Being chosen as a theme song of a TV show → lots of publicity

I remember when Kinship II (for which A-do’s 《新家》Xin Jia/New Home was the theme song) was being shown on TV, a friend of mine asked me if I knew what had happened in the show.

Friend: Hey, do you know what happened when (narration of part of the story)?
Me: No, I didn’t watch the show.
Friend: But A-do’s song is the theme song right?
Me: Erm well, A-do’s album is already out… （so I don’t have to turn on the TV every night to listen to his song.）

Kym Jin Sha’s songs were also chosen as the closing themes for both part 1 and part 2 of Kinship. When I posted on her board on this, her non-Singaporean fans were curious about the show for which the song had been chosen as the closing theme. If the show is good, the publicity can work both ways.

For more information on which of A-do’s songs have been chosen as opening/closing themes previously, this is the thread I started on A-do’s youyou board: http://bbs.youyou.com/viewthread.php?tid=41826&extra=page%3D6%26amp%3Bfilter%3Dtype%26amp%3Btypeid%3D38

To give another example outside Singapore, at the recommendation of a friend, I watched 《绝对彼氏》Zettai Kareshi (Absolute Boyfriend), a J-drama about an OL (Japanese term meaning “office lady”), Riiko, who is out of luck in love. After being approached by a salesman and answering a few questions, she has a robot in the form of her dream boyfriend delivered to her doorstep, much to her surprise. The robot, being a robot, in his earnestness to make his “girlfriend” happy, sometimes does things at the wrong place and time (the main source of the humour in this show). What I can tell you without giving away the ending is that Riiko’s life does change (as the “salesman” says in the first episode) after the robot enters her life. Although the script is based on the shoujo manga of the same title by 渡濑悠宇Watase Yuu (the Singapore title is《绝对男友》Jue Dui Nan You), the character backgrounds, settings and some of the plot details have been changed. Personally, I prefer the drama.

Getting back to this post’s focus on theme songs, the closing theme of Zettai Kareshi is 《おかえり》Okaeri (Japanese for “returning”) by 绚香Ayaka, the singer and composer of I Believe. This song really grew on me as I went through the 11 episodes of the show. Apparently, Ayaka was approached by Watase sensei to do the theme song for this live action drama, and she read through the manga series before working on the song with her music producer.

Both A-do’s and Ayaka’s singing styles change a little for Xin Jia and Okaeri respectively. While you can feel how powerful their vocals can be in some of their other songs (逃离Tao Li/Escape for A-do, I Believe for Ayaka), they go easy on the power (but not the emotion) for these 2 heart warming songs.

While Ayaka’s Okaeri is about the ordinary happiness of returning home to one’s loved ones, A-do’s Xin Jia was originally written for Habitat for Humanity Singapore last year and later chosen as one of the relief songs for the Sichuan earthquake. So the lyrics say, “We build with love, forgive what has passed and embrace hope again,”（我们用爱打造／原谅过往／再拥抱希望）and are generally on finding the courage to live life again after a disaster.

More about Ayaka
Ayaka’s official website in Japanese: http://www.ayaka.tv/
45 second preview of Okaeri on Warner Japan website
Ayaka’s Oricon interview about writing this song (English translation): http://forums.tokyograph.com/showthread.php?t=3357
Wikipedia entry on Okaeri: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okaeri