One time around probably the early 2010s, the T.V. in my living room was tuned into Cartoon Network and I happened to view the first Naruto anime intro I have ever seen in my life. It was the eighth intro to the original Naruto anime (directed by Hayato Date) and the song was "Re:member" by FLOW (2006). The only exposure I had to Naruto at that time was when I viewed an episode of it in the mid 2000s through talk with people at school and a bit of exposure to it while playing an online MMO (one of my game friends had a name with Uchiha in it) (Date et al., 2006). When I viewed the eighth intro of Naruto, I was blown away by FLOW's engaging song. In a way, it got me more into FLOW and J-Pop in general than into the Naruto anime itself (even though I still like Naruto very much too).
The lyrics at the beginning were amazing because the song went along with Naruto running through the forest (Date et al., 2006). But that was not the most exhilarating experience of the song.
The musical talent of the band members and the actual music video of the song itself prove why they are among the best of J-Pop bands. The music video contained many moments that demonstrated their skills such as their ability to be both great dancers in rhythm with the music and the drummer, Iwasaki Takeshi, happened to be one of the best performers because the song seemed to be heavily based on drums along with electric guitar (FLOW & Iwasaki, 2006). While I am not sure if loud percussion is everyone's taste, it surely is mine when it comes to this song of theirs.
"Re:member" is not the only song of theirs that I thought was great. FLOW's song ,"Colors", was also a great piece of music (2006). Instead of being used as an opening song for Naruto, this song was used as an opening for the anime, Code Geass (Studio Sunrise, 2006). The reason FLOW is such a great J-Pop band with this song is because unlike the focus on drums, bass, electric guitar and singing, this song had a lot of great background music along with a greater emphasis on vocals as it seems to be a louder song compared to "Re:member".
Finally, "Sign" by FLOW is another signature piece of music from group (2009). The reason why is because it seems to be a song that touches on more dramatic and serious topics compared to the other two. Even if one does not understand Japanese, the combined members of FLOW (Kohshi Asakawa, Tatsuya Fujinawa, Keigo Hayashi, Shinji Ochi and Takehiro Iwasaki) performance in this song was top notch due to the fact that the music told the story itself (FLOW et al., 2009). Even with my low Japanese skills and even if I did not watch the music video (which I have plenty of times), I would know what the song was about due to the bands sheer skills in musical storytelling (FLOW, Youtube, 2009). This fact along with all of FLOW's other songs just goes to show the immense talent that they have as a J-Pop band.
Being that their music has affected me positively, they are not the only group that I have really enjoyed. Be sure to subscribe for new personal fandom related content about Flow and other J-Pop and K-Pop groups that I will provide commentary on in future posts.
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