...Forte Continued...and Jinzoningen Hakaider...

(This is Part 2 of my blog about Forte Music Entertainment. If you missed Part 1, check it out here. I wrote it about two months ago, so it's worth having a refresher even if you did read it already.)

So I covered the basics before, but I didn't mention a couple things in my earlier post...

The career of Susumu Ooya doesn't seem to exist outside of this crappy label. Ooya did four songs from Janperson [this includes both theme songs] as well as a few decent songs from DBZ. All info I managed to dig up on this guy says he retired from entertainment in 2002, but I don't see any recording past his DBZ songs from 1995. Bummer. I might be in the minority, but I liked his songs.

I mentioned previously that the label was abruptly dropped in the middle of 1995, but I don't think it was a "just walk away" situation--it was more of an "ABANDON SHIP!". The second B-Fighter single being released by Columbia was one thing, but the ultimate weirdness happened to Jinzoningen Hakaider...

A little bit of history...

In 1995 Kikaider's rival, Hakaider, was given his own movie where he somehow portrays the protagonist. Jinzoningen Hakaider [or Mechanical Violator Hakaider OR Roboman Hakaider] was released in lieu of a new Kamen Rider film that year. They even gave the movie the most badass trailer in the history of Tokusatsu movies. Brief, non-spoiler, awesome narration, and full of action.

The premise was bizarre. An evil or is he!? robot is freed from his comically large chains and immediately sets out for vengeance against his creator, Gurjev. Gurjev and his right hand man, Michael, live in the walled city called Jesus Town [...] where everything is squeaky clean and perfect...except for the rebels! Upon breaking into Jesus Town, Hakaider saves a band of rebels and befriends them as much as an emotionless killer could. Ultimately he is able to face Gurjev and Michael [whose white armor suspiciously looks more and more like a mixture of Kikaider and bad claymation as the fight wears on].

That is just a very basic synopsis. It is a very strange movie with a strange message loaded with even more strange imagery. Hakaider enjoyed a different type of popularity than the Kamen Rider movies of the previous three years. It was given a regular theatrical release, an eventual Director's Cut [I believe this is one of the first Toei Hero movies to do so] and it even has an American release [with both versions of the film...Thanks, Media Blasters!] based on Kikaider's popularity in the western States. It's worth checking out--that's for sure!

So naturally there was a music release of some kind for this film. Surely there is just a single and music collection to cover this movie. Try four...

Whatever weirdness was going on with the production of the movie [there had to be some. I refuse to believe otherwise when there are two different versions of any movie--it has to be more than runtime] there was definitely some weird stuff going on with the music. The film's ending theme song is a little song called "WILD SIDE" by MODE that everyone seems to be familiar with. Despite being cross promoted with the film, WILD SIDE does not appear on the Hakaider Music Collection. WILD SIDE only appears on the CDSingle of the same name. Right there, that is two CDs.

On the Hakaider Music Collection [which, by the way, was put out by our good friends at Forte Music] we hear two other vocal songs called "mouichido meguri au hi made" and "omoide o hanataba ni kaete" by pianist KYOKO SOUND LABORATORY. These songs can be considered image songs--as they are in the booklet, but I imagine that one of them was originally destined to be the ending song to the film. In addition to being on the Music Collection the two songs had their own 2-track CD Single. We're up to three CDs.

Oh yeah, I should mention that the majority of the music on Forte's Hakaider Music Collection ummm...wasn't really used in the movie. Variations, yes, but it's kind of like listening to a bizarro version of the music that is actually in the movie. The short, modernized version of "Hakaider no theme" that plays right before the end credits start is a lot campier on Forte's CD.

SO...after the movie was released on VHS and Laserdisc in regular and director's cut, a director's cut Music Collection was also released by Columbia. Their version of the soundtrack featured the music that actually ended up in the movie. The only issue was that WILD SIDE was missing. The KYOKO SOUND LABORATORY songs were also missing, but they're pretty much imaginary at this point. Four CDs.

Let's recap.

MODE "WILD SIDE" Single - Fun House
KYOKO SOUND LABORATORY Single - Forte Music Entertainment
Hakaider Music Collection - Forte Music Entertainment
Hakaider Music Collection Director's Cut - Nippon Columbia

How did this happen? Why did this happen? What the hell?? Four CDs on three labels...

Initially I was going to do this post as a Rare CD Round-up and upload the Forte version of the Music Collection to Youtube, but I decided to just post the two KYOKO SOUND LABORATORY songs along with the Forte Version of Hakaider's theme as well as the Director's Cut CD version. You decide which is better [Director's Cut].

Enjoy...



So there you have it. Just before Forte was stamped out of existence it managed to confuse the hell out of us one last time. Good riddance to a lousy music label...

Thank you for reading my two-part rant on a topic that probably nobody cares about. Hahaa.

See ya next time!

-CC