Just as William Shatner will always be known as Captain James T. Kirk and James Earl Jones will always be known as the voice of Darth Vader, Tarako will always be known first and foremost as the voice behind the impish Momoko "Maruko" Sakura（さくらももこ）in "Chibi Maruko-chan"（ちびまる子ちゃん）. The Gunma-born Tarako has worn a lot of hats in the entertainment industry: singer-songwriter, narrator, actress, scriptwriter, essayist, and of course, seiyuu since she began her career in 1981, but if you mention her name to anyone on the street, invariably most if not all people will mention Maruko right off the bat.
Seeing another episode of "Chibi Maruko-chan" last night as we usually do on Sundays, I did wonder about her singing career so looking things up on her J-Wiki file, I discovered that Tarako did release four singles between 1984 and 1991 along with ten original albums between 1983 and 1995. Her debut single in September 1984 was "Yuuwaku Game" (Temptation Game) for which she provided the lyrics while Kazuto Hiraga（平賀和人）of the band NSP composed the spirited melody which kinda hovers between pop and the more upbeat aidoru tunes of the day. There's quite a nice bluesy instrumental solo before the final chorus where Tarako finishes her story of a woman with some tsundere tendencies about a fellow.
You can also have a look at one of her commercials.
Fascinating. Found this blog by chance but it has such a vintage vibe and you can see there is passion behind all of this. I kinda like it.
ReplyDeleteHello, Nimh. Thanks very much for stopping by and also for leaving the translation for the lyrics of "Toki yo Yuruyaka ni". Yep, just by the nature of what we write about, it's very much vintage. Hope you enjoy some of the other articles.
DeleteI wish Tarako would have kept on singing instead becoming first and foremost known as a seiyuu! But, alas this situation seems to happen a lot! For example, more people will remember Takayama Minami (Arai Izumi) for voicing Detective Conan than for the awesomeness of Two-mix!
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