Hiromi Iwasaki/Mako Ishino -- Watashi Tachi （私たち）

It's been a while since I put up my last Hiromi Iwasaki（岩崎宏美）posting, and a commenter for that last posting mentioned about this song, "Watashi Tachi"(Us). I refreshed my memory by playing the song on YouTube....and it was immediately familiar to me. However, I had to wonder a while where I had first heard it. Going through my discs of the singer, I realized it wasn't in there since my earliest CD of hers was from 1978. Actually, I first heard it on an old audio tape of her best hits that my Mom had gotten me back in 1985.

As I mentioned in my reply to my guest, hearing "Watashi Tachi" again was an evergreen pleasure. It was actually the B-side to her 2nd single, "Romance"（ロマンス）, released in July 1975, but I think it sounded wonderful enough to have earned its own place on the A-side. And as my commenter noted and as it has been pointed out in the J-Wiki article on "Romance", the production staff behind the single rather hemmed and hawed over which song would get that A-side, until they went with "Romance". However, according to Iwasaki herself, she also pushed for "Romance". The reason went something like this: a new aidoru back in those days often had to sing on the morning wide shows (news/entertainment programs), and the singer felt that belting out "Watashi Tachi" in the AM would have been more taxing; "Romance" was the easier choice for her.

"Watashi Tachi" was written and composed by Yu Aku and Kyohei Tsutsumi,（阿久悠・筒美京平） the same dynamic duo behind "Romance". And perhaps it was the Tsutsumi approach, but when I listened to "Watashi Tachi" again, I came to the realization that a number of Iwasaki's early uptempo songs reminded me of some of the disco hits that I used to hear as a kid, because of the trumpet-and-strings arrangement. As would be the case for a young teenager, the lyrics focus on a girl's ever-hopeful dream of getting that guy she's fallen head-over-heels for.

My guest also mentioned that although "Watashi Tachi" had been a favourite of the fans at her concerts, Iwasaki decided to retire the song from the arenas for almost 3 decades. This is a video of her performing the song in concert...probably sometime in the 80s judging by the length of her hair, so I gather that it hadn't been time quite yet at that point. I got a kick watching Iwasaki kicking it up a notch here since my image of her on the stage or on TV has always been of a solemn stillness as she sang her later hits such as "Sumire Iro no Namida"（すみれ色の涙）and "Madonna Tachi no Lullaby"（マドンナたちのララバイ）. I think with all of the songs I've mentioned by her, you may as well just hit her name in the Labels section.

(3:34)

Mako Ishino（石野真子）was an aidoru I used to know just through her pictures in some of the kids' magazines that I had bought (or more accurately, my parents bought) at the Japanese food store, Furuya, in Chinatown. I remember her for her rather snaggle-toothed smile, or yaeba（八重歯）. Back in those days, having a grin that only an orthodontist would love here was one of the greatest features that an aidoru could have since it was seen as a major charm point. In fact, when Ishino debuted in 1978, she was labeled as the aidoru with "the million-dollar smile", and having slightly droopy eyes also helped enhance her popularity.

Ishino's years as an aidoru were just from 1978 to 1981. However, sometime during that period, she did a cover of "Watashi Tachi"; the arrangements were pretty much identical to the ones for the Iwasaki original. It was never released as an official single and although I looked around the Net, I couldn't find out when and on which album it was released.

As with a lot of former aidoru, Ishino soon made that transition to acting, commercials and appearances as a tarento on TV.