This is a roundabout way in which I found out about this song, but here goes. Usually the Thursday night lineup on TV Japan includes the long-running Fuji-TV variety show "Honmadekka!? TV"（ホンマでっか!?TV）on alternating Thursdays in which host and comedian Sanma Akashiya（明石家さんま）leads guest tarento and university-level experts through a combination of zany humour and education on various topics.
On one episode, through the regular table tennis-like zinging back and forth of topics, the issue of what song cheers folks came up. And for a certain group of people, it was the following song.
I had heard of the Fukuoka-born singer-songwriter YUI before when I was living in Japan but never really took notice of her work. But listening to an excerpt of her "CHE.R.RY", I finally did take notice and searched for it on YouTube. And I gotta say that it is a really cheerful song with YUI singing the verses in an almost conspiratorial tone before bursting out happily in the refrain. There's something really spring-like about it, and in fact, the official slogan for "CHE.R.RY" was "We're sending you a spring song that is like a bittersweet fruit".
(short version)
Released as her 8th single in March 2007, "CHE.R.RY" is all about a woman having that kataomoi experience but still keeping a brave and optimistic face about it since the fellow will hopefully notice her feelings someday soon. C'est l'amour! It peaked at No. 2 on Oricon and became the 36th-ranked single for that year. It went Gold according to the Recording Industry Association of Japan but it then went Triple Platinum in terms of the number of downloads as a cellphone ringtone: over 750,000! The song was also placed on YUI's 2nd album "Can't Buy My Love" from April 2007; it hit No. 1 for 2 weeks and became the 9th-ranked album of the year.
"CHE.R.RY" was given the bossa nova treatment on YUI's tribute album "She Loves You" from October 2012. That album went to No. 7.
One final thing that was intriguing me was about the formation of the title. I wasn't quite sure what to make of the fact that the first "R" had been isolated by periods. Well, according to a currently non-existent article on her website via the J-Wiki article on "CHE.R.RY", this was meant to strongly indicate a very bittersweet love and that the appearance of ".R." cutely resembled a cherry. Well, OK....I don't quite see it but hey, who am I to argue with the songwriter of such a happy tune?
Hi J-C: interesting article; YUI is the moniker Asaka Yui (浅香唯) adopted when she rebooted her career in 1997 with Ring Ring Ring (not the Sayuri Kokusho rocker but a nice "wall of sound" homage to Phil Spector). She eventually went back to Asaka Yui, but are there any laws about something like that?
ReplyDeleteIdentity theft ;)
Hi, T-cat. Hope you are enjoying your Holidays.
DeleteI didn't know about the name change with Asaka to YUI. Not sure about any particular regulations about naming in the geinokai, but recently I discovered that there are two singers with the same name "akiko". However, since they represent two totally different genres and neither of them have become superstars, I think the powers-that-be have let the issue slide.