Yukiko Okada -- Kimagure Teenage Love（気まぐれTeenage Love）

 

It's now August 22nd in Japan, so I gather that we can all give a Happy Birthday to 1980s aidoru Yukiko Okada（岡田有希子）who would have celebrated her 56th birthday this year. 

Over a decade after posting Yukko's 3rd single "Dreaming Girl" onto the blog, I'm now writing about the B-side "Kimagure Teenage Love" (Whimsical Teenage Love). As with the A-side, this particular song was also created by Mariya Takeuchi（竹内まりや）and arranged by Mitsuo Hagita（萩田光雄）.

I noted in that July 2012 article that "Dreaming Girl" (which was released in September 1984) was one of the most quintessentially 80s aidoru songs that I had ever heard. Well, the Takeuchi and Hagita collaboration did it again with "Kimagure Teenage Love". Just listening to that smooth-flowing keyboard work and the silky strings brought back images of what 1980s teenage life was probably like in Japan: skippy high school girls with huge hair. Lyrically, the song deals with one such lass who's fallen improbably in love with the school misfit. Lucky young man! Hope he figures it all out before their story becomes a 12-episode anime. Plus, I could hear a bit of that Mariya 60s girl pop that she herself performed in the early years of her career.