Midori Karashima -- Memories

Although I never planned it this way, it turns out that exactly 2 years ago I put up my first Midori Karashima（辛島美登里）song onto "Kayo Kyoku Plus". Of course, it was the Xmas ballad "Silent Eve", and it was from that classic that I was imprinted with the impression of Karashima-sensei as the master of delicate pop balladry. I also ended up buying her 3rd album with Fun House, "Green" (February 1991), which had "Silent Eve".

A few months later, another album was released..."Memories". But this wasn't Fun House but King Records who was behind this one, and it includes the material that singer-songwriter Karashima had sung for them when she was working for that company in the late 1980s. I bought it on the strength of "Green", listened to the disc...and then promptly forgot about it for a couple of decades. Sheepishly, I have to say that it wasn't the case that it wasn't right for me, but I wasn't quite ready for it.

"Memories" contains both the A and B sides of the 2 singles that she performed with King Records within a span of about 4 months between 1987 and 1988. All of the songs from those two singles were for a couple of anime that I hadn't heard about until I read Karashima's J-Wiki bio and the liner notes for the album itself.

Now, I know that Karashima contributed one song to the anime "Yawara" which was about that judo high school student. Still, it was surprising to hear the vocals of a singer that I've usually associated with the Yuletide season being applied to a post-apocalyptic mecha show. "Midnight Shout", written and composed by Karashima, has that 80s rockin' guitar-&-syntherrific (my term) music that was the go-to sound for those action anime back at that time. Although the program was titled, "Makyo Gaiden Le Deus"（魔境外伝レ・ディウス）, the theme song sounds more like the events surrounding a stylized drag race down the empty streets of Tokyo at 2 in the morning.

http://music.163.com/#/song?id=26114106

"Last No" is a lot less suspenseful and perhaps it's atypically cheerful for another out-of-this-world mecha anime titled "New Story of Aura Battler Dunbine". Karashima's contribution here was for the special 1988 3-episode OVA sequel of the show which had originally aired earlier in the decade, and "Last No" was used as the ending theme for the first episode.

Along with those King singles, the rest of "Memories" is anime-related as well. "Purple Sights" is a song that is associated with the 2-part OVA anime, "Ryu Seiki"（竜世紀...Dragon Century）that came out in 1988. The original version (as above) has that City Pop vibe that I like; there are also two more versions included in the album, one of which is labeled as the New Version which has a poppier arrangement and a shorter and more subdued version subtitled "Fuyu no Machi e"（冬の街...To The Winter Streets）.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aViGtSt_lM&list=PL13438962344F057E

You can take a look at what "Ryu Seiki" was all about at the above link.

http://music.163.com/#/song?id=26114114

Getting back to "Makyo Gaiden Le Deus", my final song for this article is "Smile For You" which was the ending theme. I think the usual pattern for a lot of anime when it came to theme songs was having that exciting opening theme and then a more introspective ballad as the ending. "Smile For You" struck me as that song that I've usually associated with Karashima: lush arrangement paired with her smooth, flowing voice.