Michiru Kojima -- Yume no Temae de（夢の手前で）

 

I never saw "Konchu Monogatari Minashigo Hatchi"（昆虫物語 みなしごハッチ...The Adventures of Hutch the Honeybee） as an anime but as a child, I remember seeing the manga version in some of the books that my parents had gotten me from Furuya, the old Japanese food shop in Chinatown. The picture that I always remember of the manga is the one where teary-eyed Hatchi is in the embrace of his mommy bee and I try not to grab for the Kleenex.

Apparently, the original anime first came out in 1970 on Fuji-TV for the better part of two years before a second season was broadcast for only six months in 1974.

Then, there was a reboot beginning in the summer of 1989 which lasted for more than a year on NTV. I have realized that there was a maturing of sorts within the tie-ups between anime and anison, but I was still caught slightly off-guard for the ending theme for this 1989 version of "Hatchi". "Yume no Temae de" (Ahead of the Dream) was performed by Michiru Kojima（児島未散）as her 4th single in August 1989, and it sounds more like a polished urban contemporary love song for people rather than an anison about honeybees. However, it still sounds plenty fine for me. There are some fine people behind it as well including Kojima such as lyricist Etsuko Kisugi（来生えつこ）and composer/arranger Koji Makaino（馬飼野康二）.