Years ago, I had a student in my final school in Tokyo who wasn't only a major fan of the Johnny's Entertainment group Arashi（嵐）, but she was also a huge fan of the actor that you see above, Kin'ya Kitaoji（北小路欣也）. With his distinguished silver fox visage, he has been portraying samurai generals and high-ranking corporate and political types for years. However, although I may check out if he has sung anything, this article's subject is the woman he's talking to in the BOSS coffee commercial, veteran actress Kanako Higuchi（樋口可南子）.
I've seen her in many commercials, and she has usually been depicted as the quiet and classy traditional Japanese woman but with a hint that she's not someone to cross...ever. And as you can see above, she's treating the presumably newest Prime Minister of Japan as a husband that she's known too long that she doesn't hesitate to take him down several pegs. He humbly and lovingly takes his punishment via her razor tongue.
Higuchi has been in a very long-running series of commercials for Softbank as it centers around a very variegated family including the patriarch who just happens to be a grumpy white dog while the actress is the matronly (but again doesn't suffer-fools-gladly) wife. It's just too bad that YouTube doesn't seem to have the one entry in the series where Quentin Tarentino pops in as one of the family.
Anyways, I did want to feature the B-side of Higuchi's lone 1982 single "Uwasa no Rendezvous"（噂のランデヴー...Rumoured Rendezvous）, "Wakare no Hadazawari" (Textures of Parting). The recorded version did exist on YouTube but alas it gotten taken down. The good news though is that I can still find it on BiliBili for now.
Higuchi, according to J-Wiki, released that one single and one full album the following year, along with a contribution of one song for a movie soundtrack in 1987. To be honest, perhaps one reason that her discography is so sparse is that she's not the greatest chanteuse as her performance below may show. Having said that, though, I do like "Wakare no Hadazawari" for its haunting arrangement which seems to bring together the more sophisticated feelings of City Pop (non-enka music for that top commercial being set in the ryotei) and the more languid sensations of Fashion Music. It's got that touch of class, in a mesmerizing way I might add, that I've enjoyed in the latter genre.
With arrangements by Nobuyuki Shimizu（清水信之）, "Wakare no Hadazawari" was created by lyricist Kazumi Yasui（安井かずみ）and composer Kazuhiko Kato（加藤和彦）. A couple of years later, the veteran songwriters would come up with the classic "Ai Oboeteimasuka?" （愛・おぼえていますか）for Mari Iijima（飯島真理）.
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