Mari Mizutani -- Haru Yasumi（春休み）

Happiness for me vis-à-vis my music-listening hobby is coming across an enjoyable kayo for the first time, and it doesn't matter what the genre. Pop, enka, Mood Kayo, City Pop or aidoru...they're all good.

Definitely within the huge area of 1980s female aidoru, there were so many going through the show business mill that I figure that I can keep on going with "Kayo Kyoku Plus" for another several years but still keep discovering teenybopper idols from that decade for the first time. I did find another one for the first time in the personage of Mari Mizutani（水谷麻里）, who had her run as an aidoru between 1986 and 1988.

Hailing from Aichi Prefecture, according to her J-Wiki file, the teenager entered the 1986 Miss Hair Cologne Image Girl Contest and won it all out of the 54,129 participants who had taken part, apparently by charming the socks off the judges who had gotten a kick from her imitation of a crow, although a few of them stated that it sounded more like a chicken. I can only imagine how the other 54,128 girls must have thought at being beaten by someone who could speak avian (although I'm sure that there were other factors involved).

In any case, Mizutani debuted in March 1986 with "Nijuu-Ichi Seiki made Aishite"（21世紀まで愛して...Love Me Until The 21st Century） which did decently by peaking at No. 16. However, in the first year of her singing career, she was criticized for having a voice that was pretty devoid of any personality, but into 1987 and her 4th single, it looks like things stabilized for her there. And listening to her 8th and final single from March 1988, "Haru Yasumi" (Spring Vacation), she doesn't sound bad at all. Very nicely aidoru.

Also helping out is that "Haru Yasumi" has got some jazzy snazziness thanks to composer Shinji Kawahara（川原伸司）under his pen name of Natsumi Hirai（平井夏美）. I was instantly reminded of some of the swing put into the songs of Kazuhiro Nishimatsu（西松一博）and Harumi Ohzora（大空はるみ）in that same decade and even one certain song by the unit microstar in 2011. Kenzo Saeki（サエキけんぞう）provided the lyrics of a girl looking forward to a "My Little Pony"-like time of a spring break. Incidentally, I was listening to the rendition of "Haru Yasumi" in the video immediately above while typing this down and hearing a lot of yells of encouragement as if the fans had wanted to put some more juice into Mizutani's performance. Sure enough, when I took a look at the video, the lass wasn't exactly kicking up a storm in terms of choreography.

Her devotion to show business started waning after 8 singles and 4 albums, and near the end of her time, it was reported that she was in a relationship with manga artist Hisashi Eguchi（江口寿史）. Not long after the release of "Haru Yasumi" which only got as high as No. 80, she stopped her singing activities and just continued with her radio DJ duties and commercials before marrying Eguchi in 1990 and retiring from the geinokai altogether.