Fusanosuke Kondo & Tetsuro Oda -- BOMBER GIRL

A few weeks ago, I did an article on urban contemporary singer Yuiko Tsubokura（坪倉唯子）so that I could show some of her stuff from that genre compared to her most famous role as the co-lead vocal for B.B. Queens, the group responsible for "Odoru Ponpokorin"（おどるポンポコリン）. Her singing partner was the also heavily made-up Fusanosuke Kondo（近藤房之助）, normally a Japanese blues singer with a passing resemblance to the original host of the 90s Fuji-TV show, "Ryori no Tetsujin"（料理の鉄人）, otherwise known in America as "The Iron Chefs".

During those 3 years in Toronto between stints in Japan, karaoke was still very much a viable option for weekend fun with the buddies. However, the old university haunt of Kuri in Yorkville was no more, but there was Sushi Bistro on Queen West which had the sushi bar on the first floor with a bar on the second floor and one fairly big karaoke room in the back. It was in the bar area that I first heard "BOMBER GIRL" as a duet between Kondo and singer-songwriter Tetsuro Oda（織田哲郎）.

All these years placing Oda as the songwriter for acts like summer band TUBE and rocker Nanase Aikawa（相川七瀬）, and here is in front of the mike. Pretty cool dude in the shades. Of course, in the bar, it was a couple of Japanese guys screaming away into the microphones but they did the song justice since I wanted to find out later on who it was originally sung by. The kanji names that flashed up in the tome-like listings were not known to me at the time, but later on when I deepened my knowledge on Japanese music, I realized that one-half of the duet was one-half of the singing duo on "Odoru Ponpokorin". Still, despite the coolness (or probably because of it) of the song, I never attempted "BOMBER GIRL" at karaoke in Japan. My voice would have been in traction for weeks.

Kondo took care of the rock-on melody while Chinfa Kan（康珍化）handled the lyrics. It was released in January 1992 as a single featuring Oda and Kondo which managed to peak at No. 20. It was also featured as a track on Oda's 10th album from June 1992, "Endless Dream". As for the official music video at the very top, the young woman popping up is well known to some of the older J-Drama fans, Naoko Iijima（飯島直子）. To be honest, though, I couldn't recognize her on sight. It took me reading about her on the J-Wiki article on "BOMBER GIRL", and then verifying it for myself.

The song also became tied up with a Calbee potato chips commercial featuring Rie Miyazawa（宮沢りえ）. I recall she was also featured a few years earlier in another rockin' ad.