Tomoyo Harada -- Kanashii kurai Honto no Hanashi （悲しいくらいほんとの話）

For all those years that I've known about actress/singer Tomoyo Harada（原田知世）in her movies and the occasional guest appearances on variety shows, I never knew about her beginnings which had her as both aidoru and actress.

Then I stumble across her debut song, "Kanashii kurai Honto no Hanashi" (So True It's Sad) from July 1982 which has a surprisingly polished arrangement. And I discover that the song was created by Etsuko and Takao Kisugi（来生えつこ・来生たかお）...for which I go naruhodo. The Kisugi siblings just have this way of imbuing their material with a certain classical-sounding sophistication.

Not a bad start for the 14-year-old Harada. She not only sang this song but also starred in the 1982 drama which it belonged to, Fuji-TV's television version of "Sailor Fuku to Kikanjuu"（セーラー服と機関銃）. The more famous movie version starred Hiroko Yakushimaru（薬師丸ひろ子）for which there is that iconic photo of her in a school uniform with the machine gun. Yakushimaru also sang the famous theme song (which was also handled by the Kisugis) for the movie, and Harada with her high-pitched voice at the time had a certain similarity when she performed the TV theme.

"Kanashii kurai Honto no Hanashi" peaked at No. 41 and sold about 57,000 copies.