hitomi -- Candy Girl

Looking back at those mid-90s, I came to the realization that everyone was popping out of the Tetsuya Komuro （小室哲哉）family woodwork. Let's see....there was trf, globe, Tomomi Kahala for starters. And there was also hitomi (Hitomi Furuya/古屋仁美 on the official documents).

As Marcos V. remarked on his article for her 7th single, "by myself", the Kanagawa Prefecture native didn't exactly have the most talented set of vocal cords, but she did make up for that with that much-needed trait for success: PRESENTATION! I was watching "Countdown TV" early Sunday morning on TBS when I saw the video for her single "Candy Girl" (just an excerpt above). It made an impression....for one thing, the legs which had me remembering the old Chisato Moritaka（森高千里） days. That video, which also got onto heavy rotation via the commercials plugging the single, had me thinking that this was a pretty darn big debut for hitomi, only to later find out that this was actually her 3rd release after a couple of middling ones.

The video and the catchy refrain helped "Candy Girl" (composed by Komuro and written by hitomi) to go as high as No. 15 on Oricon. And even though it didn't crack the Top 10, it had a long life on the charts and ended up becoming hitomi's most successful hit after its release in April 1995 (good golly, almost 20 years ago). It was also a part of her debut album, "Go To The Top" from September of that year which peaked at No. 3.