Mayuko Miyahara -- Hana Akari（花明り）

 

Just finished off a conversation with Rocket Brown so we were catching up on things, including of course, Tatsuro Yamashita's（山下達郎）"Love's On Fire".

It's always nice when I come across a pleasant song by someone that I have never heard of before, and so it goes with Mayuko Miyahara's（宮原巻由子）"Hana Akari". There's very little information about her online and nothing at all on J-Wiki. I did find out from "Idol.ne.jp" that she came from Osaka and that she was also a winner on the talent audition program "Star Tanjo!"（スター誕生！...A Star is Born!）. She had her initial time in showbiz as a singer and actress, although she only released two singles in 1983.

That first single from February 1983 was "Hana Akari" which translates, according to Jisho.org: the brilliance of cherry blossoms which illuminate the evening. So it's most likely an ohanami phenomenon in the spring. Written by Takemi Shima（島武実）, composed by Yasuo Kosugi（小杉保夫）and arranged by Ichizo Seo（瀬尾一三）, "Hana Akari" seems to be a jaunty example of the usually laconic Fashion Music, hepped on some extra synthesizers. Despite the revelation of sakura, "Hana Akari" does feel like something with a bit more of a European setting.

Miyahara retired from show business in 1984 once she got married, but then made a comeback as an actress and model under the pen names of Mayuko Kyomoto（京本真由子）and Mayuko Okada（岡田真由子）. She has also taken on the occupation of a video translator. Under that original name of Miyahara, she has an Ameba blog where I discovered that she has posed as a grey hair model. On top of that, she opened her own Instagram account.