MANNA -- Plastic Blue

 

My very first "Kayo Kyoku Plus" article on singer MANNA was made back in March 2014 when I wrote about her "Tokio Tsushin" （TOKIO 通信）, a quirky City Pop number seemingly made for Paris, France. I was amazed by this one not only because it was the first MANNA song that I'd ever heard but it was also composed by the legendary composer Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）. Even by that point, I was already getting to know how much of a composition palette Tsutsumi possessed, but "Tokio Tsushin" was definitely a revelation for me.

That particular song came from the singer's second album "MANNA" from 1980, and I was able to find another quirky track, "Plastic Blue". From the first several measures, I thought that we were going to get a technopop piece, but the ramp soon left the YMO highway to go onto a City Pop street, and in fact, going into the main chorus, it even turned the corner onto New Wave Avenue. Tsutsumi also took care of the melody here with Tetsuya Chiaki（ちあき哲也）, who was also behind the lyrics for "Tokio Tsushin", being responsible for the words for "Plastic Blue".

Would love to get a copy of "MANNA" if it exists somewhere. The cover alone is worth the price of admission. 😎 It would truly be manna from heaven. Ah, dad joke aside, I also found out some more about MANNA herself, thanks to some evident additions to the J-Wiki article over the past several years. Her real name is Mariko Iwasawa（岩沢真利子）, and she just happens to be married to Satsuya Iwasawa（岩沢幸矢）, one-half of the brotherly duo, Bread & Butter（ブレッド&バター）. They even have a musician daughter by the name of Aisa.