Hiroko Ikeda -- Seifuku wo Nuidara（制服をぬいだら）

 

Last month, I introduced aidoru Hiroko Ikeda（池田ひろ子）who had a brief career in the recording limelight for a couple of years in the mid-1970s before she finally disappeared into the civilian ether past 1980. For her first article, I posted her debut single "Koi no ABC"（恋のABC）.

Well, her sophomore single was "Seifuku wo Nuidara" (When I Take Off the Uniform) and that was released in March 1976. Written by Kayoko Hayashi（林カヨコ）and composed by rocker Shogo Hamada（浜田省吾）, it isn't quite as salacious as the title might seem. It's actually about a girl who is more than willing to doff the high school uniform and put on the heels and cosmetics to get that guy. Uh...on second thought, that description doesn't sound too wholesome either but it could have been worse. Anyways, the arrangement has that 1950s/1960s rock n' roll feel to it.

Hiroko Ikeda -- Koi no ABC（恋のABC）

Wikimedia Commons
via HovigTheEditor

 

I guess one can be forgiven if they assumed that the aidoru during the 1970s only consisted of Candies（キャンディーズ）, Pink Lady（ピンクレディー）and Momoe Yamaguchi（山口百恵）. It just seemed to me for example that though the 1980s also had the big guns of Seiko Matsuda（松田聖子）, Miho Nakayama（中山美穂）and Akina Nakamori（中森明菜）up on top, it was also very evident that there was a noticeable bank of revolving doors underneath where many an aidoru star wannabe walked through weekly. That didn't look as obvious in the preceding decade.

However, there were young ladies trying their luck and hard work at becoming that next teenybopper heroine on TV and radio. One such lass from Tokyo was Hiroko Ikeda（池田ひろ子）. From her early childhood, she'd studied all sorts of dancing ranging from ballet to traditional Japanese dance to build up her strength which hadn't been all that great back then.

Then, in 1975, she made her debut as an aidoru with "Koi no ABC" (The ABCs of Love) under the CBS/Sony label. Written by Kazumi Yasui（安井かずみ）and composed/arranged by Yusuke Hoguchi（穂口雄右）, "Koi no ABC" showed all that heavy Japanese love for the rock and roll of the 1950s may have arrived earlier than expected. Along with Ikeda's chirpy vocals, I think that may also have been her tap dancing in the background since that was the first form of dance she'd tried out according to her J-Wiki profile. 

Ikeda would release three more singles up to 1977 with no albums. She also appeared on a number of TV shows with the latest entry being in 1980 when she was the assistant on a TV Tokyo game show. After that, I don't know.