Naomi Tamura -- Yuzurenai Onegai （ゆずれないお願い）

I remember seeing the official music video for the theme of "Magic Knight Rayearth" on "Countdown TV" with that bobbing pretty head of singer-songwriter Naomi Tamura (田村直美...good hair, by the way) all the time. Then when I went back to Toronto for a vacation, some of my anime buddies were going downright teenage on me when they found out that Tamura was slated to appear on the 1995 Kohaku Utagassen.

Truth be told, the dynamic style of "Yuzurenai Onegai" (An Unshakeable Request) coming at me week after week on the ranking shows was nigh unshakeable indeed, so that I ended up buying the CD single. It was released in November 1994, and was written by Tamura and composed by Tamura and Hiroto Ishikawa（石川寛門） as her 4th single. The racing adventurous beat of the song reminded me of a similar drive in Miho Morikawa's（森川美穂） "Blue Water", itself a theme of another anime from a few years back.

I also have to say that I like the video as well. The first several seconds are filmed in black-&-white with Tamura looking pretty darn serious (and perhaps in need of a Tylenol....just like on the CD cover), before the refrain has Tamura exploding in a million-watt smile and in colour. "Yuzurenai Onegai" sold over 1.2 million copies, and stayed in the Top 10 for 9 straight weeks, peaking at No. 7 and becoming the 31st-ranked song for 1995. It also won the Theme Song Prize at the Animation Kobe '96 festival, and of course, there was that invitation to the Kohaku.

I've gotta also mention that Tamura's expression rather resembles that of another dynamic singer, Misato Watanabe（渡辺美里）, although the delivery of the former here is a bit more ethereal if still powerful.

Naomi Tamura -- Yuzurenai Onegai