Celine Dion -- To Love You More

 

Perhaps it was a thing back in the mid-to-late 1990s for some Japanese dramas to take on a theme song performed by a Western singer or band instead of a Japanese act. In 1994, Mariah Carey became the latest American singer to join the J-Xmas Music Hall of Fame (yes, I'm being sarcastic here) with her "All I Want For Christmas Is You" becoming a huge hit in Japan as it was used as the theme song for the Fuji-TV drama "29-sai no Christmas"（29歳のクリスマス...My 29th Christmas）. Then in 1996, British sophisti-pop band Swingout Sister provided the TBS drama "Mahiru no Tsuki"（真昼の月...Midday Moon） with the introspective "Now You're Not Here".

In between those two shows, though, there was another Fuji-TV drama in 1995 called "Koibito yo"（恋人よ...The Lovers） starring Honami Suzuki（鈴木保奈美）of "Tokyo Love Story" fame and Goro Kishitani（岸谷五朗）whose wife happens to be the lead singer of pop/rock band Princess Princess（プリンセスプリンセス）, Kaori Kishitani, nee Kaori Okui（奥居香）. I only remember the first episode in which the two leads end up falling into a pond so for at least one scene, the two are wearing warm white bathrobes looking like they were supposed to be acting in a Stanley Kubrick movie. Then, there was the final scene in the final episode which was extremely bittersweet. Did quite well in the ratings, I hear.

Apparently, according to the synopsis on J-Wiki, Honami and Goro's characters were supposed to be getting married to other partners at the same wedding hall but they both found out that their significant others had been doing some cheating in the past. Still, the couples got hitched but in a plot twist that would happen on a J-Drama, they ended up living next to each other. Then the cracks in the relationships start appearing.

However, in a nice example of synergy, the theme song and the show helped each other out. For one thing, "To Love You More" was sung by Celine Dion. As you have probably gleaned from the above paragraphs, I didn't really bother with the drama for the most part, but I did end up getting the CD single by Dion for about 500 yen. It was only released as a single in Japan in October 1995, and it remained at the top spot on Oricon for a number of weeks, selling 1.5 million copies. By the end of 1996, it was the 20th-ranking single of the year. Of course, in the following year, Dion had an even bigger hit thanks to "Titanic".

I could use the term baroque to describe the pop here but I also think that there is also something very courtly and countryside about "To Love You More", thanks to the grand and dramatic contributions of the band KRYZLER & KOMPANY with Taro Hakase（葉加瀬太郎）on violin. And what can you say about Dion herself? The song was created by another Canadian legend, David Foster, with Edgar Bronfman Jr. under his pen name of Junior Miles. From what I've read on the Wikipedia article for "To Love You More", the song didn't do too shabbily overseas either.