Miki Fujimoto -- Romantic Ukare Mode （ロマンティック浮かれモード）

According to J-Wiki, Miki Fujimoto's（藤本美貴）"Romantic Ukare Mode" (Romantically Merry Mode) is one of the touchstones of the 21st century for the aidoru fan. And why not? It's just one of the most effervescently happy songs that I have ever heard. Hello Project Svengali Tsunku（つんく）wrote and composed Mikitty's 3rd and most successful single seemingly to induce instant contraction of the zygomatic major and orbicularis oculi muscles (namely....smile). :) Although I haven't exactly grinned like a Cheshire Cat whenever I hear it, my mood does lighten up a fair bit.

With the possible exception of Morning Musume's "The Peace", "Romantic Ukare Mode" is the Hello Project worm in my ear. My ex used to hum this all the time, and I have to say that the verses and the refrain are both catchy...one gets the urge to suddenly march around the living room and generally look at life through cotton-candy glasses. The only thing that bugs me about it is the backing vocal (provided by Tsunku?) that simply grates on me.

The song came out in September 2002 and peaked at No. 3 on Oricon, selling around 62,000 copies. It is also available on Fujimoto's debut album, appropriately if dully titled "MIKI(1)" which came out in February 2003. It also got as high as No. 3 on the album charts. And NHK also came knocking to which Mikitty happily responded as the top batter on that year's Kohaku Utagassen.

Miki Fujimoto hails from Hokkaido and debuted earlier in 2002 with "Aenai Nagai Nichiyobi"（会えない長い日曜日...A Long Sunday That I Can't See You）as a solo singer in Hello Project before becoming an official member of Morning Musume in 2003. She even had a very brief tenure as the leader of the group in 2007 until a "scandal" forced her to leave MM after only a few months since she had been caught dating a popular comedian, Tomoharu Shoji of the duo Shinagawa Shoji. Considering that the two of them got married and now have a 2-year-old son, I think the lass still won out. And I still see her weekly as a regular guest on the NHK morning program, "Asaichi".

Perhaps her aidoru career has now been put away as part of her geino history, but that song will always be jingling somewhere deep in my head from time to time.