Makiko Imai -- Belly Roll ~ Kaze no Josoji（ベリー・ロール -風の助走路-）

Ahh...the first 20-degree+ day today. Nice to see and feel spring make its appearance here in Toronto. Too bad that I got one of those proofing assignments in the inbox that actually required wholesale translation. Just to let you know a bit of my profession, the proofing part is when I'm supposed to simply make sure that everything is in pristine order in a translation done by someone else so that it's ready for final submission. Usually there is no problem, and I'm done within several minutes. But once in a while, I get one of those ham-fisted efforts that needs much more ironing out and so today, I was stuck on this for a few hours. Just glad that it's done now.

Well, it's a Monday so what can I do? Anyways, let's get started on this "Kayo Kyoku Plus" week with a song that is nice and bouncy. It's by a singer that I had never heard from before named Makiko Imai（今井麻起子）who hails from Niigata Prefecture. Her J-Wiki profile is very short but she has been a pop singer and tarento (though no longer active) whose singing career only consisted of two albums, "Ciao!" (1988) and "CANDY A GO GO!!" the following year.

From the first album, I give you "Belly Roll ~ Kaze no Josoji" (Windy Runway), a perky cheer-you-up song. Imai's singing and the overall sound of the happy tune has me thinking of the early material of Misato Watanabe（渡辺美里）although Imai's voice is a little more whispery. Certainly that synthesizer is very natsukashii-sounding. Looking up the songwriting information, there were three lyricists on deck: Shun Taguchi（田口俊）, Kazuo Horiguchi（堀口和男）and Ikuko Furuzawa（古沢郁子）. The latter two people also took care of the composition.

Taking another look at the leader board, Masataka Matsutoya（松任谷正隆）was in charge of arrangement, and he was apparently on keyboards as well. Considering that his wife Yuming（ユーミン）was singing her pop tunes at the time with a lot of those synths in there, I guess I can't be surprised with that sound in "Belly Roll" as well.