Ushiroyubi Sasaregumi -- Banana no Namida（バナナの涙）

 

Onyanko Club（おニャン子クラブ）, as Marcos V. and I have been explaining all throughout the past decade, was the first massive aidoru conglomeration that songwriter and producer Yasushi Akimoto（秋元康）created, years before the alphabet aidoru groups such as AKB 48. As such, there were going to be offshoots from the mother group in the form of individual teenyboppers and small units coming up with their own tunes. Marcos wrote on one trio, Ushirogami Hikaretai（うしろ髪ひかれ隊）which had Shizuka Kudo (工藤静香) , Akiko Ikuina (生稲晃子) and Makiko Saito (斉藤満喜子) and their contribution, "Anata wo Shiritai" (あなたを知りたい). That unit had their time between May 1987 and July 1988 with five singles and two original albums under their belt.

Well, there was another unit in the form of a duo, Yukiko Iwai and Mamiko Takai（岩井由紀子・高井麻巳子）, called Ushiroyubi Sasaregumi（うしろゆびさされ組）, which began even earlier in the era of the Onyanko Club and had a longer time at it from October 1985 to February 1987. They released a total of six singles and two original albums, all of which broke into the Top 10. 

Their second single, "Banana no Namida" (Banana Tears), was released in January 1986 and it served as the second ending theme for the Fuji-TV anime adaptation of the manga "High School! Kimengumi"（ハイスクール!奇面組...High School! Funny Face Club） which had a long run paralleling Ushiroyubi Sasaregumi's career. In fact, some of their singles and non-single tracks were tied at the hip with the show.

From the synopsis of "High School! Kimengumi", it seems as if the series may have been the grand ancestor of all those secondary school-based anime crazy comedies with misfit students in a club. "Banana no Namida" is itself a fun and light-hearted tune with a tropical beat thrown into the mix. With Akimoto behind the lyrics and Tsugutoshi Goto（後藤次利）composing and arranging everything, the song hit No. 1 on Oricon and later became the 17th-ranked single for 1986. "Banana no Namida" was also a track on Ushiroyubi Sasaregumi's first studio album "Fu-Wa-Fu-Ra"（ふ・わ・ふ・ら）which came out in June that year and peaked at No. 2.

If this scene is typical of an episode, then I think the high school club was well-named.