Friday, January 18, 2019

Mai Kuraki -- Secret of my heart


It's not every day that I get to see Haibara speechless on "Meitantei Conan"(名探偵コナン)so that is the reason that I put up that video above. Yup, now that the Holidays are over for another year, "Case Closed" is back on its regular Thursday night lineup on TV Japan. It's always amazing how these kids manage to see bodies on an almost daily basis without ending up in perpetual fetal positions.


I was a bit surprised to find out that Mai Kuraki's(倉木麻衣)3rd single "Secret of my heart" was actually an ending theme for the long-running "Conan", although I shouldn't have been since Kuraki has provided a lot of the show's theme songs over the past couple of decades. According to the Wikipedia article for "Secret of my heart", the count is up to 21 including this one which probably means that Kuraki may rival (or even exceed) B'z's contributions to the "Conan" song file.

Released in April 2000 during my time in Japan, my surprise was due to the fact that I had always seen "Secret of my heart" only on the various rankings shows on television and there was never any connection made to "Conan". The single, which was written by Kuraki and composed by singer-songwriter Aika Ohno(大野愛果), solidified that laidback and creamy sound that I've always associated with Kuraki.


From the J-Wiki article for the ballad, Kuraki had written the lyrics to relate her feelings about having to conceal her identity from at least some of her friends...or from a particularly close buddy. That led to my second surprise which is that apparently Kuraki may just be her stage name but not her real name. "Secret of my heart" became a million-seller and peaked at No. 2 on the Oricon weeklies, ending up as the 16th-ranked single for 2000. Furthermore, getting back to the "Conan" sphere, as of 2016, "Secret of my heart" is the best-selling single associated with the series.

The song also ended up on Kuraki's debut album "Delicious Way" released in June 2000 which later became the No. 1 album of the year, breaking the 3-million barrier.

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