Tomoe Shinohara -- Ultra Relax（ウルトラリラックス）

 

Well, it's been quite the thing for those old Japanese pop culture buffs like me over the past couple of days. Yesterday, I found out that former 90s teen terror Tomoe Shinohara（篠原ともえ）, who has been living a more refined life as a fashion designer in the past several years (can't believe that she's now 41!), designed that huge blue dress for enka singer Kaori Mizumori's（水森かおり）grand performance at the 71st Kohaku Utagassen yesterday. Then, just this morning, she was doing a voiceover with an actor for an NHK tour of a famous temple in Wakayama Prefecture.

Of course, for those who were living in Japan in the 1990s, Shinohara was a true force of nature with an overabundance of personality. She could terrify even the most hardened of celebrities including sharp-tongued singer-songwriter Chiharu Matsuyama（松山千春）.

About five years ago, I contributed the first Tomoe article with her "Kurukuru Miracle" （クルクル ミラクル）, and it was one of only two singles that I remember from the lass although she apparently released about 17 to 18 singles. The other single which comes to mind is "Ultra Relax", and like "Kurukuru Miracle", this 4th single from March 1997 was created by Takkyu Ishino（石野卓球）from techno unit Denki Groove（電気グルーヴ）.

Typically Takkyu technopop tempest (always adore alliterating) with a soupcon of country hoedown, "Ultra Relax" is a most ironically titled song and very fitting for the then-zany to-the-max Shinohara. It was also used as the second opening theme for the 1996-1998 anime "Kodomo no Omocha"（こどものおもちゃ...A Child's Toy）. 

I also found this remix version of "Ultra Relax". The song turned out to be Shinohara's biggest hit by peaking at No. 25 on Oricon, selling a little over 120,000 copies. "Ultra Relax" is also on a re-released version of her October 1996 debut album "Supermodel"（スーパーモデル）as a bonus track. Another piece of trivia from the J-Wiki article reveals that either the anime or the song itself got played on French television which then attracted enough attention so that it was a hit in the dance clubs of Europe. 

One last thing is that during the usual pre-show for the Kohaku, there was one segment of the making of that oceanic dress for Mizumori with the tarento doing the reporting being YouTuber Fuwa-chan（フワちゃん）who seems to be the second coming of Shinohara in terms of enthusiasm and dress, although slightly more toned down. Fuwa-chan actually encountered the current Shinohara at her studio, and I can imagine the latter going "OMG! I was once just like her, wasn't I?".

Tomoe Shinohara -- Kurukuru Miracle （クルクル ミラクル）

Y'know...in the mid-90s when I landed in Japan once more, it wasn't just one Shinohara who was getting her fame at the time.

It wasn't too long after I had arrived in Tokyo that I had my first glimpse of the teenaged and deranged force-of-nature that was Tomoe Shinohara（篠原ともえ）. It was on "HEY!HEY!HEY! MUSIC CHAMP" when Tomoe first appeared within my range of vision as this weird pop-punk figure with the whiny-growly voice and day-glo fashion sense. I could say that she was about as far from Ryoko Shinohara（篠原涼子）as Ryoko Shinohara was from a kodiak bear.

The over-the-top entertainer from the western tip of Tokyo pulled off a cultural coup in that she was unlike anyone who had come before her and anyone who followed her. Pretty soon, she was everywhere on the Japanese tube, and in the age of Amurers (Namie Amuro fans), Shinohara had her own following in the form of Shinorers. Although she was an everywhere-to-be-seen tarento, I saw her regularly on the Saturday-night Fuji-TV music-interview show, "LOVE LOVE Aishiteiru"（LOVE LOVEあいしてる...Love Love I Love You）as not only part of the backing band for the Kinki Kids but also as the overcaffeinated interviewer of the show's guests which included some American celebs (who didn't appear on the show itself to sing thankfully) such as Robin Williams...and to see Shinohara and Robin together in a segment is something to behold.

Of course, being a truly out-there tarento meant that a trip to the recording studio was also a foregone conclusion. Between 1995 and 2011, she released 18 singles. One of the two singles that I actually remember is "Kurukuru Miracle" (Round-and-Round Miracle) from August 1996. Written and composed by Takkyu Ishino（石野卓球）from fun techno unit Denki Groove（電気グルーヴ）, there is that sample of a bunch of histrionic strings that I used to hear in commercials from the States that starts things off as if it were the beginning of some sort of old Western movie. Then it's time for the Tomoe crazy patter. I think the lyrics serve as the grand introduction to the legend that is Shinohara.

However, for the last several years of my time in Japan, she rather disappeared from public view...or at least her profile was nowhere near as huge as it used to be in the 1990s. Then, when I got back to Toronto in 2011, I actually started seeing her again as a guest on various NHK shows via TV Japan. She apparently had focused more on her fashion design business, and now as a TV personality in her mid-30s, although she still has that eclectic style (techno-ojousan?), Tomoe Shinohara is now a whole lot calmer, often discussing about fashion and the more refined aspects of Japanese culture such as visiting temples and shrines.

But, man, what an adolescence...