Yoko Tanaka -- Kagerou no Etude (陽炎のエチュード)

Yoko Tanaka (田中陽子) is another one of those obscure aidoru singers who tried a singing career during the late 80s/early 90s in Japan. Her discography is, of, course, very limited, but, from the scarse material, there’s this cute little song called “Kagerou no Etude” that I probably enjoy much more than I should.

Released in October 1990 as Yoko Tanaka’s third single, right before the release of “Invitation”, her first – and also final – album, “Kagerou no Etude” tries to be that strange mix of Latin pop song with an Eurobeat arrangement. Personally, it’s obvious that I like the harsh and now-dated synths that dominates the song, but Yoko’s delivery is weak and generic, just like many other similar aidoru singers from the same time period. She was also kinda cute, but that’s another obvious thing when it comes to aidoru.

Apparently, her marketing strategy was similar to Eriko Tamura (田村英里子) and Lemon Angel (レモンエンジェル), since she also had an aidoru anime based on herself, which was called Aidoru Tenshi Youkoso Yoko (アイドル天使ようこそようこ). In fact, “Kagerou no Etude” and many other of her songs were related to this anime. Even with all this marketing behind, she didn’t take off, unfortunately.

Here’s the full studio version, alongside the single’s b-side, “Houkago no Boukenshatachi” (放課後の冒険者たち).

Lyrics for “Kagerou no Etude” were written by Junko Kudo (工藤順子), while music was composed by Megumi Ishii (いしいめぐみ). As for the arrangement, Shiro Sagisu (鷺巣詩郎) was the responsible.

Source: Amazon.jp