Marcos V.'s Special Selection: Saki Takaoka

As I’ve written before, Saki Takaoka (高岡早紀) was not the most talented aidoru out there in the vocal department. Sure, the girl was still very young when she ventured into singing, but I think she had better chances as an actress. Anyway, with four studio albums released between 1989 and 1991, it’s interesting to see what she had under her sleeves at the time. Also, since she kept releasing music eventually over the years, I’m going to showcase one of her recent songs as well, which was included in her 30^th anniversary best album.

First, let’s talk about “Dancing in the SUNSET” a little bit. Serving as the opening song to her third album, “Romancero”, which was released in September 1990, this is a curious one. According to the album title, which is in Spanish, we should be expecting some Spanish-sounding songs, which we do get on the album, but this first one is a Middle-Eastern/Arabic-influenced piece full of those amazing yet oppressive strings in the background and a dramatic, haunting delivery by Takaoka.

Maybe the producers were acknowledging the old Moorish cultural heritage that exists in Spain, especially in the Andaluzia region, because it would be strange if they had just dropped an Arabic-sounding song out of nowhere in a Spanish-themed album. In fact, I think I can also hear the Spanish influence as well, but maybe I’m being misled by the album’s overall thematic. Anyway, like J-Canuck pointed out in the comments section, “Dancing in the SUNSET” is a good example of exotic kayo.

The next song I want to talk about is called “Ni-ya-oo”, and it was released by Takaoka as a single in September 1991, on the same day of her fourth and last proper studio album, “S’Wonderful!” (it also made the album cut, by the way).

Unlike the Spanish-sounding “Romancero” from the year before, “S’Wonderful!” is focused on a spy theme. Yeah, spy, for some reason. And it generally works in the album’s context.

I think “Ni-ya-oo”, on the other hand, have nothing to do with spy, but its cabaret big band style surprisingly doesn’t sound out of context on the album. Also, it’s a very sexual song, which I think suits Takaoka well (maybe her character on 2016’s drama “Kenja no Ai” [賢者の愛], in which she co-starts with Miho Nakayama [中山美穂], is still very vivid in my mind). It’s better for her to whisper-sing in this seductive way than to belt songs like a diva (In her defense, I think she never tried something like that, though).

Another one from the “S’Wonderful!” album, and this time with the spy theme, “Spy ni Naritai” (スパイになりたい) truly sounds like a James Bond song, thanks to the gimmicky arrangement. Again, Takaoka’s vocals are sexy here, and I think this was the correct vocal direction for this album.

Besides being a novelty song, I like it very much. This spy theme was probably very creative at the time, since it wasn’t something explored by other aidoru. Unfortunately, Takaoka wasn’t able to make a big impression as a singer, even though composers and producers showcased some creativity and vision towards her music. It doens't help that aidoru was virtually dead by 1991.

Finally, here’s “Ai no Mukou Gawa” (愛のムコウガワ), which was included in Takaoka’s 30^th anniversary best album, “All Time Best Album ~The Other Side of Love~”, released in December 2018. In this song, we can listen to Takaoka as a mature lady, and I can say she has improved a lot over the years.

As for the song, it’s a light disco tune that’s pleasant enough, even if far from the dramatic tunes from the past, like the aforementioned “Dancing in the SUNSET” and “Nemurenu Mori no Bishoujo” (眠れぬ森の美女), or not so daring as “Ni-ya-oo”. What it introduces, though, is a sort of longing, or late-night melancholy, which I think the young Takaoka wouldn’t be able to showcase. Here, though, she just nailed it.