The 2014 edition of NHK¡¯s venerated song contest, ¡°Kohaku Uta Gassen,¡± broadcast on Dec. 31, was remarkable for several reasons, though the performance that generated the most remarks was the one by the equally venerated pop-rock group Southern All Stars, their first on the show in 31 years.
Getting the band to agree to perform was a coup for the public broadcaster because the All Stars have traditionally spent New Year¡¯s Eve playing for fans in their home base of Yokohama, as they were this time, so NHK arranged for a .
When SMAP leader Masahiro Nakai introduced the group, front man Keisuke Kuwata showed up on screen sporting a chobi-hige, which the Asahi Shimbun translated incorrectly as a ¡°small beard.¡± It¡¯s really a small mustache, the kind, as Asahi went on to say, that Charlie Chaplin wore in the movie ¡°The Great Dictator,¡± a roundabout way of explaining that it¡¯s a style made notorious by a certain 20th-century German chancellor.
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