All About Japan

Otsuka Ai Gives You 3 Minutes for Ramen

Ramen J-Pop

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFTaUz8mDBY&list=PLKLOfDQUHORKrMQniiB9Qn8WiS8F3t7c-&index=7

Otsuka Ai is best known for her 2003 bubblegum-pop track “Sakuranbo,” which spent a staggering 103 weeks (that’s one week shy of two years) on the Top 200 Oricon Weekly Singles Chart. We’ll also admit to being unabashed “Planetarium” belters at karaoke.

On 2005’s appropriately entitled Love Cook, Otsuka provided ramen lovers with “Ramen San-pun Cooking,” or “Three-minute Ramen Cooking.”

The track opens with Otsuka telling someone on the phone she’s waiting three minutes for her ramen to heat, and the subsequent chorus is nothing more than a list of the four main types of ramen: miso, shoyu (soy sauce), tonkotsu (pork bone) and shio (salt).

While the live video is 17 seconds too long, the album version wraps up at exactly the three-minute mark—precisely the time needed for your ramen to cook after adding hot water.