Pizzicato Five -- Baby Love Child

During my time in Japan, I got into the rather expensive habit of buying up DVD sets of US television shows. Mind you, I was pretty particular in terms of genre. Along with my collection of "Doctor Who", "Family Guy" and "SCTV", I also picked up sets from the prime time cartoon, "Futurama". There was one episode titled "Leela's Homeworld" in which the character from the title finally found her true parents in a heartwarming ending. That ending had a montage of Leela growing up while a comforting ballad was being sung in the background. I didn't realize it at the time but when I was listening to the cast-and-crew commentary, one of the two creators for the show, David X. Cohen, remarked that the title of the song was "Baby Love Child" and the singer was none other than Maki Nomiya （野宮真貴）of Pizzicato Five! Well, I was truly awake at that revelation; it just seemed so quiet for a P5 tune. Apparently, the crew was so impressed by the song that the montage sequence was extended so that they could include more of it.

However, I also recall Cohen mentioning that he and the others behind the episode couldn't quite get the middle "Attention Adults" part, so obviously that part didn't get in. And I have to admit that it probably wouldn't have been a very smooth transition, but that middle part is so typically P5. In any case, "Baby Love Child" was created by Yasuharu Konishi and Keitaro Takanami（小西康陽・高波慶太郎）, the latter having been a guitarist for the band until he left in 1994. It first got onto Pizzicato Five's 5th album in 1991, "Josei Joi Jidai"（女性上位時代）, known in English as "This Year's Girl", but it was also included in their 2nd album on the Matador label, "Made in the USA" in 1994.

The video above is of the English version for the song. As usual, it has fashion plate Nomiya looking very splendiferous, but there are also scenes of her looking very natural (I can't really say "ordinary" for someone like her). Below is the Japanese-language version.