Tokyo skyscraper workers perform their socks off in intercompany singing contest

TOKYO — People working for firms in a high-rise office building in the Japanese capital’s Nishi-Shinjuku district recently gave their all to a different kind of competition: singing their socks off.

The contest at the Shinjuku Mitsui Building, one of many skyscrapers lining the local streets, began in 1975, a year after its completion, to promote friendship among tenant companies. It has been held every year since, except for 2020 to 2022, when it was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic. It has now become a tradition and is known as a “summer festival for corporate workers.” As the high-level performances by contestants have often been featured on TV, the event attracts many spectators, and not only from the building tenants.

With 55 floors above ground and three floors below, the Shinjuku Mitsui Building houses about 100 companies and other organizations with a total of about 12,000 employees.

Contestants must be workers at the building’s tenants, and up to three teams from one company can participate. This year, a record number of 106 groups took part. According to organizer Mitsui Fudosan Co., this is believed to be due to the attention paid to last year’s event, the first after the pandemic hiatus.

Twenty teams got through the preliminary round on Aug. 21 and 22 to advance to the finals on Aug. 23. Participants sang J-pop songs by B’z, Ai Otsuka, Nanase Aikawa and Kan, among other artists, in homemade costumes on the outdoor stage on the building premises. Shredded pieces of paper fluttered in the air in place of confetti, and contestants’ colleagues cheered enthusiastically with handmade fans and other handheld items.

What about this competition drives people so wild?

Ko Shiikawa, 40, a JTB Corp. employee who was downstage cheering on his co-worker, said, “It’s a chance to glimpse a side of your colleagues that you don’t normally see, and we can share a feeling of unity in striving for the same goal.”

Norikazu Kikuno, 61, of Benesse Corp. explained, “It’s an opportunity to find fun and pleasure different from work and to be united with co-workers amid the pressures of sales and profits.” He has participated in the competition three times, including as the winner in 2012. “The singing contest is ‘Koshien,'” he said, referring to the home stadium of the Hanshin Tigers professional baseball team and, as the venue for the spring and summer national high school baseball championship finals, hallowed ground for Japan’s high school baseballers. “If we do it, we give it our all.”

Some companies rent a space in the Shinjuku Mitsui Building specifically to participate in the contest.

Hironobu Kikkawa, the 63-year-old representative director of a firm operating “Thaliya” Indian restaurants, waited nearly 10 years before finally managing to open an eatery on the first basement floor. In his third appearance in the event, he enthusiastically sang singer-songwriter Shota Shimizu’s “Kesho” (makeup) on Aug. 21.

Willof Construction Inc. won the 47th edition of the contest on Aug. 23, and Kikkawa of Thaliya was the runner-up.

(Japanese original by Shunsuke Yamashita, Tokyo City News Department)