Make Believe Mailer 65: Suki Suki Dai-SKISKI

The Evolution Of Winter Tie-Up Songs...In Time For Spring

The end of winter nears when the cherry blossom forecasts arrive. While it’s still technically that season, the end is getting closer, and spring excitement is starting to build (or at least the beer aisle at local supermarkets is taking on a pink hue). As I’m wrapping this up, it’s 22 degrees Celsius outside…the chilly days are vanishing

That means a lot of common winter sights are about to vanish from everyday life in Japan — including the posters and ad boards found inside train stations across the country promoting Japan Rail’s SKISKI campaign. This long-running effort to get city dwellers out to the slopes arrives in December every year, dangling great deals in front of them to nudge them onto a Shinkansen bound towards Niigata Prefecture, where they can enjoy skiing or snowboarding primarily around Echigo-Yuzawa Station.

The first five JR SKISKI TV spots, from 1991 to 1994

Yet JR SKISKI isn’t just a chance to roll out new advertising and sell more daring outdoorsy types¹ travel packages to ski resorts. It’s also an accidental timeline of Japan’s own fortunes, having debuted at the start of a decade where the country still found itself flush with cash and ready to spend it on winter holidays. As a recent Nikkei Asia Report details, the ski industry in Japan reached its apex in the late ‘90s, before the nation’s economic stagnation in the 21st century resulted in fewer domestic visitors visiting ski resorts…or, the resorts still open. Today, mirroring the way a lot of industries have gone, international tourism props it up.

Alongside the ad flurry every year, a song serves as the theme for the campaign. And wouldn’t you know it, you can track drastic changes in the history of J-pop by following them…while also seeing how they tied in with the greater campaign to get people out to the mountains.

1991 — 1995: ZOO Crew

Number Of Ski Resorts In Japan: 537 in 1994 according to this, but sounds like “a whole lot more” in the ‘80s

To understand Bubble Japan, you must watch Watashi Wo Ski Ni Tsuretette! This 1987 movie follows in the grand tradition of “kids today” films by zeroing in on the youth being obsessed with something — which, during the 1980s, included skiing. Buried beneath the generic story of friendship and love was a celebration of young folks having enough disposable income to load up on ski gear and hit the mountains seemingly every weekend (leading to one scene where our protagonist’s boss sighs about him skiing again…c’mon gramps, let the kids ski!).

According to this 2021 Urban Life Metro article about the ski trend, interest in the winter sport started much earlier, with the completion of highways making access to snowy areas in 1980 and Yuming’s album of the same year Surf & Snow² both being cited. By the time Ski Ni Tsuretette! hits cinemas, though, everyone is seemingly seeking some winter fun.

So much so that JR opened a new resort, GALA Yuzawa, in 1991 to capitalize on an activity that appeared nowhere close to melting. The skiing spot was right next to the transit company’s Shinkansen station in the area. So…why not package train tickets with hotel stays and lift tickets? JR SKISKI is born.

The folks behind the campaign needed music to go with the TV spots they hoped would get people up to Niigata, and they were in luck — JR SKISKI started during the fledgling days of J-pop, when the industry was still figuring out what it would sound like in the Heisei Era to stand apart from the Kayokyoku popular songs of the preceding Showa times. The SKISKI folks opted for the group ZOO, getting them to create a tie-up song chugging along and featuring repeated nonsense lyrics meant to imitate the sound of a train roaring down the tracks. “Choo Choo Train” proved a hit both for the group, and the ad…so much so, ZOO ended up doing the next three tunes come ski season.

None of ZOO’s contributions to JR SKISKI dwell much on skiing, snow, the winter or even temperatures in general — the video for the hilariously titled “Ding Dong Express” (above) at least features footage of ZOO enjoying winter sports (and, uhhh, snow baseball). Instead, they lean into the same tempo trick of “Choo Choo Train,” aiming to replicate the feel of locomotion through rhythm and sound (the “ding dong” isn’t a diss, it’s the actual sound of a train bell). Lyrics frequently mention trains, including on highlight of the bunch “Angelic Dream.” The winter wonderland of GALA Yuzawa seemed forever, so why bother focusing on that side of it in song? Instead, play up the transportation part, and make this bit of pop synergy all the more effective.

Although “Choo Choo Train” was a chart hit³, ZOO never came close to replicating that afterward. JR actually wiped out on predicting the shape of J-pop to come. Though they inadvertently nailed how it would sound over a decade later, when members of ZOO formed a new project, including a familiar song helping break it big…

1996 — 1999: Peak

Number Of Ski Resorts In Japan: 846 by 2002 (stats via Statista)

Skiing and winter resorts started seeing a dip in popularity as the ‘90s carried on, but got one last boost to close out the decade — the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano helped inspire one last gasp of big interest in winter sports, thanks to the Games simply being in Japan and the success of Japanese athletes like gold-medal-winning skier Tae Satoya. But like Satoya’s time in the limelight — ended after she sparked a brawl in a Roppongi club several years later — this renaissance wouldn’t last long.

JR SKISKI, though, killed it from a cultural perspective. Almost every one of the tie-up numbers during this stretch are now seen as ‘90s J-pop masterpieces, and even the one not fitting that bill includes a famous comedian on the mic. The ski campaign perfectly aligned with the dominant tastes of the Japanese public, and for four years, JR SKISKI’s theme felt central to the zeitgeist.

Which is surprising since…none of these songs are about skiing. More stunning, almost all of them are bittersweet.

Tetsuya Komuro’s globe provided the first non-ZOO tie-up song with “Departures,” a fittingly chilly ballad reflecting on a relationship nearing its end. If you are wondering what this has to do with ski resorts…the guiding image here is of a couple boarding a Shinkansen and then seeing it depart into the snow. Komuro read that as something much more sad (even the slightly higher key of the commercial version, above, sounds forlorn), and created one of the ‘90s knottiest ballads out of this commercial exercise. “Departures” developed winter connotations — but when a special 20th anniversary video was made for the song a few years back, a woman treks up a snowy mountain…not to ski, but rather cry and, I don’t know, shoot a rifle at God?

J-pop in the late ‘90s revolved around songs of love, lust and loss, so JR SKISKI’s union with the zeitgeist ended up being surprisingly melancholy. While not nearly as emotionally twisty as “Departures,” globe’s follow-up SKISKI contribution “Can’t Stop Fallin’ in Love” still carries touches of emotional pain (those guitar plucks), while GLAY’s 1998-99 season contribution “Winter, again,” is most certainly not giddy at that titular prospect. The outlier is Masatoshi Hamada’s “Haru Wa Mada Ka,” a bouncy pop-rock number. Even that one, though, starred a comedian at the peak of his popularity…and is basically a palette-swapped PUFFY song during their halcyon days.

Here’s the stretch of time where JR SKISKI and pop music worked in perfect tandem, both reflecting greater cultural trends and inspiring folks to hit the slopes. Whether it’s music or snow sports, though, no heyday can last.

2000 — 2012: Snow Chance In Hell

Number Of Ski Resorts In Japan: 821 by 2008

JR just doesn’t run the SKISKI campaign during this time, save for in 2006, when they bust out a pleasant-enough Kaela Kimura song for a quick revival. It’s not like all the ski resorts vanished in the Aughts…the number starts really dropping come the 2010s…and JR still did deals. They just…turned SKISKI into ad copy, ditching the musical element and TV commercials. Which…maybe is more telling, seeing as the 2000s marked the slow decline of J-pop sales.

You wanna know what was booming that decade? Original characters, like Rilakkuma and Doala and Domo. JR introduced Snowy, a Yeti-ish white fuzzball, who became the face (or two black eyes, at least) of SKISKI. Snowy actually features prominently in the commercial soundtracked by “Snowdome” — if you ever wanted to see Kaela Kimura frolic about with an abominable snowman, here you go. Snowy is…fine. They’ll probably roll them out in the next few years for nostalgia pops.

2012 — 2016: Ice To See You Again

Number Of Ski Resorts In Japan: 718 by 2015

Let’s pretend you were walking through Shinjuku Station on a chilly December night. You turn a corner…and see this plastered on the wall. What do you do?

I would scram instantly…even if it’s just a poster…but many simply went “what the” and shared pictures of it online during winter 2013/14. JR SKISKI was back…and it had the slightest hint of attitude.

This half-decade of the winter rail campaign leaned into rock, the dominant sound of youth in the early 2010s. SKISKI’s proper return started in 2012, when GReeeeN created “Yuki No Ne,” a chipper and twinkling pop song screaming “winter.” Like the late ‘90s offerings, love played a huge role in the subsequent commercials. Unlike that period, this set of TV ads and songs from the like of the back number and [Alexandros] carry very little emotional complexity beyond “I like you…and snowboarding!” Sekai No Owari’s “Snow Magic Fantasy” is easily the best song of the bunch, just because it tries anything (marching beat plus Auto-tune).

At least they had some fun with the visual side. Just as if not much more important than the SKISKI song is the SKISKI model, the woman who will grace all of the posters put up across JR stations. At the top of this section, you can see Sekai No Owari member DJ Love — who is a giant clown — swapped in for that year’s model. They did something similar two years later with wolf-headed rockers MAN WITH A MISSION, attracting similar “huh, what” reactions online courtesy of this poster.

2017: Take Me Out To The Snowland…Again!

Number Of Ski Resorts In Japan: 680 by 2018

People in Japan have longed to return to the Bubble era before it even popped. Watashi Wo Ski Ni Tsuretette! director Yasuo Baba did just that with 1991’s Nami No Kazu Dake Ke Dakeshimete⁴, an ode to the cars, radio stations and breezy lives of the just finished ‘80s. He got even more nostalgic in a 2007 film where characters literally travel back in time to that ritzy era while commenting on how shitty the economy has been since. Turns out he was just ahead of the curve, as by 2017, Japanese pop culture was submerged in the past…including music, which saw both a new wave of bands embracing “city pop” as an adjective and an actual boom in interest in city pop music from those times (which…not just in Japan).

JR SKISKI couldn’t resist either. They’ve nodded to skiing’s golden era in their ads, while also referencing scenes from Watashi Wo Ski Ni Tsuretette! in past commercials (catch one famous bit here). But they went all in on the memories in 2017 to coincide with the film’s 30th anniversary, taking footage from that movie, dubbing over lines of dialogue so that it was now about modes of transportation and generally adding references to snowboarding, which did not exist when the film came out. Playing over all of it — Yumi Matsutoya’s “BLIZZARD,” adding extra emotional oomph for those dreaming of getting away to the mountains…or getting away from the 21st century.

2018 — 2023: New Horizons

Number Of Ski Resorts In Japan: “Over 470 Operating Ski Areas” According To SnowJapanHistory

No ad campaign can coast on nostalgia forever…at a certain point, you have to stare down the kids of today and wrestle with what they like. For JR SKISKI, that means…vertical video.

Since 2017, subsequent JR SKISKI songs have tapped a new generation of artists for tie-up songs, from sumika to Eve to Macaroni Empitsu. They still lean rock, but with a bit more variety — sumika offers balladry, Eve a dash of Vocaloid-born flair, Macaroni Empitsu…uh, J-rock familiarity — while the accompanying ads focus more on fun times with friends (“experiences”) over love blooming out of the snow, though that does creep in. It’s also tailored for social media and smartphones — vertical video plays great on an iPhone and TikTok.

This is all in effort to get younger folks out to whatever snow resorts are left, and that’s not a bad gamble — hiking, camping and fishing have all enjoyed periods of Gen Z attention in recent years, as younger consumers burned out on material flexing opt for “experiences.” JR SKISKI’s music selection has reflected that, and this year went further still by selecting young creator WurtS — who got big by TikTok — to create a theme song. Most people won’t know who that is…but the next potential generation of skiiers and snowboarders (or people who just want to escape the city a bit) will, and they’ll need a winter campaign to help them save on lodging, lift passes and Shinkansen tickets. And as long as there’s somebody looking to head up north, they’ll need songs to go with it.

Written by Patrick St. Michel (patrickstmichel@gmail.com)
Twitter — @mbmelodies

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1. Which is to say, not me, someone who tried snowboarding in junior high school once, hated it (more specifically, hated the feeling of falling down constantly onto the freezing ground), and have avoided winter sports at all costs since. Don’t expect any analysis on “moguls” or whatever in this newsletter.

2. City pop today is seen visually through bright, almost infinitely sprawling cityscapes and seaside getaways. One under explored area of nostalgia has been the style’s winter side, which was every bit as prevalent at the time and something Japanese city pop revivalists have explored…see Hitomitoi’s 2014 Snowbank Social Club for a particularly charming example. And of course…that Yuming album lays down the two key climes for the luxury awaiting the decade.

3. Possibly the biggest cultural impact “Choo Choo Train” had? It birthed the “Choo Choo Train” dance, which ZOO busted out in live performances like this at the very start of the song. If it’s not clear enough, this Wikipedia animation should help:

This has been parodied for like 40 years now, and something I imagine every high school group of friends tries if they somehow end up choreographing a dance.

4. The film where this newsletter’s avatar originates from.