Published on January 1, 2020. This essay reflects on the AI recreation of Hibari Misora’s voice shown on NHK’s Kōhaku Uta Gassen, praising the Yamaha engineers and Kanazawa Institute of Technology researchers as “national treasures” in the sense taught by Saichō. It contrasts them with television commentators and media figures, and cites a Weekly Bunshun New Year special issue report on Ichiro’s support for Prime Minister Abe, presenting him as a true example of the saying that mastery of one art leads to mastery of all.

2020-01-01
Meanwhile, when I learned from the Weekly Bunshun New Year special issue of the existence of a true person who had mastered a single art, I felt as if a weight had been lifted from my chest.
In order to watch the “Hibari Misora” item I wrote about yesterday, last night I watched almost all of the Kōhaku Uta Gassen while also watching Ioka’s world title fight and other programs.
Even though Kōhaku is an annual New Year’s Eve event, something like a festival, and therefore perhaps not something that needs to be commented on.
I was also watching while wondering whether Japanese music should really be like that, in its lyrics and its sound.
I felt concern that the level of television was being reflected directly in Japanese music.
Except for my childhood, when I watched Kōhaku with my family under the kotatsu, I almost never listen to Japanese popular songs.
Now I listen every day to performances by pianists who represent the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
Yesterday, in keeping with the season, I was also listening to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony conducted by Karajan and Furtwängler.
They say that “Hibari Misora Sings a New Song,” which I wrote about the other day, will also be broadcast on tonight’s Kōhaku Uta Gassen.
It is an attempt to reproduce Hibari Misora’s singing voice perfectly with AI and have her sing a new song called “Arekara.”
What this attempt makes clear is the magnificence of Japanese people, men and women alike, who fulfill their proper duties in their respective places.
The Yamaha engineers who splendidly reproduced Hibari Misora’s vocalization all pointed out that the singing voice they should have perfectly reproduced on the computer was different from her real singing voice.
So the Yamaha engineers sought the cooperation of the Shinji Yamada Laboratory at Kanazawa Institute of Technology and analyzed Hibari Misora’s vocalization.
She had been using a complex vocalization that had something in common with the traditional singing methods of the Mongolian people.
The other day, when it had been pleasantly sunny since morning, I suddenly felt like going to Mount Hiei for the first time in a long while.
As always, the route was Hieizan-Sakamoto Station, Cable Sakamoto Station, and then Mount Hiei.
As you know, the National Treasure Konpon Chūdō was undergoing restoration work, but one could enter inside.
Displayed above the corridor on the way back were the following words of Saichō.
Sacred Teachings of Dengyō Daishi
What is a national treasure?
A treasure is the mind for the Way.
A person with the mind for the Way is called a national treasure.
To illuminate one corner.
This is itself a national treasure.
All the people who participated in the attempt mentioned at the beginning are precisely national treasures.
On the other hand, those who stand at the exact opposite are the people who control the news departments of television stations and the commentators who appear on wide shows.
They are the exact opposite of national treasures; they are the junk of the nation.
Therefore, the only thing they can do is harm the nation.
For example, there are many female commentators.
Their number is the largest in the world.
They receive appearance fees so high that ordinary workers could not even imagine them.
They read the Asahi Shimbun prepared in the greenroom and comment exactly as the program producers intend.
That alone earns them high appearance fees.
And yet, they comment that women are discriminated against in Japan.
They comment that Japanese women are not happy.
They read the Asahi Shimbun prepared in the greenroom and comment exactly as the program producers intend.
That alone earns them high appearance fees.
One entertainer whose name became known worldwide even commented himself that he had “earned 50 billion yen so far.”
It is inconceivable that such people read the monthly magazines and other publications I have continued to mention.
In other words, without knowing the truth at all, they make foolish and shallow political comments exactly in accordance with the intentions of the television stations.
That is because television stations provide them with high appearance fees.
For example, they take the truly foolish criticism of the “Cherry Blossom Viewing Party,” which marched in step with the opposition parties, as if it were correct just as it was, and criticize Prime Minister Abe without the slightest doubt.
People like them are precisely the typical example of “one general achieves glory and the nation perishes.”
People of that level receive appearance fees so extravagantly high that ordinary workers could scarcely believe them.
Displaying momentary tricks on television is probably the exact opposite of what Saichō called a national treasure.
Meanwhile, when I learned from the Weekly Bunshun New Year special issue of the existence of a true person who had mastered a single art, I felt as if a weight had been lifted from my chest.
It was also a moment when I reaffirmed that he was, in the true sense, a person who embodies the saying, “One mastery leads to all mastery.”
The preceding text is omitted.
It was on the night of November 26 that he suddenly appeared in a suit in a place different from a ballpark.
Together with Akira Inoue, president of Orix, and Makoto Takashima, president of Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, he visited the official residence and had dinner with Prime Minister Abe.
“In fact, Ichiro is a supporter of Prime Minister Abe.
In an interview with Nikkei Sangyo Shimbun in February 2013, he reportedly said, ‘I am really, really supporting Prime Minister Abe,’ ‘The flow and the results of Abenomics in such a short time are amazing,’ and ‘Let us all build up excitement for the Abe administration,’ and he had long been eager to meet him someday.
It happened to be in the midst of the Cherry Blossom Viewing Party allegations, but that night too, he said things such as, ‘The opposition parties and the mass media are terrible.
There are so many more important things, such as the U.S.-China trade friction,’ and Prime Minister Abe was very pleased,” said a political reporter.
The rest is omitted.