Saturday, March 6, 2021

Naomi Serizawa -- Damattete Ageru(黙っててあげる)

 

Well, in addition to Juri Hamada(浜田朱里)yesterday, I'm going along with those aidoru that didn't particularly grab the brass ring during their 15 minutes in the limelight today, and this time, it is a young lady by the name of Naomi Serizawa(芹沢直美).

She's got quite the sharp twinkling eyes and the wide smile, and perhaps that is what the talent scout spotted when he/she saw Serizawa somewhere in Tokyo, although she originally comes from the city of Sendai in Miyagi Prefecture. Actually born as Naomi Agatsuma(我妻尚美)in 1965, she has a younger sister, Kayo Agatsuma(我妻佳代), who would not too far down the line join the mega aidoru group Onyanko Club(おニャン子クラブ)in 1987, but for Naomi, she made her debut in entertainment as an actress on the TBS drama "Natsu - Keiken Monogatari"(夏・体験物語...Summer - Experience Story) in its 2nd series earlier in 1986 before she stepped behind the recording mike for the first time to record her debut single "Damattete Ageru" (I'll Keep My Mouth Shut).

The November single has that 1960s jangly up-tempo beat and I swear that the first words out of Serizawa's mouth when she sings "Damattete Ageru" get delivered against a melody that resembles a fair bit like "You Can't Hurry Love" by The Supremes. That melody was created by Kyohei Tsutsumi(筒美京平)and Masao Urino's(売野雅勇)lyrics are all about a young girl promising to keep a secret for a boy who may be feeling rather nervous.

It's a pleasant enough aidoru tune although the fellow doing the background chorus is skirting the border between acceptance and annoyance. Serizawa's music career only lasted two more singles up to 1988 and there were no albums, although some of her songs did get into aidoru compilations later in the 2000s according to her J-Wiki article.

For some more trivia, interestingly enough, Serizawa made her debut as an aidoru at the age of 20 which is a fairly advanced age for a teenybopper singer, so apparently during the promotion, her powers-that-be knocked off a couple of years from her real age so that she would align a bit more comfortably with other aidoru who were also making their debut at around the same time. As for how she got the name Serizawa as her stage moniker, it came from the region of Serizawa in the city of Chigasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture where the president of her management company was living

Also, according to J-Wiki, Serizawa's entertainment career lasted until at least the early 1990s. She married a dentist and then retired.

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