Ai Furihata -- Kimi Tachi Kiwi Papaya Mango da ne （君たちキウイ・パパヤ・マンゴだね。）

 

When I first got to know Ai Furihata（降幡愛）, it was through her love letter to the synthpop of the early 1980s via her original "City" from 2020.

I had been under the impression that the native of Nagano Prefecture was gradually pulling away from that aspect of Japanese pop music, but then a few days ago her official YouTube channel put this tasty cocktail up. This time, it's a love letter to an actual song made all the way back in the 1980s by City Pop singer Meiko Nakahara（中原めいこ）.

But the snazzy original "Kimi Tachi Kiwi Papaya Mango da ne" (You're All Kiwis, Papayas and Mangoes, Aren't You?) by Nakahara with Yukinojo Mori（森雪之丞）helping out with the lyrics isn't a City Pop song by any means, instead being her version of a swing Latin jazz fest which became one of her trademark tunes. Furihata is covering it here as part of her first mini-album of cover tunes, "Memories of Romance in Summer", due out on April 27th. The synthesizers are more in play here than any actual jazz band but the happy vibes from Nakahara's original are still fully infused, thanks to arranger Akimitsu Honma（本間昭光）. What also makes it wonderful is the clever music video which creates an anime version of Furihata (I think) in a sequence resembling either an opening or closing credits sequence of an 80s or 90s anime.

Speaking of that video, the style reminds me of the incredible anime music video for Dua Lipa's "Levitation", and that shouldn't be surprising because both it and Furihata's video were produced by the same artist, NOSTALOOK.