Tomoko Ohmoto -- Anata no Mama de （あなたのままで）

One of my hidden little gems. This song was featured on a Philip Morris cigarette commercial back in the 90s, but I just thought Tomoko Ohmoto's（大本友子）song was so pleasingly soft and feathery that I had to track it down. It is fortunate that commercials in Japan very considerately place the name and song of the artist down in the corner. I'm not sure whether "Anata no Mama de" (Just The Way You Are) was ever released as an official single, but I managed to find Ohmoto's 3rd album, "Eiga no You ni wa Ikanai no" （映画のようにはいかないの...I Won't Go Like In The Movies）at Yamano Ginza in which the song was the first track.

The point that got me attracted to this ballad was actually how similar Ohmoto sounded to Miki Imai（今井美樹）. And initially, I had thought that that was who it was, but as I saw in the corner of the ad, there was a different set of kanji there. Still, the song reminded me of those early-period Imai singles.

There's no information about Ohmoto on J-Wiki, but she does have her own website here. She hails from Fukuyama City in Hiroshima Prefecture, and first got interested in Momoe Yamaguchi（山口百恵）, along with The Carpenters and The Beatles as a child. Then, once she got into high school, she further opened her eyes to J-Pop and got into EPO's songs. She debuted in 1992 with her first album titled "Hibiya Koen de Matteru"（日比谷公園で待ってる...I'll Be Waiting In Hibiya Park）. "Eiga no You ni wa Ikanai no" was released in March 1995.

I love the song but I hope that there hasn't been any lasting Pavlovian effect on folks hearing it and suddenly hitting the cigarette vending machines.