Tomoko Saito -- Josei（女性）

 

A couple of years ago, I wrote about actress and singer Tomoko Saito（斉藤とも子）whose time in the latter profession was very short...just ranging from 1979 to 1980. What was intriguing to me was that the cover for her debut single "Kaze no You ni"（風のように）belied how the song sounded. With her looking rather aidoru-like in her high school uniform, I had assumed something appropriately teenyboppery only to hear a City Pop or AOR tune.

I gather that this cute subterfuge may have been a promotional thing where Saito was concerned. Her second and final album "Takekurabe"（たけくらべ）from January 1980 has the lass looking very traditional in her yukata in front of a rustic house. I don't know how the entire album sounds but at the very least, one track, "Josei" (Woman), actually sounds like a disco-based City Pop tune that would be perfect for a lone-wolf detective of that time. 

As with "Kaze no You ni", "Josei" was composed by Akira Fujimoto（藤本あきら）with the lyrics this time being provided by Kaoru Asagi（麻木かおる）. Incidentally the album title "Takekurabe" literally means "comparison of statures" but I think it was named after the late 19th-century novella "Takekurabe" (Growing Up) by Ichiyo Higuchi（樋口一葉）.