STB47: Saitama
The Second Installment In My Calorie-Heavy Quest To Drink Some Beverages / Confront Existential Dread
Review — Starbucks JIMOTO Frappuccino #11 Saitama
Perhaps the best Frappuccino is the one that makes you think you’re consuming something entirely different. The Saitama edition of Starbucks’ JIMOTO series features a dollop of that signature sweetness I’ve always associated with the chain’s dessert-esque offerings, but for the most part I feel like I’m drinking a smoothie. Credit the citrus pulp submerged throughout the drink, a tart mix of grapefruits and orange chunks (lemon is advertised, but not really present?) with strawberry taste also cutting through. Is my diet so bad that this feels vaguley healthy, despite the pump of whipped cream on top? Who can tell!
Let’s shoutout the surprise MVP of this limited-edition treat, though — stand up, colorful candy balls dropped on top! Despite offering little in taste, the crunchiness they do provide adds for some wild textural play between the liquid, the cream and those softer hunks of fruit. A risky move for any drink, but leave it to something inspired by Saitama to pull off this mix.
Namie Amuro, most certainly not from Saitama, doing the “Saitama Pose.”
Saitama Prefecture is a study in paradoxes. It’s viewed as Tokyo’s drab cousin — a go-to comparison is it is the New Jersey to the New-York-like capital — yet it also routinely tops polls of “places Tokyoites want to move to” because it’s significantly less hectic and cheaper. It’s among the least cool regions in the country, yet this percieved reputation for being wack has been weaponized into its own sort of cool, with celebs and artsits from Saitama (and many not from it, see above!) embracing the “Saitama Pose” as a way to flash their own love for a place long sneered at. It reached the point where one of the best Japanese movies of the last decade played around with this very tightrope-walking idea, and pulled it off with Gackt of all people in the leading role.
A good metaphor for Saitama — the prefecture’s professional baseball team plays in a domed stadium. Except it’s actually just a half dome, and fans are still exposed to wind and rain, while summer games turn into broilers. It’s janky as hell, but also pretty endearing.
MetLife Dome (“Dome”) (I love it so much)
Whie perhaps not as mid-life-crisis signalling as “I want to travel around Japan to drink 47 different Frappuccinos,” I’ve recently felt the pull to move to Saitama. Price plays a huge role in that — looking at the front window of a real estate shop after you get off the train at Tokorozawa is a real jaw-dropper after looking at the ones within West Tokyo’s boundaries — but so is the atmosphere. Like a lot of non-Tokyo areas in the Kanto Region, Saitama is a constellation of bedtowns (so much so that this is referenced in the “my inspiration” blurb from the creator of the Saitama Frappuccino). That might not be super exciting, but there’s something nice about extra space and the feeling of being a place to unwind rather than be in constant motion.
Though really, I also kind of like that feeling of just-offness that defines the area, whether manifesting in sad or goofy ways.
Why is Saitama such a mood? Plenty of theorizing there, to the point where there is a whole Wikipedia page devoted to the phenomeon in Japanese. Some is more mystical than others (being landlocked is just a psyche wrecker, I guess), but it probably boils down to the semi-novelty song “Naze Ka Saitama,” released in 1980 by a comedian masquerading as an artist, from a label that foused on creating ballads tied to local regions (Tochigi and Gunma got attention before). Simple and sadsack like any solid post-70s enka-ish bite should be, “Naze Ka Saitama” existed in obscurity until entertainer Tamori (yes, the Music Station guy) featured the tune on a 1981 edition of his All-Night Nippon radio show. The new exposure pushed the song to be re-released that year, turning it into a hit, selling around 120,000 copies, good for…spot 100 on the Oricon charts (today, 120,000 copies sold would be a top three lock, if not near guarantee for number one).
In great timing, the eternally great Kayo Kyoku Plus blog wrote about “Naze Ka Saitama” this week as well…did he drink the Frappuccino too???
Tamori’s appreciation of the song, though, was rooted in dunking on Saitama. He used the terminally uncool prefecture bordering cutting-edge Tokyo as an easy target, portryaing it as a backwater behind the times compared to the capital, which was then enjoying arguably its dizziest period. The resurgence of “city pop” in recent years has allowed for a lot of reflection — real or imagined — about the opulent “bubble life” surrounding Tokyo, making for an inspired nostalgia exercise. Here’s a reminder of what was certainly the reality of Japan in the ‘80s — however glitzed-out Tokyo was, that didn’t necessarily stretch ouot to the prefectures literally right next door, and a lot of people in the prior looked down on those in the latter, to the point that some guy’s grandpa could go on an empassioned rant againt Tamori for besmirching the name of Saitama nearly three decades later.
Saita Manzo, the artist name of a guy actually born in Okayama Prefecture (stolen Saitama valor!), went on to continue to try to capitalize on the birth of uncool Saitama, with songs like “Saitama Olympic Dance” and one riffing on the lack of ocean access in Saitama (get the artwork above???). He eventually became a…baseball umpire???
“Naze Ka Saitama” plays a huge role in the aforementioned Gackt-led reclaiming of the prefecture’s coolness Tonde Saitama, which is a nice closing-of-the-circle moment. Yet just as important was everything that came between — ironically, Tokyo achieving world-class status and a sense of neverending cool meant housing prices skyrocketed in the decades after the bubble popped, forcing a lot folks and families to move to surrounding areas…like Saitama. And now, a generation of creators are emerging from Saitama, bringing new angles on music to the country, from J-pop heavyweights like Hoshino Gen to wonky behind-the-board names like Kenmochi Hidefumi.
My go-to for this unique Saitama perspective, though, is Mom, a genre-shoving creator from the prefecture known for throwing rap together with acoustic folk with various strains of electronic pop. He’s been one of the best artists in Japan for the last few years now, and a lot of that comes from a sort of gleeful mash-up of sounds that I don’t assocaite with more hip city dwellers. I also go to a song like 2020’s “Anti Time Travel,” a lovely counterpoint to nostalgia-soaked times. And really, if you are repping Saitama, who would want to go back when its moment is now?
Written by Patrick St. Michel (patrickstmichel@gmail.com)
Twitter — @mbmelodies