Mika Chiba (千葉美加) is
a somewhat minor celebrity in Brazil, especially in the memory of 30 to 35
years old people, who watched TV in the early 90s, thanks to a Tokusatsu series called Cybercops (電脳警察サイバーコップ) in
which she starred as officer Tomoko. In fact, while watching some of her rare
video on YouTube, I was surprised to see that a good portion, if not the
majority, of the comments are in Portuguese, so she really has some
nostalgia-filled loyal fans down here in Brazil.
From
her catalogue, “BRAND-NEW TOMORROW”,
which was released in May 1989 as
her second single (debut single was “Shooting Star” [シューティングスター],
released months before, was the theme song for the Cypercops series), is one of
the most recognizable songs. It’s nothing revolutionary, but I like the pop-rock sound and uplifting chorus
here. Also, there are some melancholic
keyboard bits right after the chorus (in this video, as the song is cut,
this part is only present in the chorus after the start of the song) which
takes the song to a whole new level, in my opinion. It’s those kind of arrangement touches that changed the
whole mood of the song.
Mika
never achieved much success in Japan, which is understandable, since she
started at a hard time for new female aidoru singers. Apparently, she
built a career in Taiwan as well, releasing albums with songs both in Japanese
and Chinese, and even lived there at some point in the 90s.
As
for “BRAND-NEW TOMORROW”, it reached #76
on the Oricon chart. Lyrics were written by Shun Taguchi (田口俊), while music
was composed by VAX POP. As for the arrangement, Ryo Kunihiko (梁邦彦) was
the responsible.
Hi, Marcos.
ReplyDeleteChiba had quite the powerful voice so it would have been interesting if she had decided to go into a more rock direction. I can see how she's become popular with Brazilians since there is an entry for her in the Portuguese Wikipedia but not in the English version.
I read in the original Japanese that she is now working in dog therapy and is hoping to open her own dog cafe. That came from an interview on a TV show in 2016 so it's possible that her dream has already come true.