Toko Furuuchi -- Distance

One of my favourite songs to cheer me up, this was Toko Furuuchi's（古内東子）3rd single off of her 2nd album of the same title. Although the album finished no higher than 75 on the Oricon charts, Furuuchi would have greater success a few years later with her ballad "Dare Yorimo Suki Nanoni"（誰よりも好きなのに）. You'd probably think that "Distance" would've been the jingle for an especially cool product or the theme song for an especially trendy drama, but it was actually the ending theme for an NHK program on how to combat overwork! Well, it does perk ME up!

Not sure if this tidbit of information got out on my first entry for her, but when Furuuchi went for her year of high school in America, she had decided to change her hair, presumably to fit in with her future classmates. She had been looking at a perm, but instead ended up with a massive afro! According to J-Wiki, she wasn't too thrilled but her classmates got a real kick out of it. Kinda hard to imagine, too, considering that her fans usually know her for her very long, straight locks.