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Sazae-san Theme Song Composer Kyohei Tsutsumi Passes Away
posted on by Crystalyn Hodgkins
The Kyodo news service revealed on Monday that composer Kyōhei Tsutsumi (real name: Eikichi Watanabe) passed away in his home on October 7 due to aspiration pneumonia. He was 80.
Tsutsumi was born in 1940, and composed more than 3,000 songs, including those for anime, and for rock bands and idols. He came to prominence in the 70s and 80s with the "kayōkyoku" style of pop music. He wrote Kiyohiko Ozaki's hit song "Mata Au Hi Made" and Saori Minami's hit song "17-sai."
In anime, Tsutsumi wrote the theme song for Sazae-san, the world's longest-running animated television series. The anime adaptation of Machiko Hasegawa's family life manga Sazae-san began airing in October 1969. The anime is usually the highest ranked animated series in Japan each week. In 2013, the show was awarded the Guinness World Record for longest-running animated television series, an award it extended last year.
Tsutsumi also wrote theme songs for such anime as Castle in the Sky, Heaven's Lost Property, Tokyo Pig, and the first opening and ending for the Transformers television anime series.
Source: Kyodo via Hachima Kikō
