I've been a fan of Japanese popular music for 40 years, and have managed to collect a lot of material during that time. So I decided I wanted to talk about Showa Era music with like-minded fans. My particular era is the 70s and 80s (thus the "kayo kyoku"). The plus part includes a number of songs and artists from the last 30 years and also the early kayo. So, let's talk about New Music, aidoru, City Pop and enka.
Credits
I would like to give credit where credit is due. Videos are from YouTube and other sources such as NicoNico while Oricon rankings and other information are translated from the Japanese Wikipedia unless noted.
Unfortunately, I couldn't find much information on anything regarding musician Rei Sakuma except that she's not to be mistaken for the voice actress who was born in 1965. Unless that cover above for her first album"Pure Magic" (2022) is using a model, I think this Sakuma is a whole lot younger.
She does have a Twitter account and apparently she's a fan of Yellow Magic Orchestra. In fact, the song that I have by her today is "The Broken Drum" from "Pure Magic", and it sounds like something that YMO, and perhaps specifically the late Ryuichi Sakamoto（坂本龍一）, could have concocted back in the early 1980s. It does sound like analog synths are in play along with the good old-fashioned vocoder.
If anyone can provide any further information on Ms. Sakuma, that would be greatly appreciated.
Well, I gotta say that it isn't everyday that two beloved anison produced years apart share the exact same title. Therefore, today will be that special day. The one that I've already known about for years is "Omoide ga Ippai" by the folk-pop duo, H2O, the touching ballad that ended the anime "Miyuki"（みゆき）back in the early 1980s and has since become a graduation ceremony favourite, usually guaranteed to induce tears in the students.
"Ranma 1/2"（らんま1/2）is an anime that even I have heard about but only through reputation based on the original manga by Rumiko Takahashi（高橋留美子）. Even so, I have been listening to the theme song, also titled "Omoide ga Ippai" (Full of Memories) for the second entry of the anime franchise, "Ranma 1/2 Nettohen"（らんま1/2 熱闘編...The Fierce Fighting Edition） which went on for almost 3 years (1989-1992). The song often came up as part of my anime buddy's anison hour and I've got it in my collection of anison without having known its source for a number of years.
The aidoru group CoCo recorded the original version as the coupling song to their 3rd single"Natsu no Tomodachi"（夏の友達...Summer Friends） from May 1990. Written by Neko Oikawa（及川眠子）and composed by Masayuki Iwata（岩田雅之）, the cute anison sounds like something Misato Watanabe（渡辺美里）would have sung in her junior high school days; I think it is the synths that make me think that way. The single peaked at No. 3.
But to be honest with you, my preference is for the cover version by the female seiyuu from the cast of "Ranma 1/2". Forming the quintet DoCo in 1990, the members were Kikuko (17 forever) Inoue（井上喜久子）, Noriko Hidaka（日高のり子）, Megumi Hayashibara（林原めぐみ）, Minami Takayama（高山みなみ）and Rei Sakuma（佐久間レイ）. Their "Omoide ga Ippai" was recorded for one of the franchise's OVAs "Super Vol. 2" in November 1995.
For me, the difference was just the added depth in DoCo's performance when they recorded it and that soaring instrumental bridge near the end. Incidentally, when asked how their collective name, similar to CoCo, was created, the answer provided was apparently that "D" was next after "C". Plus, there is the fact that the Japanese word "koko" means "here" whereas "doko" means "where".
