Riho Makise -- Sasagetai, Anata ni... （ささげたい、あなたに…）

I guess with a number of the aidoru in the 80s and very early 90s, it wasn't so much the ladies' vocal abilities but the work of the songwriters that helped in getting their young clients some of that fame and success. Riho Makise（牧瀬里穂）doesn't particularly overawe me with her voice but I still like that tune of hers, "Sasagetai, Anata ni..." (I Want to Offer This to You...) which came out in May 1992 as her 2nd single.

From the J-Wiki article on this particular song, it was written and composed by singer-songwriter Chika Ueda（上田知華）. I had to look at that credit twice since I couldn't quite believe it was one of her works. I mean, I've heard Ueda write some fairly uptempo or mid-tempo tunes for other artists such as Miki Imai（今井美樹）, but the composition for "Sasagetai, Anata ni..." sounds more as if it had been whipped up by Tetsuya Komuro（小室哲哉）for Misato Watanabe（渡辺美里）. There is that somewhat exhorting anthemic feeling to it that Watanabe was famous for although she would never have felt threatened by Makise.

And certainly my nostalgia reflexes kicked in when I heard those synths kick in from the beginning. As for "Sasagetai, Anata ni...", it was able to peak at No. 4 on Oricon, just like her debut single "Miracle Love", and was also included in Makise's only original album "P.S. Riho" from 1993, the second being a BEST compilation which was released in 2002.

I'm trying to figure out if the caricature is of
Riho Makise or Pauley Perrette (Abby Scuitto) from
"NCIS".