Minoru Obata, Late 1940's, A small path of starlight echoing in the ruins of a burnt-out house.

Minoru Obata, Late 1940's, A small path of starlight echoing in the ruins of a burnt-out house.

Minoru Obata (born in Tokyo in 1911) is known as a lyric singer who soothed the hearts of Japanese people during the chaotic postwar period. His masterpiece, "Hoshikage no Koiroi" (lyrics by Ryo Yano, music by Ichiro Tone, 1947), is a song of hope that quietly flowed through the burned-out city immediately after the defeat. For those who had lost their spiritual ground in the war-torn city, this song sounded like a small twinkling light in the night sky. The faintly melancholy melody and the soft voice of the singer directly encompassed the atmosphere of an era that was in between destruction and rebirth.

Obata was active in a jazz band before the war, but his musical activities were restricted during the war, and he returned to the world of singing after the war ended. During the reconstruction period in Japan, the radio was the only entertainment available in homes, and his lyrical songs colored people's evenings. Hoshikage no Koji" has a poetic sentiment that connects love and loneliness, the past and the future, and has a universality that influenced later mood songs and pop music.

While his contemporaries Ichiro Fujiyama and Hisao Ito sang of ideals with imposing voices, Obata Minoru sang of ripples in the heart. His songs had a warmth that was closer to people's lives than grandiose intonation. This was the healing that postwar Japan needed most. His voice, which eventually came to be known as the founder of romantic songs, continued to quietly illuminate the hearts of many ordinary people living in the era of reconstruction.

The song "Hoshikage no Lane" is still sung today and has not lost its luster as a symbol of hope in the postwar era. Minoru Obata was a poet of the Showa period who spun a quiet lyric between chaos and rebirth.