Anzen Chitai -- Suki sa （好きさ）

I usually try to refrain from putting up a song by the same artist twice in the same month, but once I read a comment by simi from an earlier entry for an Anzen Chitai（安全地帯） ballad this month, I felt that I had to give "Suki sa" (I Love You) its due before the end of the year.

And for good reason. It's definitely imbued with that appealingly moody tone that characterized a lot of the band's songs in the early years. Having become an Anzen Chitai fan through the "The Best 10" videotapes and my years going to Kuri in Yorkville, the culmination of my admiration for Koji Tamaki （玉置浩二）and the guys occurred when I was feted to a birthday party at the aforementioned karaoke bar, and one of my friends, also a huge fan of the band, was kind enough to make a tape with all of their hits up to that point. He often drove me home so I often heard the songs as we took the Don Valley Parkway up to my home. And I'll tell ya....Anzen Chitai made for perfect night driving music. "Suki sa" was one entry on that birthday tape. I always remember that first line: "Suki sa....shibireru hodo....suki sa...kuyashii hodo..." （好きさ。。。しびれるほど。。。好きさ。。。くやしいほど。。。I love you so much I'm going numb....I love you so much I'm going out of my mind）. Those words and Tamaki's anguished delivery makes it sound as if he were going to get the target of his affections through any means necessary....stalker territory here.

So you can imagine my surprise when I found out that it had been used as the third opening theme for the mid-80s anime, "Maison Ikkoku"（めぞん一刻）....especially after the cute-as-a-button first opening theme, "Kanashimi yo Konnichiwa"（悲しみよこんにちは） by aidoru Yuki Saito（斉藤由貴） and then the one-off opener with Gilbert O'Sullivan's old 70s ballad, "Alone Again, Naturally" (!). The fact that "Suki sa" was used as an opening theme was quite the shocker as well, since I thought the brooding melody by Tamaki and lyrics by Goro Matsui（松井五郎） would make it an ending theme. Since it's been embedded into my brain that "Suki sa" is an urban contemporary tune of darkness, it's a bit weird seeing it used with the sunny opening credits of "Maison Ikkoku". Still, my kudos to all those anime producers back then who were placing these pretty mature-sounding songs with their programs.