Eriko Tamura（田村英里子） was the first aidoru that I heard about since my arrival in Japan in 1989...she had debuted about 4 months previously. But I also think she is one of the last solo aidorus of that particular style of cuteness from that golden age. I had one student in Gunma who was a huge fan of hers, and over those first several months in my new home and then decades later, I'd gleaned a few points about her. One point was that she was fluent in German and English due to an international move by her family. Another was that she had once sent tongues-a-wagging when she released a photograph of her wearing a barely-there white slip of something pretending to be a bathing suit, and a smile. The third was that she was in that 2nd season of the sci-fi show, "Heroes", as Masi Oka's love interest.
And that final thing I remember her for is her 3rd single, "Honki" (Serious) which came out in September of that year. My student absolutely insisted that I hear this song, which I did and also enjoyed. It had a catchy enough beat, and was given the fine backing of veterans such as lyricist Takashi Matsumoto（松本隆） and composer Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）. Well, I would say that it was so catchy that whenever her name is mentioned, one certain part of that song automatically enters my brain even now. "Honki"managed to peak at No. 9.
I just managed to hear a bit of her next single after "Honki", "Process" which turned out to be her most successful song. Sounded pretty promising as well, so I may be doing a bit of re-exploration of her discography.
Hi J-Canuck.
ReplyDeleteI like Eriko Tamura a lot and "Shinken" is my favorite single from her. And her pin-up photos are very interesting too. She was such a beautiful and lovely girl with a sexy body.
And, just like you, I also think of her as one of the last cute aidoru from the golden age. Everytime I watch some of her videos, especially "Shinken" in "Yoru no Hit Studio", I think about Eriko being an aidoru out of its "zeitgeist". Something like North Korea today, a country, people say, which stopped in time (I don't know if I'm being clear enough). About this particular performance of "Shinken", If I didn't know nothing about Eriko, but had a knowledge about 80s aidoru, I'd tell this performance was from the early-to-mid 80s, not late 1989.
"Yoru no Hit Studio", per se, is a show that shouts "golden age" to me. And, as you know, "Shinken" is a synth-pop song, which, in "Yoru no Hit Studio", gets a 360º twist in its sound, resulting in a typical aidoru song filled with early 80s orchestra. Finally, Eriko's looks were also responsible for that "retro" vibe.
If you want to check, here's the link to the "Yoru no Hit Studio" performance of "Shinken".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnkQEAVg3xE
Chinaging subjects a little, my favorite album from her is the debut "May Be Dream". It has that late 80s eurobeat/synth-pop style that you already know I dig a lot. I'll probably buy this album when I find it on ebay.
You can find the "May Be Dream" album and some other from her in the "OLDIES BUT GOODIES" blog.
And I was almost forgetting to talk about a very specific thing about Eriko Tamura, as she was the "real aidoru" version of an anime character. First, she appeared as a character in the anime, and then she was introduced as a "real aidoru" to the media. It was an interesting marketing plan. I can tell that I'm still searching for an english subbed version of the anime "Idol Densetsu Eriko".
Oh boy, I ended up writing a long reply again. Sorry for that, J-Canuck.
Hi, Marcos V.
DeleteInteresting point about her being out of the zeitgeist. I don't know which company represented her during her aidoru days, but perhaps the powers-that-be still wanted to have that cute frilly image of the aidoru for her, to hold onto something of that golden age. Looking at the cover of her single, she did look a bit anachronistic, maybe by about half a decade. But then I think Wink had a similar look in their early days as well.
I was surprised to hear that she started her professional life as an anime character before making that leap to real life. I'm not sure if there has been anything like that since. The closest thing I can think of is with Yoko Oginome. She was portraying the character Miyuki for her titular anime in the early 80s before she made the leap to superaidorudom in the mid-80s, but of course, Oginome and Miyuki were different people completely.
Yeah, you talked about Wink, and I must agree. Although they dressed in typical aidoru fashion, Wink was a very stylish duo. We can tell that their production team was very worried about their fashion. But I must agree that in their very early days, before "Ai ga Tomaranai ~Turn It Into Love~", Shoko and Sachiko were often dressed like the typical girl next door. As for Eriko Tamura, I think the worry was only to dress her like a properly kawaii aidoru. But I don't know, maybe I'm looking too deep on the subject.
DeleteAs for the anime character marketing plan, I can also think of Lemon Angel, an aidoru trio who did the same thing one year earlier, in 1988. They released some nice songs and also a cover of Sinitta's "Toy Boy" (the name of their cover is BOY'S TOY. I always think if they inverted just the name of the song or if they did it with the meaning too. If they did change the meaning, we can assume that an aidoru is a boy's toy. Well, that's just a random reflexion).