Dreams Come True -- Snow Dance

One of my favourite scenes during the year is the change that occurs as autumn passes by into winter. There is a snap in the air and the sky takes on a grayer hue. I mean, that sort of weather would likely send other people into a major depression, but it's perfectly fine and welcome for me. And it's also one reason that I enjoy Dreams Come True's 26th single, "Snow Dance"....because of that video.

"Snow Dance" was released just on Christmas Eve 1999, and Miwa Yoshida & Masato Nakamura （吉田美和・中村正人）brought it in some counter-intuitiveness by introducing a bit of Latin into this song about falling snowflakes. It's a nice introspective ballad about the changing seasons. And going back to that video, that walk Miwa takes through the neighbourhood would be the type of walk I'd like to take just when the year is about to come to an end. And walking through Japanese neighbourhoods was one of the smaller joys I had during my time there. The zoning isn't quite as strict as it is here in the West, so a stroll through any neighbourhood in Tokyo, for example, can bring forth a hodgepodge of interesting establishments: there could be a tiny tonkatsu restaurant that suddenly pops out amongst a clump of apartments while down the street, there may be a shop selling Gundam robots and then a cute little café around the corner next to a cleaners.

Watching that video, I did expect Nakamura to show up but then when I saw now-former member Takahiro Nishikawa（西川隆宏）appear during Yoshida's walk considering some of the troubles he'd had, I reflexively reacted "He was still with the band?"

The song peaked at No. 3 and ultimately became the 88th-ranked song for the year 2000. An acapella version appeared on the band's 2003 "DREAMAGE - Dreams Come True Love Ballad Collection" while the original single appeared on "DREAMANIA - Dreams Come True Smooth Groove Collection" the following year.