Yuna Ito -- Faith

 

Doing some cleaning up around the home yesterday, I unearthed a few Blu-Rays, one of which was the movie version for the original Fuji-TV 2006 cop series "Unfair"（アンフェア）, starring singer-actress Ryoko Shinohara（篠原涼子）as this take-no-guff police officer. From what I've read of the premise at Wikipedia, maybe this was Fuji-TV's version of "Dirty Harry". I never saw the show when I was living in Japan, but saw plenty of the commercials which probably shows how much faith that the powers-that-be had in "Unfair".

Their faith was well placed since the original drama came to beget a rash of specials and movies which ended in 2015. 

Interesting how I've used the word "faith" twice in as many of the last two sentences because the theme song for the original series was "Faith" as recorded by Yuna Ito（伊藤由奈）. Now that is a name that I haven't heard in a long time since I wrote about her 2005 "Endless Story" back in the summer of 2016. "Faith" was Ito's 2nd single right after "Endless Story", released in March 2006 as "Faith/Pureyes", treated as a double-A-side release. Written by Kenn Kato and composed by J-Pop duo BOUNCEBACK, the theme song is an elegant soul ballad that seems to act like a reassuring counterpoint to the high tension and action that probably occurs in each episode. The single reached No. 6 on Oricon, going Double Platinum.

REIRA starring YUNA ITO -- Endless Story

Back a decade ago, there was some buzz about this manga-turned-movie "NANA" which featured a couple of very different women with the same name of Nana. The two main characters were played by actress Aoi Miyazaki（宮崎あおい）and singer Mika Nakashima（中島美嘉）, and although the story was about how these two met and grew to become good friends despite their differences, I couldn't help but feel that there was a bit of Prince's "Purple Rain". I think the reason was that Nakashima's Nana Osaki（大崎ナナ）was aiming to become a singer and I'd assumed (never saw the movie so I`m probably wrong) that there was a competition of sorts on the stage between her and one other artist.

So my musical era-spanning analogy has Prince vs. Morris Day and The Time with Nana Osaki going up against Reira Serizawa（芹澤レイラ）of the band Trapnest. Incidentally, that name Reira was actually meant to be Layla since the character of the Japanese-American singer had been named after the famous Eric Clapton song (amazing what you can find out on Wiki).

Anyways, Reira was played by American singer-songwriter Yuna Ito（伊藤由奈）who was born in Los Angeles but was raised in Hawaii. And along with Nakashima's big hit "Glamorous Sky", Ito hit it big as well with "Endless Story" which was also performed in the movie. In fact, I remember "Endless Story" much better than I do "Glamorous Sky" since I was more attracted to the pop ballad. There was something very 80s about it, and once I admitted that to myself, it didn't take long for me to purchase my own copy.

"Endless Story" was released in September 2005 after which it went Double Platinum and earned a special prize at the Japan Record Awards for that year. It went all the way up to No. 2 on Oricon and quickly became the 19th-ranked single of 2005. Ito also performed her hit on that year's Kohaku Utagassen. The single was also on Ito's debut album "Heart" from January 2007 which hit No. 1 and was the 14th-ranked album of the year.

Now comes the surprise for me. I found out just earlier that the song was basically a cover of Dawn Ann Thomas' "If I'm Not In Love" which was included in the soundtrack for the 1993 movie "Indecent Proposal" starring Demi Moore and Robert Redford. Thomas is listed in the credits for Ito's song with musician ats- providing the Japanese lyrics.

Yuna Ito - Koi wa groovyx2 (恋はgroovy×2)

http://www.pideo.net/video/xuite/27902eda777932bd/

NOTE: Sorry, but I couldn't find an YouTube link for this song and didn't want to throw the article away. I hope this streamer works well for everyone.

I was a very lucky guy because the first “Music Station” (ミュージックステーション) episode I ever saw, thanks to a friend, was the one which introduced me to Perfume, one of my favorite acts. It was in November 2008 and the girls performed “Dream Fighter”, one of their signature songs. As I was so enchanted by both the girls and the energetic technopop song they sang, I had my friend repeat their performance like four or five times. It represented my second and definitive step into the J-Pop world (the first one was with Megumi Hayashibara [林原めぐみ] and a bunch of 90s anime songs).

But I’m not here to talk about Perfume’s “Dream Fighter”. I remember that in the same episode a singer called Yuna Ito (伊藤由奈) sang this Latin-house pop song called “Koi wa groovyx2”, an winter song that sounds like a summer one. Although I didn’t like it as much as “Dream Fighter”, “Koi wa groovyx2” was also a nice song for someone who was just discovering the mainstream Japanese pop landscape in late 2008. Yuna’s tanned beauty, of course, was a nice plus too. According to generasia, Yuna Ito's ethnicity is half-Japanese, half-Korean. Also, she was born in Los Angeles, California, but raised in Honolulu, Hawaii. Quite an interesting and confuse story, to be honest.

The song is very, very catchy, and I usually don’t like songs that rely heavily in “na-na-na” lines, but I can’t help liking this one very much. Nevertheless its main feature is probably Yuna’s strong vocals, a major characteristic of the girl. Unfortunately, I never checked other Yuna Ito songs, something that I will still probably do someday. To be honest, though, I was kind of discouraged by some love songs and modern R&B infused ones she is well known for. You know, they are not quite my cup of tea.

Her last release to date was a best-of album in late 2010. Being very direct, her releases were not selling as much as in earlier days. “Koi wa groovyx2”, for example, only reached #44 on the Oricon charts, selling around 5,080 copies in total (source: generasia). Lyrics were written by Kenn Kato, while music was composed by Minami Shunsuke (南俊介). As for the arrangement, it was a team work between the same Minami Shunsuke, DJ-PASSION and DJ KANE (source: wiki.jp).

(cover version)