Track #7 from an obscure indie band called The Broken Cassette Tape was climbing. Fast.
And every Tuesday, just before midnight, she would check Oricon. Not to see where she ranked.
"Play the song."
"Show me," she said.
It was 11:47 PM in the Shibuya data center, and Kenji Tanaka, a junior analyst at Oricon, was watching the numbers dance. oricon charts
He found it on a tiny indie label's SoundCloud. The track was called "Conbini Lullaby." It was three minutes and eleven seconds of a slightly out-of-tune guitar, Yumi's unpolished voice, and a melody that felt like remembering a dream you didn't know you had. The chorus was simple: "The fluorescent light hums / And so do I / Counting change at 3 AM / Learning how to say goodbye."
But to remember the night the whole country counted change with her. Track #7 from an obscure indie band called
"Yes?"
Yet here they were: #4 on the combined daily ranking. Ahead of Johnny's latest boy band. Ahead of the AKB48 sister group's "graduation" single. Ahead of a Yoasobi track that had been engineered in a million-dollar studio to do exactly what this scrappy, lo-fi recording was now doing by accident. Not to see where she ranked
Mrs. Saito listened in silence. When it ended, she said: "Call the night duty reporter at Nikkei. And Kenji?"