aiko -- Ashita （あした）/ Kyoko Fukada -- Saigo no Kajitsu （最後の果実）

Happy Sunday to you all! I don't know what it's like in your neck of the woods but it's gorgeous out there today in Toronto. I think we've hit 20 degrees Celsius which is absolutely the trigger for folks to hit the lake on their sailboards or invade the bars which are probably now on al fresco mode.

Oof! I guess it's been close to 3 years since I put up an article on singer-songwriter aiko's music. "Boyfriend" is her most recognizable single to me, and frankly whenever I've heard her various songs over the years, I just waved them off as being rather similar in nature. Well, since I started the blog, I've gained some feelings that I ought to give various singers, especially in the 1990s, a second chance as it were.

So again I was surprised to hear her debut single from July 1998, "Ashita" (Tomorrow) since it was a song that I have heard in the past but not by her. Actually I think I most likely heard the tune on episodes of that Saturday night karaoke variety show "Yoru mo Hippare"（夜もヒッパレ）but never made the connection that it was an aiko song.

"Ashita" is quite distinctive in that it doesn't sound like the usual aiko song. One reason is that according to J-Wiki, it is the only single in her discography that hadn't been composed by aiko. Instead, the melody was made by Minoru Komorita（小森田実）although aiko did write the lyrics. Speaking of that melody, it sounds like a 1990s Tetsuya Komuro（小室哲哉）concoction as if the pixie-ish singer-songwriter started her career under the TK umbrella along with Namie Amuro（安室奈美恵）and Tomomi Kahala（華原朋美）. There's quite a bit of heavy synthesizer in there. Furthermore, there's also something about aiko's voice that was more kittenish in "Ashita" instead of my usual impression of tomboyishness with her later songs.

The song also has the distinction that out of all of her 36 singles released as of this writing, it is one of only three singles that didn't break into the Top 10. It actually only got as high as No. 89 on Oricon in its first release. However it was given a re-release later in March 2007 and zipped up to No. 16. Its first album appearance was on her major debut album "Chiisana Marui Koujitsu"（小さな丸い好日...A Small Round Pleasant Day） which was released in April 1999. It went Gold and peaked at No. 24.

An interesting progression in the plot here is that a little less than a year after aiko's debut, actress Kyoko Fukada（深田恭子）had her own debut as a singer with "Saigo no Kajitsu" (The Final Fruit) in May 1999. It was basically a remake of "Ashita" with a few tweaks here and there by Komorita and new lyrics provided by Chihiro Kurosu（黒須チヒロ）. It's also interesting to note that aiko helped out here with backup vocals.

There was even more of a technopop feel to it, delving closer to trance by the sounds of it. Perhaps it did approach closer to Komuro territory but I couldn't help but feel from the arrangement that this could have been a song performed by another 1990s highlight band, Every Little Thing, thanks to Fukada's high-pitched voice. "Saigo no Kajitsu" peaked at No. 48 and was also placed on her 2nd album "moon" from March 2000.