LanLan Suzuki -- Nakanai zoe（泣かないぞェ）

 

I was doing my usual maintenance of the various articles on KKP recently when I came across the September 2016 article I did for LanLan Suzuki's（鈴木蘭々）EPO-penned bossa nova "Kimi to Boku"（キミとボク）. Now, as it turns out, that had been the one-and-only posting I wrote for this tarento that had once been all over television in the early years of my Tokyo/Chiba stint as an English conversation teacher.

In the crowded world of Japanese entertainment with its tarento, singers, thespians and comedians, Suzuki could stand out on her looks alone. She had that short but thick pile of hair, eyes as big as an anime character's, and a quirky personality. For all of her appearances, she had a brief and perhaps uneventful part of her career as a singer although her penultimate single "Kimi to Boku" is a very pleasant tune for the whole family. I did wonder what she was up to in the last twenty years or so and I'm happy to see that she has her own YouTube channel as is evident above. I also read on her J-Wiki profile that she released her first BEST album last year to commemorate her 35th anniversary in show business.

Well, seeing that I've only had the one Suzuki song represented on "Kayo Kyoku Plus", I guess it's time to bring another one of her other songs to the fore. Instead of one of her last singles, I'm bringing aboard her debut single from August 1995, "Nakanai zoe" (Ain't Gonna Cry) which sounds like one cheerfully defiant tune with a hint of Motown written by Suzuki and Shin or Makoto Morizono（森園真）. The composer was none other than the late great Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）. Not sure whether that "zoe" at the end of the title is a childish suffix or some dialectal affectation but I wouldn't be surprised if Suzuki had said something like that on one of her shows sometime somewhere. "Nakanai zoe" was used as the theme song for a variety show, "Imada Koji no Shibuya-kei Ura Ringo"（今田耕司のシブヤ系うらりんご...Koji Imada's Shibuya-kei Rear Apple[?]）.

As for the romanization of her first name, I've come across either RanRan or LanLan so I gather that the lady has been rather liberal about how her stage name is read. Her real name is Tomoko Suzuki（鈴木智子）, by the way.

LanLan Suzuki -- Kimi to Boku (キミとボク)

This particular article takes me back quite nicely. Not to the 70s or 80s, mind you, but to the 90s. A bit recent to be sure but those were the early days of my time in Ichikawa, Chiba Prefecture. I got to know my immediate neighbourhood in this bedroom community along with the larger Tokyo area, and within the area of pop culture, I started becoming acquainted with a new group of musicians and tarento on TV.

One such person I got to know is in the above video. Born as Tomoko Suzuki（鈴木智子）of Tokyo, her stage name is LanLan Suzuki（鈴木蘭々）. With her complexion and those rather large eyes, I had assumed that the lass was half-Japanese but such was not the case. During the 1990s, she was popping up on TV in ads and shows because of those looks and her adorably goofy personality.

One of the first things that I saw her in was the Fuji-TV kids program "Ponkikies"（ポンキッキーズ）on weekday mornings during which she was paired with future superstar Namie Amuro（安室奈美恵）as a pair of cute bunny figures known collectively as Sister Rabbits to perform just-as-cute songs. Mind you, the above video had the duo doing a fair bit of cosplay. Amuro had the vocal chops but so did LanLan.

Music was one of the attractions of "Ponkikies" (which is why I've added the show as a Label category on the right), and LanLan Suzuki contributed her own song close to the end of her tenure on the show titled "Kimi to Boku" (You and Me) as the 9th of her 10th singles which was released in May 1998.

Written and composed by EPO, this is a nice and light bossa nova ideal for the kiddies with the singalong part inside. I remember seeing LanLan perform this a number of times during the music segments of "Ponkikies" and listening to it again after so many years has given me that nice natsukashii glow. Her delivery with that slight warble reminds me of a mellower Kohmi Hirose（広瀬香美）.

Going into this century, I didn't see her nearly as much as before so I did wonder whether she had retired from showbiz but from what I've read on her J-Wiki bio is that she has still been acting on stage and in TV dramas, although her music career ended in 2001.

Incidentally, I thought Ms. Suzuki's stage name had been spelled as "RanRan" and the article about her on Wikipedia has it spelled that way. However since the lady herself has titled her blog as "LanLan", I will go with that.

(cover version by vocalist

Asami Suzuki...probably no relation)