Mariya Takeuchi -- Shiawase no Monosashi（幸せのものさし）

Fireminer let me know about this Japan Times article that has come out in the last few days about singer-songwriter Mariya Takeuchi（竹内まりや）and the "Plastic Love" craze that launched like a missile over a year ago. Personally speaking, I'm happy that folks from outside Japan have discovered and enjoyed the tune but y'know, I think it's time to let this fad fade into a nice memory. Plus there are plenty more of her hits to savor.

Case in point: her 36th single from May 2008, "Shiawase no Monosashi" (Measure of Happiness) which coincided with her 30th anniversary in show business. I hadn't been aware that the song was a relatively recent release, probably because of the song's disco-like roots. It's a very uptempo tune of encouragement that hits the ground running, and hopefully, it has brought some of its listeners out of the blues with some measure of good cheer.

"Shiawase no Monosashi" was the theme song for the 2008 TBS drama "Around 40 ~ Chuumon no Oi Onna-tachi"（注文の多いオンナたち...Women with Lots of Choices） starring Yuuki Amami（天海祐希）as a psychiatrist who, with her close buddies, go through various ups and downs in their lives around the big 4-0. Amami herself contributes to some of the chorus work in the song and Takeuchi apparently made an uncredited cameo appearance in the final episode of the drama.

The song peaked at No. 8 on Oricon and became the 153rd-ranked single of 2008. However, its achievement on the singles weekly charts can be further amplified by the fact that Takeuchi became the oldest female solo artist to get a single into the weekly Top 10 at 53 years and 2 months, overtaking the previous record holder, Hibari Misora（美空ひばり）with "Kawa no Nagare no Youni" (川の流れのように) when she was 52 years and 1 month old. Since then, Takeuchi's record was overtaken by jazz and kayo singer Junko Akimoto（秋元順子）just a smattering of months later. "Shiawase no Monosashi" also appears on Takeuchi's very large BEST album "Expressions" which came out in October that year, scoring a No. 1 ranking for three weeks in a row and becoming the 11th-ranked album of the year.

As I finish writing this, I realize that as of this date, Takeuchi is just 5 days shy of celebrating her 40th anniversary as a singer. Yup, it was on November 25th 1978 that she released her first album "Beginning" and her first single "Modotte Oite, Watashi no Jikan"（戻っておいて、私の時間....Please Come Back, My Time). Time does indeed fly but I hope that the singer continues to fly high and strongly as well.

Yumiko Takahashi -- Good Love!

Last week, commenter Pocari D. referred to Yumiko Takahashi（高橋由美子）in my article for Chami Satonaka（里中茶美）. I'd known that Takahashi did have her aidoru phase in the 1990s, but I primarily knew her as an actress in all those J-Dramas way back when.

During my time back in Toronto between my JET days and my far longer stay in Japan from the mid-90s onwards, I used to get videotapes from Japanese TV whether it be through the local rental stores or from friends living in the nation. One of my favourite programs happened to be the annual or semi-annual blooper reel shows that popped up on Fuji-TV.

One of the shows featured was a comedy-drama called "Onegai Darling!"（お願いダーリン!...Please Darling!）starring Takahashi as a high school student married to a high school teacher at the same school. Apparently, much hilarity ensued.

The other television memory that I have of Takahashi was when she co-starred as one of the office ladies in the "Shomu-ni"（ショムニ...General Affairs, Section 2）franchise about a much-maligned section in a huge corporation where careers go to die. Takahashi played the incredibly stone-faced Rie Himukai（日向リエ）, the section's fortune-telling expert. She barely cracked any sort of emotion in that show, aside from one special episode where Himukai actually fell in love.

Getting back to that first show, the theme song for "Onegai Darling!" was Takahashi's 10th single, "Good Love!" from February 1993. Pocari D. referred to her Eurobeat material but at least with this one, I wouldn't say that this falls into the Eurobeat genre and I'm not even sure if this would be a totally cutesy aidoru tune itself although Miyu Yuzuki's（柚木美祐）lyrics refer to a woman's falling head-over-heels in love. The melody by Kazuya Motojima（本島一弥）and arrangement by Masaki Iwamoto（岩本正樹）take things a bit higher in my estimation; I'm such a sucker for the keyboards during that decade.

And I have to say that so far, Takahashi doesn't sound too hard on the ears. She apparently didn't sound too hard on the ears for a lot of people either, since "Good Love!" peaked at No. 17, selling a tad over 190,000 copies and becoming her 2nd-most successful single.

Orange Range -- Hana（花）

At the same time that I discovered a classic enka duet from almost 80 years ago on last week's "Uta Kon"（うたコン）, I also truly heard for the first time one of the big hits by the rock group Orange Range on the same program.

Their 8th single "Hana" (Flower) came out in October 2004, and I was surprised to find out that this hadn't been mentioned in the J-Wiki article for the song that this would make for a great wedding reception song in Japan. But that's my guess. Written and composed by Orange Range, the lyrics pledge one person's love for another through thick and thin, amity and conflict, and even if they were to be reincarnated into flowers, they would grow beside each other in the garden. Try proposing with that song playing in the background in that Italian restaurant in Tokyo!

"Hana" debuted on Oricon right at No. 1 where it stayed for two weeks twice and quickly ended up as the 4th-ranked single of the year despite its relatively late release date. It even hung around for another year and became the 21st-ranked single for 2005. It became a million-seller and went Triple Platinum and even won the Gold prize at the JASRAC awards. "Hana" is also a track on Orange Range's 2nd original album "musiQ" from December 2004 which also went to No. 1 and became the best-selling album for 2005. In Oricon history, "musiQ" is currently at No. 33 in album sales after hitting 2 million.

2004 was a pretty banner year for the band due to "Hana" and also for its summery fun "Locolotion"（ロコローション）which was the 7th-ranked single for that year.

Akiko Futaba and Noboru Kirishima/Chiyoko Shimakura -- Niizuma Kagami（新妻鏡）

(karaoke version)

Last Tuesday on "Uta Kon"（うたコン）, there was a tribute to the late kayo composer Masao Koga（古賀政男）through one of his classic creations, "Niizuma Kagami" (The Bride's Mirror) which was the theme song for a melodramatic motion picture of the same name released in 1940.

Initially from the title, I had assumed that the song would relate the sufferings of a newly-married woman due to the long absences of her husband and an imperious mother-in-law. However, looking at the lyrics by Sonosuke Sato（佐藤惣之助）, they themselves tell of the strong love between husband and wife, although the movie itself as seen above in the karaoke video has the main character indeed suffering when she is blinded by what seems to be a stray bullet.

"Niizuma Kagami" was a duet originally performed by Akiko Futaba（二葉あき子）and Noboru Kirishima（霧島昇）. According to her Wikipedia profile, the Hiroshima-born Futaba was once one of the most popular female singers in Japan and participated in the first 10 years of the Kohaku Utagassen making the transition from radio into television. Along with the duet performed on last Tuesday's show, I've also enjoyed this original version as an enka/kayo waltz which has that mix of melancholy and devotion.

Futaba debuted in 1936 and retired in 2003 at the age of around 88. She passed away in 2011 when she was 96.

Chiyoko Shimakura（島倉千代子）performed a cover version of "Niizuma Kagami" at the 1965 Kohaku Utagassen, although I'm not sure whether her recorded take came out in the same year. From listening to it a couple of times, her "Niizuma Kagami" seems to have that more traditional enka flair. I could imagine cherry blossom petals frittering away in the wind, for example. Interestingly enough, Futaba herself never performed the song herself on the NHK New Year's Eve special in her decade's worth of appearances.

Y'know...I look at that performance of the Kohaku in the year of my birth and I wonder what it must have been like to view the show back in those relatively early days.

Gontiti -- Honto no Uso（本当の嘘）

In recent years, the acoustic guitar duo Gontiti（ゴンチチ）has probably become known among anime fans for their work on the score for the relaxing "Amanchu!"（あまんちゅ！）and "Amanchu! Advance"（あまんちゅ！〜あどばんす〜）. My anime buddy might have the soundtrack, and if so, he could probably use it for relaxation purposes. In fact, I would highly recommend getting a hammock just for those purposes.

Back in early 2016, I wrote about PSY-S' collaborative 1987 album "Collection" and lamented that I couldn't feature a full version of one of my favourite tracks on that release by Gontiti themselves. Well, I'm no longer lamenting. About a good 30 years before Masahiko "Gonzalez" Mikami（三上雅彦）and Masahide "Titi" Matsumura（松村正秀）wove their wonderful feel-good music about a couple of high school divers, they contributed to "Collection" with "Honto no Uso" (True Lies).

As I mentioned in the article for the original album, while Gontiti created "Honto no Uso", PSY-S' Masaya Matsuura（松浦雅也）arranged it and vocalist CHAKA added some of her vocals. It's some lovely relaxing bossa nova with some of those Matsuura synths thrown in for good measure. I especially love that one part in there when the duo go into a brief exploratory instrumental with their guitars.

Arisa Mizuki -- In The Rain

Although I thoroughly enjoyed Arisa Mizuki's（観月ありさ）debut single "Densetsu no Shojo"（伝説の少女）to the point that I shucked out the yen to get the CD single, after listening to a few of her other songs on TV shows such as "Music Station", frankly, my impression was that her first song was a fluke and that she really couldn't sing all that well. This would explain why there aren't too many entries for Mizuki thus far.

Well, when I was writing about singer-songwriter Chika Ueda's（上田知華）unique "Hurricane" a couple of weeks ago, I also discovered this Mizuki song that had been both written and composed by Ueda. For me, Ueda has had a good track record in crafting very pleasant pop songs for other singers, so I decided to give it a go.

Indeed, the Ueda reputation isn't only still intact with me but I was happily surprised to find out that Mizuki recorded "In The Rain" quite well. I do realize that there is a difference between the actual recording for an album and a live performance on a TV show, but still, it was nice to hear Mizuki not sounding off-tune or me visualizing eighth notes with bandages. The song is mellow and groovy and rather classy, and the singer even sounds like she was really trying to emulate Ueda herself. Those 90s synths really set the mood.

"In The Rain" was a track on her 2nd BEST compilation, "Fiore II", which was released in December 1997. It got as high as No. 69 on Oricon.

Michiru Kojima -- Sunset Boulevard（サンセット・ブールバード）

I'm considering Michiru Kojima（児島未散）to be one of those unsung pop singers from the 1980s and 1990s. With a nice and light voice reminiscent of aidoru singing some of that straight-ahead pop, she reminds me somewhat of Hiroko Yakushimaru（薬師丸ひろ子）and Yuki Saito（斉藤由貴）to some degree.

When I first came across this song title, I had assumed that it was "Sunset Bluebird" instead of "Sunset Boulevard"; amazing how one dash can change everything (just ask Ben Johnson...sorry, that was a very old joke there). I have seen the 1950 film noir of the same name by Billy Wilder, but I can assure you that Kojima's "Sunset Boulevard" is a whole lot more happier.

The arrangement of this song that got onto her debut album "Best Friend" back in September 1985 has that gently lilting 50s feeling which automatically had me thinking Yumi Matsutoya（松任谷由実）and Mariya Takeuchi（竹内まりや）. However, it was actually Tetsuji Hayashi（林哲司）who composed "Sunset Boulevard", and he's no slouch when it comes to mellow tunes. It's a pleasant sepia-toned 5 minutes of nostalgia with lyrics by Takashi Matsumoto（松本隆）. Quite relaxing and I can just as easily imagine the aforementioned Yakushimaru and Saito covering this one. "Sunset Boulevard" was also the B-side on Kojima's debut single, "September Monogatari"（セプテンバー物語...September Story）.

I will have to thank YouTuber オンガクch2号 since he put this one up in the last 24 hours or so. It's always nice when some of the more obscure pop songs from Japan reveal themselves.