Perception.
Sometimes when you associate certain words in the Japanese pop culture, one can easily think that the beauty will match the name.
In the case of the name “Nogizaka” which means Nogi Hill, the location is named after resident and Imperial Army general, Nogi Maresuke. Which you can read more about through this blog.
But for me, the word “Nogizaka” is what I think when I hear the music of Nogizaka46. A Japanese female idol group that was created to be the rival of popular female idol group, AKB48.
Nogizaka46 is produced by AKB48’s Yasushi Akimoto and while the group was created to be a rival of AKB48, there have been cross collaborations and unlike the initial year of AKB48, there’s no bad blood and the group has managed to become popular on their own. With their own style of music and now having representation not just on a plethora of magazines but also on television.
Nogizaka46 got its name since Sony Music Entertainment Japan is located in the Nogizaka region and in 2016, their sister group Keyakizaka46 was created. And are named after the zelkova tree that can be found around Roppongi.
But being a fan of Nogizaka46, I wanted to visit the Sony Music Entertainment Japan building but also wanting to visit Nogizaka Station.
I remember thinking, is that Nogizaka Station in the beautiful building up ahead?
And as I got closer, Nogizaka Station was a typical Tokyo metro location (established in October 1972). So, being an older, smaller metro station, it was a bit of a no frill experience.
A tunnel leading down to an older metro station with the Tokyo Metro Chiyoda Line headed to Omotesando and Yoyogi-Uehara or for Otemachi, Kita-Senju and Ayase.
And I remember feeling a little bit dejected that Nogizaka Station wasn’t what I thought it would be…thinking maybe it has a similar beauty of Nogizaka46 and resembling the small but more cramped Harajuku Station. But if anything, was happy to know that I can get from Omotesando to Nogizaka Station in order to get to Tokyo Midtown.
And as for hoping that one day, there would be a correlation between Nogizaka46 and Nogizaka Station, in 2016, Nogizaka Station started using the song “Kimi no Na wa Kibo” as a departure melody.
So, perhaps my original thought of
