Yoko Ishida/Shoko Nakagawa -- Otome no Policy （乙女のポリシー）

I actually have already brought in Yoko Ishida（石田よう子）into the annals of this blog via her cover of "Sugar Baby Love" for another anime but this is the article for her "official welcome" of sorts since I will always think of this particular song when it comes to the anison singer. Commenter Edu P.R. sparked me into finally putting up "Otome no Policy" (Policy of a Young Lady) for which I'm thankful.

It was also surprising to find out that "Otome no Policy" has the distinction of being Ishida's debut single from March 1993. I've been hearing her songs from time to time and seeing her name in the opening/closing credits of anime for some time now but never realized that she started from the franchise of "Sailor Moon"（セーラームーン）.

Of course, when it comes to the music of "Sailor Moon", there is that iconic tango of an anison "Moonlight Densetsu"（ムーンライト伝説）which started each episode in the early years of the original series but frankly, I wasn't all that enthused about the first couple of ending themes. Then, when the second season of the show "Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon R"（美少女戦士セーラームーンR）premiered fresh after literally resurrecting Usagi and the rest of the gang from evil, there came the new ending credits with the refreshingly down-to-earth images of Meatball Head just walking then running down the street. All this was accompanied by this cheerful and catchy song which became the first ending theme from "Sailor Moon" that I enjoyed.

The song was created by Rui Serizawa and Makoto Nagai（芹沢類・永井誠）, and the lyrics were pretty much the policy of Usagi Tsukino:

I will never ever give up no matter how hard it becomes
That's right! That is the sweet policy of a young lady

Yup, she's the one...Sailor Moon. Mind you, Sailor Mars would probably snark off something under her breath, and of course, Moon would somehow be able to hear it, leading to a mass punch-up. By the way, "Otome no Policy" managed to peak at No. 77 on Oricon and sold around 300,000 copies.

https://itunes.apple.com/jp/album/%E4%B9%99%E5%A5%B3%E3%81%AE%E3%83%9D%E3%83%AA%E3%82%B7%E3%83%BC/575571524?i=575571630

(excerpt only)

Huge anime fan and singer Shoko Nakagawa（中川翔子）covered the song in her 2007 album "Shokotan ☆ Cover - Anison ni Koi wo Shite."（しょこたん☆かばー 〜アニソンに恋をして。〜...Shokotan Covers - Fall In Love With Anison）That album went as high as No. 17 on the Oricon weeklies. Apparently her fans really wanted her to cover a "Sailor Moon" song.

And even Seiko Matsuda's（松田聖子）daughter, Sayaka Kanda（神田沙也加）, sang a brief but very sweet excerpt from "Otome no Policy" for a snack commercial. Excuse me...I've got something in my eye.

To finish off, "Otome no Policy" isn't the only "Sailor Moon" ending theme I've liked. There is a later tune with a different beat which has been just as fun.

P.S. I haven't been able to see the new "Sailor Moon" and my anime buddy hasn't exactly been too enthused about viewing it. Apparently, although it may have quite the lineup in seiyuu including the original Sailor Moon herself, Kotono Mitsuishi（三石琴乃）, it's been said that the new series is lacking a lot of the humour that was the chief draw for me for the original series in the 90s. The above video was one of the biggest examples of hilarity...I don't think I've ever seen a gag involving sleeping feet anywhere like this.

Wink/Mari Amachi/Candies/Yoko Ishida -- Sugar Baby Love

(Candies' version)

This article certainly got a little more involved that I had thought it would be.

Well, first off, when I landed in Japan in mid-summer 1989, I had gotten onto the Wink bandwagon midway when the entire country seemed to be in the thrall of "Samishii Nettaigyo"（淋しい熱帯魚）. My first impression of Sachiko Suzuki and Shoko Aida（鈴木早智子・相田翔子） when they appeared on all of the music shows was that they were not just a new type of aidoru but ai-dolls from their looks and moves which just added to the Wink mystique when more of their hits came out.

So, when their BEST collection of singles came out in November 1990, "Wink Hot Singles", I decided I needed to catch up a bit on their pre-1989 releases. The first song was of course their debut, "Sugar Baby Love" which came out in April 1988. As is the case with many a star singer's discography, the debut and the early releases sound quite a bit different. And so I was a bit intrigued to hear "Sugar Baby Love" as this aidoru-esque tribute to the old doo-wop sound which had an intro which reminded me of "Little Darlin" by The Diamonds from the late 50s.

If I had heard "Sugar Baby Love" when it first came out, I probably wouldn't have predicted that Wink would've gone onto stardom, but according to the charts, there were already signs that things were looking pretty up for the duo. There was no major ad campaign for Wink or the debut, but it still managed to get as high as No. 20 on the singles charts and stayed in the Top 100 for 11 weeks. In addition, it was even used as a theme song for a Fuji-TV drama starring Yoko Minamino titled "Netsuppoi no!"（熱っぽいの...I Feel Feverish!）Not too shabby.

Now I had heard that Wink's "Sugar Baby Love" was a cover of an original tune by a European band. I'd assumed that it was some of Eurobeat group from the mid-80s, but actually the original singers came all the way from 1974. The Rubettes hailed from the UK as this doo-wop group and their own debut of "Sugar Baby Love" got them to the top of the charts for 8 weeks straight. It even got placed at No. 37 on the US Billboard charts. Wayne Bickerton and Tony Waddington wrote and composed the song, and according to Wikipedia, they had first offered it to another band following the production of a demo version but were declined. Then they offered it to the studio musicians who had recorded that demo....on provision that they become a group. Hence, The Rubettes were born.

And it was there that I thought that the article would end. However, by accident, I discovered that Wink hadn't been the direct Japanese inheritors of "Sugar Baby Love". I came across a YouTube video that showed that 70s aidorus Mari Amachi（天地真理）and Candies had done their version of the song in the same year that The Rubettes premiered it. Amachi had done her version through her first live LP, "Mari Amachi on Stage" from December 1974. In the same month, Candies provided their version via their 3rd album, "Namida no Kisetsu"（涙の季節...Season of Tears）.

Finally, there was even another cover which followed the Wink version. In 2001, singer Yoko Ishida（石田耀子） provided her own "Sugar Baby Love" as the opening theme for the anime "Chiccha na Yuki Tsukai no Sugar"（ちっちゃな雪使いのシュガー...Little Snow Fairy Sugar）and her 5th single.

As Bickerton and Waddington illustrated, isn't it nice what happens when you ask nicely?

Sachiko and Shoko must have been shopping
before the government raised the consumption tax!