Yuko Ohtaki -- Mr. Private Eye

In my first article on singer Yuko Ohtaki（大滝裕子）, I mentioned that I had never heard of her before I discovered that she sang the coolest jingle for a yogurt drink. Well, that is still true, her name hadn't been known to me but I have heard her before.

Actually, when my anime buddy was kind enough to give me a copy of some of his large collection of anison some years back, it included "City Hunter OAS Volume 1". Included in it was "Mr. Private Eye" which was sung by Ohtaki. To me, it doesn't have a City Pop feeling but it does remind me in parts of some of the music that was playing about in the West during the late 1980s, especially when it came to those teenage movies starring Molly Ringwald (maybe it's The Psychedelic Furs).

Regardless, "Mr. Private Eye" is pretty darn cheerful, and Ohtaki delivers it as if she were a very grateful client to the man of "City Hunter", Ryo Saeba, which would probably arouse him to no end (is that a 100t hammer I see coming up there?).

Anyways, the song was created by Linda Hennrick and Ryoichi Kuniyoshi（国吉良一）. I'm not absolutely certain when "City Hunter OAS Volume 1" came out but I think it was 1989. It has also been placed on a remastered version of Ohtaki's 1980 debut album "Million Kiss"（ミリオン・キス）which was released in 2010 according to J-Wiki (although the year may be wrong since there is an entry on Japanese music blog "Music Avenue" about that remastered album and it's dated 2008) as a CD. Those extra tracks include some more City Pop and her contributions to "City Hunter" and even the detective series "Abunai Deka"（あぶない刑事...Dangerous Detectives）.