Ann Lewis -- Woman

Along with the sad news of Chiyonofuji's passing, I also caught the somewhat surprising report that former TV Tokyo broadcaster and former Defense Minister Yuriko Koike（小池百合子）became the first female governor of Tokyo. Many congratulations on the victory but I was surprised that she did win since the mandarins of her old political party, the Liberal Democratic Party, had been doing their darnedest to discourage the politician from grabbing the brass ring. And frankly, I thought former governor of Iwate Prefecture and former Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications, Hiroya Masuda, was a shoo-in.

One of my students remarked to me that he frankly thought Koike seemed to lap up the media attention too much during her time as a national politician. I'm merely hoping that she doesn't end up like her two immediate predecessors and spend the metropolitan coffers as if it were her own personal bank account. If she can keep her hands out of the taxpayers' till and keep a good handle on the Tokyo Olympics, she should do OK....I hope.

I hadn't put up an Ann Lewis（アン・ルイス）article in many a moon so under the circumstances, perhaps it is time to rectify that situation. "Woman", Lewis' 32nd single from September 1989, was a song that I had initially thought was sung during my Kuri days at university by one of the members of our karaoke cadre. For those folks who have read the manga by Akira Toriyama, "Dr. Slump", she was the spitting image of the character of Akane Kimidori in terms of her looks and sassy attitude. So I had mistakenly assumed that she had owned the karaoke-singing rights to "Woman".

However, since it came out in that September of that year...well, I was already in Japan teaching at junior high school so my memory was definitely not right. But I do know that it was a favourite song at karaoke so probably during my JET days or in my years in the Tokyo area, it was performed by students at many a karaoke joint that we visited at night.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5eat7_%E3%82%A2%E3%83%B3-%E3%83%AB%E3%82%A4%E3%82%B9-woman_music

Written by Ayuko Ishikawa（石川あゆ子）and composed by Hideya Narazaki（中崎英也）, "Woman" was also a song that I had thought was meant to be powerfully delivered, judging from the karaoke performances that I'd heard. However, as originally delivered by Lewis, it was actually a relatively quiet form of encouragement against the backdrop of screeching electric guitars, but no less defiant in the lyrics which basically throw a huge "Screw you!" to that man who wronged the woman. She will no longer take the guff.

There is nothing listed about how well "Woman" did on Oricon, unfortunately. However, getting back to Koike's big win today, it looks like she took the song's message to heart. The song was also used as the ending theme to a special episode of the famous anime "City Hunter" series known as "The Secret Service". Regrettably, though, anything connecting the anime with the song has been muted due to copyright issues. But below is a promo for that show.