SHOW-YA -- Shidokenaku Emotion（しどけなくエモーション）

Coming in on the JET Programme at the turn of the decade between the 1980s and the 1990s, I was witness to a number of changes in Japanese popular music, including the appearance of hard rock bands, or at least pop bands with a bit more of a guitar edge to them. It was also the time that female pop/rock bands like Princess Princess and Pink Sapphire hit the scene.

Another all-female band that I had heard about was SHOW-YA. And this band has been around since about 1981 so it's also one of the pioneers. However, they didn't put out their debut single until 1985, which turned out to be a new jingle for Coca-Cola.

Their second single, "Shidokenaku Emotion", came out in February 1986, and listening to it, I got that pop/rock feeling of Styx to a certain extent which was a bit surprising since they've been classified as a hard rock/glam metal/heavy metal (!) band. Apparently, according to their history in J-Wiki, when they were about to break out, the powers-that-be and SHOW-YA were playing some tug-of-war in terms of their image. The latter really wanted to rock out but the former preferred to market them as an aidoru group...a pretty wide chasm. Perhaps that may have filtered down to how their early singles were arranged, although I'm surely no SHOW-YA expert (so, once again, I ask for some help here). Still, watching their performances in the videos above and below, it looks like the band struck a more positive compromise in terms of their looks. They definitely did not look anything like an Onyanko Club（おニャン子クラブ）clone, although remembering at least one of their later music videos, they were yet to appear as ferocious.

The members of SHOW-YA are vocalist Keiko Terada（寺田恵子）, keyboardist/leader Miki Nakamura（中村美紀）, guitarist Miki Igarashi（五十嵐美貴）, drummer Miki Tsunoda（角田美喜）and bassist Satomi Senba（仙波さとみ）. With the plethora of Mikis in the band, nicknames were given so that Nakamura was known as the Captain, Igarashi was Sun-Go, and Tsunoda was mittan. The Captain was the composer of "Shidokenaku Emotion" with Reiko Yukawa（湯川れい子）being the lyricist. I was kinda wondering how to translate the title into English since I could only find the one definition on Jisho.org as being "slovenly" which didn't quite fit my image. Perhaps "Ragged Emotions" might be a better interpretation?

One question about the band from was on how they had come up with the name. Well, half the answer was how I figured that it would turn out and the other was a complete revelation. When Nakamura and Terada were working together on the preceding version of the band, known as Medusa（メデューサ）back then, the band hadn't been doing too well in the various contests, and they both agreed that "Medusa" was a bit of a pox on them.

Well, the ladies decided to change the name to SHOW-YA, based on the izakaya chain they used to drink at all the time, Syoya (庄や...I think my friends and I have visited a few branches, too). As for the altered romaji spelling, they realized that the words were also an expression of defiance as in "I'LL SHOW YA!".

Between 1985 and 1992, SHOW-YA released 12 singles and 8 albums with two changes in vocalists after Terada had left the band in early 1991. Steffanie Borges took over as the 2nd vocalist between 1991 and 1997, and then Yoshino took over as the 3rd vocalist for the final year until SHOW-YA called it a day in 1998. However in 2005, about 20 years after releasing that first single, Terada returned to get the band together and release at least one more single and a few more albums since then, on top of going back on the road.