was a Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese songwriter

Songwriter

A songwriter is an individual who writes both the lyrics and music to a song. Someone who solely writes lyrics may be called a lyricist, and someone who only writes music may be called a composer...

, famous for his many children's song

Children's song

Children's song may be a nursery rhyme set to music, a song that young children invent and share among themselves, or a modern creation intended for entertainment, use in the home, or education...

s and popular songs

Popular music

Popular music belongs to any of a number of musical genres "having wide appeal" and is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional music, which are typically disseminated academically or orally to smaller, local...

 (ryūkōka

Ryukoka

- 1914–1927: Origin :In 1914, Sumako Matsui's song "Katyusha's song", composed by Shinpei Nakayama, was used as a theme of the rendition Resurrection in Japan. The record of the song sold 20,000 copies...

) that have become deeply embedded in Japanese popular culture

Japanese popular culture

Japanese popular culture not only reflects the attitudes and concerns of the present but also provides a link to the past. Japanese cinema, cuisine, television programs, manga, and music all developed from older artistic and literary traditions, and many of their themes and styles of presentation...

.

In 1914, Nakayama composed the song "Katyusha's song

Katyusha's song

The is a Japanese song, which was highly popular in early 20th century Japan. It was composed in the major pentatonic scale by Shinpei Nakayama. It was sung by Matsui Sumako in a dramatization of Tolstoy's Resurrection, put on in 1914 in Tokyo. The song was a huge hit, selling a large number of...

" for a dramatization of Tolstoy

Leo Tolstoy

Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was a Russian writer who primarily wrote novels and short stories. Later in life, he also wrote plays and essays. His two most famous works, the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, are acknowledged as two of the greatest novels of all time and a pinnacle of realist...

's Resurrection

Resurrection (novel)

Resurrection , first published in 1899, was the last novel written by Leo Tolstoy. The book is the last of his major long fiction works published in his lifetime . Tolstoy intended the novel as an exposition of injustice of man-made laws and the hypocrisy of institutionalized church...

. The song, sung by actress Sumako Matsui

Sumako Matsui

was a Japanese actress and singer. Born as Masako Kobayashi in Matsushiro, Nagano, Nagano Prefecture as the fifth daughter and last of nine children of Tohta Kobayashi, she was adopted by the Hasegawa family in Ueda at the age of six and in 1900 graduated Ueda school...

, was a massive hit and Nakayama became famous almost overnight. Today this song is considered one of the earliest examples of modern Japanese popular music.

Another of his most famous songs is "Tokyo ondo

Ondo (music)

is a type of Japanese folk music genre.- Etymology and description:The literal translation of "ondo" is "sound head." Kanji, or the Chinese characters used in the Japanese language, often have literal and abstract meanings, here the kanji for "sound" having a more abstract meaning of "melody" or...

", which was a great countrywide hit in the 1930s. Today it is also known as the theme song of the baseball

Baseball

Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...

 team Tokyo Yakult Swallows

Tokyo Yakult Swallows

is a professional baseball team in Japan's Central League.The Swallows are named after their corporate owners, the Yakult Corporation. From 1950 to 1965, the team was owned by the former Japanese National Railways and called the Kokutetsu Swallows; the team was then owned by the newspaper Sankei...

.

His most famous children's songs are "Shabondama", "Teru teru bozu

Teru teru bozu

Teru teru bōzu is a little traditional hand-made doll made of white paper or cloth that Japanese farmers began hanging outside of their window by a string. In shape and construction they are essentially identical to ghost dolls, such as those made at Halloween. This amulet is supposed to have...

", "Amefuri", "Ano machi kono machi" and "Sekurabe", among others.

Nakayama's song "Gondola no Uta

Gondola no Uta

is a 1915 song that was popular during Taishō period Japan. Lyrics were written by Isamu Yoshii, melody by Shinpei Nakayama.Lyrics in Kanji:いのち短し　恋せよ少女朱き唇　褪せぬ間に熱き血潮の　冷えぬ間に明日の月日の　ないものをいのち短し　恋せよ少女いざ手をとりて　彼の舟にいざ燃ゆる頬を　君が頬にここには誰れも　来ぬものをいのち短し　恋せよ少女...

" features prominently in Akira Kurosawa

Akira Kurosawa

was a Japanese film director, producer, screenwriter and editor. Regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers in the history of cinema, Kurosawa directed 30 filmsIn 1946, Kurosawa co-directed, with Hideo Sekigawa and Kajiro Yamamoto, the feature Those Who Make Tomorrow ;...

's film Ikiru

Ikiru

is a 1952 Japanese film co-written and directed by Akira Kurosawa. The film examines the struggles of a minor Tokyo bureaucrat and his final quest for meaning. The film stars Takashi Shimura as Kanji Watanabe.-Plot:...

.