Mia Masuda -- Ame no Hi no Mikazuki（雨の日三日月）

 

Looks like I may be following a theme today. For my last article with Sanae Yokota（横田早苗）, I was introducing a singer for the first time onto the blog for one of her B-sides. Well, it's happening again.

I'd never heard of Mia Masuda（増田未亜）before, but this Osaka-raised lady has been described on J-Wiki as a former aidoru and an actress. In fact, I'd say that her B-side (or at this particular time of release, I should actually say "coupling song"), "Ame no Hi no Mikazuki" (Crescent Moon on a Rainy Day) for her May 1990 5th single "Dengekiteki Romance"（電撃的ロマンス...Electrifying Romance） certainly sounds less aidoru and more of a classier brand of pop. Perhaps by that point, Masuda was making a transition into general pop.

Regardless, I like "Ame no Hi no Mikazuki" for the melody which was provided by the late Chika Ueda（上田知華）with Chiroru Yaho（谷穂ちろる）as the lyricist. The high resonant vocals by Masuda and the lighter keyboard hints at that aidoru past but the rhythm section plus the synth-harmonica solo graft some sophistication into the arrangement.

Masuda actually started out as an actress from 1987 before she got behind the recording mike a couple of years later. In total, she released 9 singles between 1989 and 1991 with 4 albums during that time before a BEST compilation "Hot Sweet Memory" in 1992. A mini album did come out in 1990 with a second BEST album being released in 2011. Although the singing portion of her career came to an end in the early 90s, she kept on acting in TV and radio dramas up to 2010.