The Fine Art of the J-Drama Ending Credits

Nakama Yukie in Gokusen's Ending Credits

American Culture TV Sitcom fans know well the power of a good, catchy theme song, and it’s even been proved that the songs for shows like Gilligans Island and Brady Bunch were more than just the jingles that played during the cast and crew listings- it’s a HUGE part of what MADE the show!
  Sadly, by the 90’s, TV shows began to adopt a disturbing trend of  disposing of the lengthy theme songs altogether and began to replace them with shorter sound bites of music and began running the cast credits during the show’s undercrawl in an effort to minimize screentime for more advertising slots. Understandable but still a bummer for the Pop Culture fanatic!

 Fortunately, it was JUST at this time that I began watching Japanese dramas, and it was here I found that the opening and closing tunes were very much alive, and in fact still treated as an important component to the shows they were promoting. Not only were songs written and recorded by artists specifically for the show, but the clips and images running during the song are just as beautifully crafted and magnificently put together as the drama itself!

Case in point: Just the other night I was going through an old harddrive of J-drama stuff, and came across the ending song for Yukie Nakama’s wildly successful drama “Gokusen” in MP4 format. Remembering how much I liked the theme song “Feel Your Breeze” by V6, I clicked on it, and I have to say, watching the song play with the set images rushing by of teacher “Yankumi” playing Kick the Can with her students gave me goosebumps, and then when it got to the chorus of the song, I remembered that it always played at the scene where she’s holding the can up and running from her students, PERFECTLY matching the song, and I have to say, watching this made me tear up with emotion, it gave me SUCH a warm feeling!

After it ended it made me remember that the ending song for the old Emi Wakui drama “Pure”, which featured the song “Namonaki Uta”, ALSO employed this style of affixing a certain phrase of the song with a set image, in the case of Pure, the Rickenbacker Guitar chiming into the chorus was ALWAYS set to the image of Emi tossing an armful of feathers into the air at the same moment each time, til the viewer found he was always waiting for it!

Wakui Emi in Pure's Ending Credits

  I then began to try and remember other shows with favorite ending credits and in fact, MANY of them have already been uploaded and talked about here, including the aforementioned Pure with Mr. Children’s “Namonaki Uta”, Okane Ga Nai with “Over The Trouble” by Oda Yuji, NAOMI’s ending “Girls Be Ambitious” by True Kiss Destination, Masahiko Kondo's "Ai Wa Hitotsu" from the crazy drama Stalker~Sasou-Onna, "Himawari" by Sugar for the drama Shiawase Ni Naritai, and the incredible Shomuni ending "Sunaona Mamade" by IZAM with Astral Love! 
     Others I've still to do write ups for eventually are credits for shows like Tengoku Ni Ichiban Chikai Otoko featuring TOKIO's "Oh! Heaven", KinKi Kids' "To Heart" from the Domoto Tsuyoshi drama of the same name, and probably much more I can't recall right now!

Fukada Kyoko and Domoto Tsuyoshi in To Heart End Credits

And for ending credits that are simply heartbreaking to watch, try  "Only Human" by K from the drama One Litre No Namida, Seija No Koshin's "Ito" by Miyuki Nakajima or Yutaka Ozaki's "Oh My Little Girl" from the morose Konoyo No Hate!
     Though most of the J-drama ending credits I highly regard are from the era I was watching them most vivaciously (mid 90’s to 00’s), show like the aforementioned Gokusen prove that they’re still on top of the game! In fact, thinking now, later shows like Yaoh with TOKIO's "Mr. Traveling Man", "Orange Range's "Kimi Station" from Loss:Time:Life, Oda Kazumasa's "Sayonara Wa Iwanai" from Triangle, and "Wonderful Life" by &G from Boku To Kanojyo to Kanojyo no Ikiru Michi are just as powerful, and even the Horikita Maki drama Hanazakari Kimitachi e ending song with Ai Otsuka’s “Peach” gives me the same sense of warmth and wonder!

I’ve been watching J-dramas for a good 20+ years now , and I think I can positively state that when it comes to the sacred thing known as the ending song credits, those folks have REALLY elevated it to an ARTFORM!

Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com