an album “My Bouquet” as a singer for the first time in 41 years since the breakup of Candies, and since then she has released singles, albums, and DVDs, and has begun holding solo concerts. In Reiwa 2023, when his daughter Shuri was chosen to play the leading role in the morning drama “Boogie Woogie,” he participated in the 74th Kohaku (Red and White) for the first time in 46 years. She sang “Younger Boys,” “Ace of Hearts Won’t Come Out,” and “Haru Ichiban” from her Candies days.

Sue, on the other hand, sang “Kaboshar” and other songs as a singer after her return to the stage in 1980, but her performance as an actress stood out above all else.

In 1983, she appeared in “Oshin,” which became a national morning drama, and in 1989, she won the Japan Academy Award, the Blue Ribbon Award, and many other awards in the film industry for Best Actress for her role in the movie “Black Rain. She also appeared in the morning drama “Kimi no na wa” in 1991, and served as a judge in “Kohaku” that year, marking her return to “Kohaku” in a sense.

In the same year, she married Kazuo Odachi, a businessman and brother of actress Masako Natsume. They did not have a child, but she played the role of the heroine’s mother in the 2001 morning drama “Churasan,” which also enjoyed high viewer ratings. She died of breast cancer on April 21, 2011, at the young age of 55, but she had played the role of a child in a total of 47 of Suh’s films and dramas.

Miki Fujimura, a.k.a. Miki M iki, who took care of Sue in her final days along with Ran, returned as a solo singer for a limited time in 1983, three years after the two of them. Her Kanebo spring campaign song “Yume, Koi, Hito” was a big hit and made the top ten. She was the closest candidate to return to the “Kohaku” list. However, she married a businessman during the same year and retired again. After that, she made no public appearances until Sue’s funeral.

The impact of the 78.1% viewership rating!

In March 1984, seven years after Candy’s “I want to be a normal girl again,” she announced her retirement. This time, Harumi Miyako, the “Queen of Enka” who celebrated the 20th anniversary of her debut in 1964 and one of the aces of the “Kohaku” red group, suddenly announced her retirement, saying, “I want to go back to being an ordinary old lady.

In 1964, the year of the Tokyo Olympics, Harumi made her debut with “Bawai no Kotoyo” and won the Newcomer of the Year Award at the “Record Taisho” Awards with her third song “Anko Tsubaki wa Koi no Hana (Anko Camellia is a Flower of Love),” followed by her first appearance in the “Kohaku” in 1965 with “Tears on the Liaison Boat,” which became a big hit.

In 1968, she sang at the top of the bill with that year’s hit “Suki ni Natta Hito”, and in 1975, she sang a new song “Kita no Yado Kara” just after its release because she had no hit song of her own that year, which was well received the following year. The song became a big hit and won the “Record Award” Grand Prix at the end of the year. He continued to have big hits such as “Osaka Shigure” and “Naniwa Koishigure”.

After the contestants finished singing at the NHK Hall, Harumi was the only one left to perform.

The host of the Kohaku program, Mitsuko Mori, introduced Harumi by saying, “Thank you for 20 years, Harumi Miyako. Harumi Miyako, the hostess of the red group, introduced her as she began the prelude to her last single, “Married Couple on the Hill. Harumi descended the grand staircase in the center of the stage. She sang “It’s okay, it’s okay, I won’t turn around. ……,” and her last passionate song enveloped the audience. The moment she finished singing, Harumi cried. Unexpectedly, the audience cheered and applauded for “encore, encore, encore.

Kenji Suzuki, announcer for the white group, said, “I’m going to ask Harumi-san to give me a minute of her time. Please give me one minute of your time,” and as he approached her, the prelude to the encore song, “I’ve come to love you,” started before he could get Harumi’s approval. Suzuki Anna inwardly thought, “Oh shoot. But the audience clapped loudly in excitement. Harumi, however, remained in a state of absentmindedness.

The son of Minoru Katsuta, the chief producer of “Kohaku” at that time, is now producing a program with me and is also the producer of “New Year 12 Hour Song Festival” (BS TV TOKYO) on January 2. I asked him about this occasion.

My father calmly watched the interaction between Harumi and Suzuki on the monitor (on the TV) and gave the cue for the start of the accompaniment,” he said.

Live broadcasting is tough. If there had been another 45 seconds, or even 30 seconds, things might have turned out differently. But that was impossible. Harumi’s life as a singer came to an end as if on fire, with an astounding 78.1% viewer rating.

A Woman’s Life” as Reflected in Kohaku

Five years had passed since then. The Showa era had come to an end, and “Kohaku” was in its 40th year. Back then, “Kohaku” did not start at 7:00 p.m. as it does today. In the Showa era, “Kohaku” started at 9:00 p.m. and lasted until 11:45 p.m., a two-hour and 45-minute program. However, since this was the first “Kohaku” in the Heisei era, the program was divided into two parts, as it is now, with the first part starting at 7:20 p.m. as the “Showa Kohaku” and the second part starting at 9:00 p.m. as the “Heisei Kohaku” singing contest.

Harumi Miyako sang “Anko Tsubaki wa Koi no Hana (Anko Camellia is a Flower of Love),” a song she had never sung before in her 20 appearances on “Kohaku,” as the last song of the “Showa Kohaku,” promising a “one-day revival.

The popularity of the song led to her reappearance the following year, and on Omisoka Day in 1990, Harumi returned to the stage to sing “Ancient Capital of a Thousand Years,” this time as a regular member of the group, singing the second verse of the song. After that, she continued to appear every year until 1997, when she sang “Kaikyo no Yado” (Inn at the Straits), but the following year, she graduated from the Kohaku program. She is currently in a de facto retirement status.

The year after Harumi’s first retirement in 1984, Masako Mori, another great star of the music world, followed in her footsteps. Masako made her debut in 1972 at the age of 14 with “Sensei” and began appearing in “Kohaku” the following year. She was later dubbed the “Hana no Chusan Trio” (the three flower girls) along with Junko Sakurada and Momoe Yamaguchi, and their popularity was divided among the world’s three most popular singers. From there, they continued to be the top stars of the singing world until the “Hana-no-Ko 3 Trio” graduated from school, and continued to play an active role as the flower of the “Kohaku” show.

In 1980, Momoe retired from show business after her marriage to Tomokazu Miura, and Junko became mainly an actress, while Masako became a regular performer on “Kohaku” and even sang as a soloist. However, the year following Harumi’s retirement, in 1985, “Kohaku” became the highlight of her career.

In that year, Masako also hosted the Kohaku program. The following year, in 1986, she married Shinichi Mori, who had been rumored to be in love with her and who had sung “Ai Sho Uta” as the last performer. The wedding was broadcast live on TV and received a 45.3% viewership rating. The marriage of two top singers in the music world was indeed the center of public attention.

Masako retired and became a stay-at-home mom with three boys, and lived her life as a wife and mother, but in 2001, at the beginning of the 21st century, she received a strong request to sing in Kohaku (red and white), and after discussing it with her husband Shinichi, she decided to sing in public for the first time in 20 years. The song she sang was her debut song. She sang a medley of three songs: “Sensei,” her debut song; “Aishii Honen Nihonkai,” the song she sang as a soloist for the first time at the Kohaku; and two of her biggest hits, “Hyururi – Hyururi Lala…” and “Echigo-Tsubame.

The crowd was excited to hear the popular singer’s unchanged voice, but at this point, it was just a “one-day special comeback. However, the people around her were surely moving on. The following year, she and her husband decided to resume their activities as duet singers.

However, in April 2005, they divorced. In the following year, 2006, she was to make a full-fledged comeback as a solo singer from her former agency, Horipro. She appeared in that year’s “Kohaku” with her new song “Rosai-iro no Mirai” (Rose-colored Future), which was a fresh start for her. The following year, she also began her acting career, playing the role of the heroine’s mother in “Dondohare,” an early morning drama that is currently being rebroadcast on BS. However, she continued to suffer from uterine fibroids and menopausal disorders, and retired from show business again in Reiwa 2037.

In this way, “Kohaku” has influenced the retirements and revivals of singers. This shows how important this program is to the singers. For the viewers, too, “Kohaku” has a different meaning from other programs. This status is due to its long history. If it were not for “Kohaku,” we would not use the word “resign,” nor would we say “I am retiring on this occasion” or “I am returning because of this program. Kohaku” is a special program. Kohaku” is a singing program that makes people feel special.