Junko Mihara -- Yoru wa Blank（夜はブランク）

 

I'm going to be coming at this song from a peculiar angle this time and start off by mentioning the breakout character of Ranko Mannen（万年嵐子）from the currently running anime "Akiba Meido Senso"（アキバ冥途戦争...Akiba Maid War） played by seiyuu Rina Sato（佐藤利奈）. Sato also sings the Keiko Fuji（藤圭子）-worthy ending theme, but Ranko herself is reminiscent of the kickass actress Meiko Kaji（梶芽衣子）.

However, if there were ever a live-action version of "Akiba Maid War" and I could pluck an understudy actress to play Ranko from anywhere in time and space, I would select then 1980s actress/singer Junko Mihara（三原じゅん子）. Just based on her low vocals and the fact that when I first saw her on the 1982 Kohaku Utagassen looking all tough singing "Honki de Love Me Good"（ホンキでLove Me Good), I'd say that she would also be ideal as a one-woman army dressed as a maid. Nowadays, though, Mihara is too busy being a parliamentarian in the Japanese Diet.

It's been a few years since I've had Mihara up on "Kayo Kyoku Plus", but I've got another song from her 1983 album "Windy City ~ Junko in Chicago", and it happens to be the opening track "Yoru wa Blank" (The Night's a Blank). But first off, I've got to apologize profusely since although I posted another track from "Windy City" back in 2019 titled "Silky Rain"（シルキー・レイン）, I forgot to state via time stamp that "Silky Rain" was the third track at 7:42 (now corrected). Since I posted the video of the entire album on that article, people would have thought that the song was the first one, "Yoru wa Blank", instead of the one at its proper position as Track 3. I gather that my mind was a blank back then.

Anyways, instead of the mix of City Pop and pop/rock that "Silky Rain" contains, "Yoru wa Blank" has its ratio of genres bending more toward the City Pop side of things. Reading that title, I take it that things got a little wild that one night in the Windy City but man, I can't deny the cool musical accompaniment, thanks to Yuuichiro Oda（小田裕一郎）. It's got quite the rollicking rhythm of driving through Chicago in a sports car, and my compliments to the popping piano and the electric guitar. Etsuko Kisugi（来生えつこ）took care of the lyrics.

I have to also remind myself that although City Pop has a couple of Junkos in the lead: Ohashi（大橋純子）and Yagami（八神純子）, Mihara has also dabbled into the cool metropolitan music although as the YouTuber who posted the above video noted, she was more into the power pop and hard rock genres. Perhaps now, she's into the power politics and hard debating of passing bills.