Jelly Beans -- BLUE

Actresses Yuko Asano and Misako Tanaka（浅野ゆう子・田中美佐子）have been veterans on the small screen for years and years. Plus, they had their own comedy-drama together titled "Mama Chari Keiji"（ママチャリ刑事...Mommy Bike Detectives）in 1999 with a happy theme song "Takaramono"（宝物）sung by Mayo Okamoto（岡本真夜）.

As much as I came to realize that Asano had started out as an early 1970s aidoru slowly making that transition into City Pop in the late 70s and early 80s, I didn't know that both she and Tanaka got together a couple of years before "Mama Chari Keiji" to form the duo Jelly Beans. The duo would record two singles with the first single titled "Uso mo Honki de Pure na Heart de"（嘘も本気でピュアなハートで...With True Lies and Pure Hearts） from February 1997.

The coupling song to that first single is "BLUE". I only came across it by accident one night and recognizing Asano and Tanaka, decided to give it a spin. I was delightfully surprised that the actresses were pretty good as singers, too. With some nice groove and a very obvious tribute to that disco classic "The Hustle", "BLUE" probably didn't get too close to achieving a Japan Record Award but it is nice to chase away some of those blues away. Jun Amemiya（雨宮純）and Ryo Ogura（小倉良）were the songwriters here.