Mika Muramatsu -- Yume, Hito, Tabi（夢・人・旅）

 

As I've mentioned before, I found a lot of the songs created for aidoru and other young pop music ingenues in the late 1980s were especially lush and beautifully crafted to surround their voices which may not have been of the highest quality.

Then, just imagine if the voice belonging to the young lady was pretty darn good. I think that was the case for then-teen actress Mika Muramatsu（村松美香）in the late 1980s. Her career as a thespian only lasted around thirteen years between 1983 and 1996 according to her J-Wiki profile (born in 1969), and she only released one single and that was probably for her 1987 NHK drama "Tabi Shojo"（旅少女...Traveling Girl）.

Yup, it was just the one-and-done single for Tokyo native Muramatsu. Titled "Yume, Hito, Tabi" (Dreams, People, Travel), it starts out rather lovingly fancy and Muramatsu's light and lilting voice automatically reminded me of the vocals of Hiroko Yakushimaru（薬師丸ひろ子）. In fact, the entire song has the pace of a slow and refined waltz and I kinda went "C'est dommage" when I realized that it was just this song and the B-side of this July 1987 single for the recording part of her career. The songwriter here wasn't Takao Kisugi（来生たかお）, though; it was actually singer-songwriter Toshihiro Ito（伊藤敏博）behind the words and music. Ito also had his own hit from 1981: "Sayonara Moyo"（サヨナラ模様）.

Maybe the only other interesting piece of trivia that I could get regarding Muramatsu was that she had attended the famous Tokyo-based Horikoshi High School with a number of her fellow students going the celebrity route including Chisato Moritaka（森高千里）and Mami Yamase（山瀬まみ）.

I discovered this trailer on YouTube for a 1990 thriller movie called "Remains: Utsukushiki Tsuwamono-tachi"（リメインズ 美しき勇者たち...Remains: Beautiful Heroes） although its official English title was "Yellow Fangs". It starred Muramatsu and a young Hiroyuki Sanada（真田広之）. From what I've read on Wikipedia and seen on screen, it seems like a cross between "Jaws" and a typical J-Horror flick.