Rina Chinen -- Love You Close

I guess if Marcos V. can come up with the first Rina Chinen（知念里奈）single for the blog, then I can come up with her 15th and last single to date.

Yep, I bought "Love You Close" on watching the official music video on one of the music channels one sunny Sunday and I got hooked on its gentle melody by Chika Ueda（上田知華）. It sounded rather like an old 1980s pop ballad with a hint of R&B despite it being released in March 2001. Hiromi Mori（森浩美）came up with the lyrics.

I only found out today that it had been the ending theme for the first "Doraemon"（ドラえもん）movie of the 21st century, "Doraemon Nobita to Tsubasa no Yūsha-tachi"（ドラえもん のび太と翼の勇者たち...Doraemon: Nobita and the Winged Braves）. Chinen even had a minor role in the movie. "Love You Close" made it all the way up to No. 39 on Oricon and was also a track on her 3rd album "breath", released in July 2001. The album peaked at No. 28.