Ai Otsuka -- SMILY

Not exactly summer days here with the temperatures now unseasonably cold (high of just -9 today) and the first mammoth snowstorm threatening to inundate us tomorrow. However, that is just the reason to put up this particular number that I had almost forgotten about.

Singer-songwriter Ai Otsuka's（大塚愛）adorable "SMILY" was her 8th single from May 2005, and with a title like that, it's awfully hard to forget...at least in short-term memory. Plus, the song has got all of those cute chirps by Otsuka herself. Basically, it's all about having a great time with friends and getting rid of all those blues, something that we can use right now since Blue Monday is coming up (post-Holiday bills and all that). The music video, by the way, was filmed on the island of Managaha in Saipan, a favourite tropical destination for the Japanese.

"SMILY" was Otsuka's first No. 1 and it went Platinum, eventually ending up as the 26th-ranked single of the year. It is also third among her most successful singles, behind "Sakuranbo"（さくらんぼ）and "Planetarium"（プラネタリウム）. I'll have to do that latter one sometime soon and not wait another 5 years. "SMILY" was also a track on Otsuka's 3rd original album "Love Cook", released in December 2005 which reached No. 1 on the charts and ended 2006 as the 10th-ranked album.

Otsuka appeared on NHK's Kohaku Utagassen a total of 6 times between 2004 and 2009, but "SMILY" wasn't one of the songs performed. For the 2005 edition, she ended up singing "Planetarium".