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 live feed from the concert venue.
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.