Like any good hipster following the latest fads, I got myself a ukulele for Christmas, since I found a non-cheap, good-quality one at a mall I frequent.

Of course that first bit is a LIE. You don’t find me hanging out at Cubao X, thank you.

But yes, I did get a ukulele, and while I was going through ukulele musicians, I found Ayano Tsuji in the Wikipedia roster. Right-clicked, searched with Youtube, and I then remembered seeing one of her videos before, but was not so impressed. The hard facts sunk in this time, though: here’s a spectacled Japanese pop singer, ukulele player, with records of undeniably pretty simple, but nonetheless very pretty, songs. This was a welcome breather, because I was just watching Jake Shimabukuro videos a few minutes before making this music discovery.

Let me cite some notable credits:

• Her Kaze Ni Naru is the theme song of Studio Ghibli’s The Cat Returns.
• NPR took notice of her back in 2006, which includes a short audio feature.

Sadly, as far as searchable English-language content online is concerned, there’s not a lot about her. As a former indie-popper myself, I’m surprised that scene has ignored her.

On a personal note, I don’t have any ambitions of ukulele mastery, and the ukulele forums and music I would usually encounter leaves me intimidated. Learning about Ayano Tsuji’s music left me hopeful again, as THIS is how I would like my eagerness with the instrument to come out somehow: no fancy fingerwork, just songs.

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This Ayano video did it for me:

Her version of a 1975 original by Yuming, which has this most awesome video :

The lyric plot translated, according to a video comment, goes like:

It is about a woman who is living with a guy, finds out he is having an affair, and leaves a message on their mirror saying that she has left to go and see his mother to get her to phone him to tell him off.

The Yuming version was used in Miyazaki’s Kiki’s Delivery Service.

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Lastly, I don’t want to give off the impression that I’m by any stretch, an otaku. I don’t watch Naruto, I don’t have kawaii toy figurines in my room, no PSP on permanent availability, and I don’t listen to Morning Musume. I’m actually surprised that people think Ayumi Hamasaki has a great voice.

My point? If a music-otaku badge was presented to me as a bag of M&M’s, I’d say arigato, but I’m not worthy, I’m not that hardcore, though I’m willing to pick out some of the red one’s, maybe a handful of the green’s.

Ok, so I do bring a bento lunch box to work. With chopsticks. With a case, but no holder.