Maki Miyamae (CoCo) -- Yume he no Position (夢へのポジション)

Every time I play Street Fighter (ストリートファイター) I only choose Chun-Li (春麗) (my friends get really mad at me for not changing the character and because Chun-Li is quite annoying to be beaten, even if I’m not a good player at all). I really like this girl (she was a hottie for every 90s kid), her kicking abilities and her agility in the game. Besides that, one of the things I always pay attention when I’m playing the game is "Chun-Li Theme", an electronic composition typical of games from the early 90s (chiptune) with blatant Chinese influences.

To my surprise, "Chun-Li Theme" was given some lyrics and Maki Miyamae (宮前真樹), one of the five components of aidoru group CoCo, released it as a single in December 1992 under the title of “Yume he no Position”. It’s not really a surprise, as the game became a huge success worldwide, and Chun-Li was the only playable female character of the game at the time (another notable Street Fighter related song is Ryoko Shinohara’s [篠原 涼子] smash hit “Itoshisa toSetsunasa to Kokoro Zuyosa to” [恋しさと せつなさと 心強さと], which was released in 1994).

“Yume he no Position” is notable for respecting Chun-Li Theme's original melody, while only adding vocals and some flourishes here and there in the arrangement (like Chun-Li shouting Spinning Bird Kick [スピニングバードキック] and other memorable Chun-Li's sounds from the game). Maki Miyamae is not a wonderful singer, but we’re not waiting for a high level vocal performance coming from a 90s aidoru. In the end, not much can be talked about “Yume he no Position”, but I quite like how the aidoru world was already capable of dialoguing well with the video game universe back in the early 90s. Nowadays, it’s a very commom practice.

To finish, here’s a Korean aidoru unit called Orange Caramel dressed like Chun-Li while performing their cheesy hit “Shanghai Romance”. The song is not related to the original Chun Li song at all, but I just thought it would be suitable and fun to post it here... well, I’m a big Orange Caramel fan, and that explains all.

“Yume he no Position” reached #19 on the Oricon charts. Lyrics were written by Neko Oikawa (及川眠子), while music was composed by Yoko Shimomura (下村 陽子) and Alph Lyla (アルフ・ライラ), CAPCOM's house band. As for the arrangement, Seiji Toda (戸田誠司) was the responsible.