Kikuko Inoue, Yumi Touma and Aya Hisakawa -- Kataomoi Shika Shiranai Kuse ni （片思いしか知らないくせに）

Between stints in Japan (1991-1994), when I was back to being involved with my old university club at U of T, the JCSA, there were a number of programs being run including English Through Video for those working-holiday students who wanted to learn some words and expressions via Hollywood movies (psst, I don't think "9 1/2 Weeks" was such a great choice) and Japanese Through Video for those who wanted to do the same from the Japanese language via the various J-dramas.

Then, once in a while, my anime buddy, the same fellow that I get together with biweekly for our food-and-anime sessions, held anime presentations on campus (I think the genre was still known as Japanimation back then). One of the favourites among the audience during the sessions was the show "Ah! Megami-sama"（ああっ女神さまっ...Ah! My Goddess）. To be honest, I don't remember much about the overall story anymore since my 17 years in Japan were anime-free aside from "Sazae-san" (サザエさん) and "Chibi Maruko-chan"(ちびまる子ちゃん), but I do remember the basic premise of three sister goddesses taking up residence in a teenage boy's residence. It all struck me as being somewhat "I Dream of Jeannie". However, instead of the simple name of Jeannie, I had to take in the relatively complex names of Belldandy, Urd and Skuld.

Although with my return to the anime fold in the last few years since my permanent return to Toronto, I've been able to retain my knowledge of the brightest and best in the seiyuu world, back in the early 90s, I had no idea who was voicing who in the world of anime back then although my buddy would rattle them off all the time. I simply smiled and nodded. So it was a surprise to find out that on hearing the above song at my buddy's house, two of the singers involved here were seiyuu that I do know now.

"Kataomoi Shika Shiranai Kuse ni" (Even Though My Unrequited Love Is Still Unknown) is on one of the many albums devoted to "Ah! Megami-sama", "Kamisama no Okurimono"（神さまの贈りもの...God's Present） from 1993. And the singers (under the group name of Goddess Family Club) are the ones who played the goddesses Belldandy, Urd and Skuld, seiyuu Kikuko Inoue（井上喜久子）, Yumi Touma（冬馬由美）and Aya Hisakawa（久川綾 ）respectively.

Touma is a seiyuu that hasn't rung a bell with me although looking her up on J-Wiki, I found out that she had played the cold-as-ice mother to heroine Miho Nishizumi in the recent sleeper hit "Girls und Panzer". However, Inoue and Hisakawa are voices that I've heard everywhere in the last few years in more older authority roles. Inoue, of course, is eternally 17 years old. However, realizing that it was Hisakawa who was voicing the often-petulant Skuld was surprising since at around the same time, she was the shy and reasonable voice behind the arguably even more famous Sailor Mercury in the "Sailor Moon" franchise.

Anyways, listening to "Kataomoi Shika Shiranai Kuse ni" was quite pleasant and nostalgic since its arrangement sounds like something that I would have heard in the lighter side of Japanese pop back in the late 80s or early 90s just from the choice of synths. I've sometimes said that anison from a certain age had elements from an even earlier age, and I think this song is one example of this. Perhaps I can even pick up a certain Resort Pop sound in it as well. The song by the way was composed by Kenji Kawai（川井憲次）and written by Sora Hasegawa（長谷川空）.

I'm devoting "Kataomoi Shika Shiranai Kuse ni" to veteran seiyuu Yuko Mizutani（水谷優子）. She performed so many roles but considering that my family still watches "Chibi Maruko-chan" on TV Japan, I know her best as Maruko's older sister, Sakiko Sakura. Unfortunately, I found out this morning that Mizutani had passed away a couple of days ago from breast cancer at the too-young age of 51. Go-meifuku wo o-inori shimasu.

Shizuka Kudo -- Metamorphose (メタモルフォーゼ)

The only thing I remember about the J-comedy "Nandara Mandara"（なんだらまんだら）starring the late Mitsuko Mori（森光子）and Shizuka Kudo（工藤静香）was the Monty Python-esque opening credits and some of the bloopers that got shown on a variety special almost 25 years ago. Apparently the comedy was another hour of goofy romance involving a securities employee determined to woo a young lady played by Kudo who lives with her mother in an old building that she owns on a back street of Ginza.

Then I came across the ending theme sung by Kudo, "Metamorphose", and I went "Where have you been all my life?" Not that I think it's quite on the same level as some of her past hits from the late 80s but still it's got quite the nice tempo and arrangement. And it sounds quite different from those earlier successes although Tsugutoshi Goto（後藤次利）was the one behind the melody; he was also the composer behind "Mugon Iroppoi"（ＭＵＧＯ・ん　色っぽい）. I would say that the song has that mix of the oomph energy from songs like "Mugon Iroppoi" without the heavy artillery of electric guitars and synths and some more of that urban contemporary feeling that fills a Masayuki Suzuki（鈴木雅之）tune.

"Metamorphose" is Kudo's 14th single from October 1991. And along with Goto's melody, another veteran in the form of Goro Matsui（松井五郎）took care of the lyrics. It made it up to No. 2 on the singles charts and quickly became the 50th-ranked single of the year. She also performed the song during her 4th appearance on the 1991 Kohaku Utagassen. "Metamorphose" was first placed in an album on her 4th BEST compilation "intimate" which came out in December that year. It peaked at No. 4.

Perfume -- love the world

I haven't pulled out this disc for quite a while. After getting hooked onto Perfume's "Polyrhythm" (ポリリズム), thanks to that TV ad about recycling, I ended up getting their 1st album "GAME" soon after. Then it wasn't too long after that I decided to pick up their 7th major single, "love the world".

Released in June 2008, "love the world" sounded a bit less funky than "Polyrhythm" but I still enjoyed that bass synth beat anchoring everything while Kashiyuka, A-chan and Nocchi went full throttle on their vocoders and strutted around in the video as they played around in the hall of mirrors and Rubik cubes. Of course, Yasutaka Nakata（中田ヤスタカ）took care of music and lyrics. Listening to this one and some of the tracks from "GAME", at the time I felt that Perfume was about to walk on ground that Yellow Magic Orchestra had once broken some decades back.

In fact, Kashiyuka, A-chan and Nocchi pulled off something with "love the world" that even Haruomi, Ryuichi and Yukihiro hadn't done in YMO, and that was to be the first technopop unit with the highest-ranking single in Oricon history according to Wikipedia and J-Wiki. YMO had possessed the record back in 1983 when their "Kimi ni Mune Kyun"（君に、胸キュン）got as high as No. 2 on the charts. Not surprisingly, "love the world" is so far Perfume's most successful hit. It would end up being ranked No. 47 in the yearly charts as well as being certified Gold. It also became one of the tracks on their 2nd album from July 2009 "⊿", also a chart-topper and the 20th-ranked album for that year.

"love the world" also got its own debut in a commercial...this time for Sharp.

Bread & Butter -- The Last Letter

A nice lazy and sunny Wednesday afternoon here...just the right type of day for this song, Bread & Butter's "The Last Letter". This track from the duo's 6th album, "Late Late Summer" which includes "Summer Blue" simply screams for a bottle of Perrier and a beach umbrella. It's quite the song for those yuppies who like to wrap their pink sweaters around their waists as they did back in the early 1980s.

Mind you, "Late Late Summer" came out in June 1979. As for "The Last Letter", it's a mellow and slightly comical song about trying to mend a figurative broken fence for a couple with that titular last letter being the final olive branch. Strangely enough, the song was created by two-thirds of the then-super popular technopop Yellow Magic Orchestra, drummer Yukihiro Takahashi（高橋幸宏）and bassist Haruomi Hosono（細野晴臣）. And the other interesting thing is that Satsuya and Fuyumi Iwasawa（岩沢幸矢・岩沢二弓）especially sound like another duo from another genre, the Shibuya-kei Flippers' Guitar, on this particular track.

Aming -- Lover My Love

Just as much as the electric guitar and strings became an identifying trope for me when it came to Japanese popular music of the 1970s, some of Japan's 80s pop was represented by a combination of synths, an introspective piano and some soaring strings.

For that reason, Aming's（あみん） "Lover My Love" hit me right in the heart as soon as I heard it. This wasn't even the A-side but the B-side to the duo's 3rd single "Kokoro Komete Ai wo Komete"（心こめて 愛をこめて...With My Heart, With Love） from April 1983. Just from listening to this ballad, I realized that Aming's discography may be a microcosm of my exploration of Japanese pop music in general: all of the Oricon hits at the very top of the iceberg with a good number of hidden gems deep below the surface of the ocean.

Takako Okamura（岡村孝子）, one-half of Aming at the time, wrote and composed and sang this song about the reminiscences and regrets of a past romance before the decision to move on with life. But it's Okamura's melody beginning with that piano and then the entry of those soaring strings and percussion that made it all worthwhile for me. Perhaps I might grab the BEST compilation that it was finally placed on, "P.P.S. Anata e..."（P.P.S. あなたへ…To You） which was released in December 2007. As for the single "Kokoro Komete Ai wo Komete", it got up as high as No. 18.

Hiromi Ohta -- Akai High Heel（赤いハイヒール）

Hiromi Ohta（太田裕美）must look back at the mid-1970s and look back fondly. Not only did she score her most successful hit with what has become her trademark song "Momen no Handkerchief"（木綿のハンカチーフ）at the end of 1975, but then she backed that up with her 2nd-most successful single in "Akai High Heel" (Red High Heels).

Released in June 1976 as her 5th single, "Akai High Heel" was written by the same duo who took care of her previous single of "Momen no Handkerchief", Takashi Matsumoto（松本隆）and Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）. Alternating between wistful and jaunty, the song has a bit more darkness in its story about a couple who come to the big city with the guy buying his girlfriend (or wife) a pair of those red high heels. The heels become the lyrical representation of their turbulent time in Tokyo as the shoes start getting damaged. By the end of the song, it's decided that the two will return to their hometown in the countryside.

As I got further into the lyrics, I realized that both the woman and the man were giving their opinions on the situation within each verse with the former enjoying her time in the big city far less than the latter. But although there was sadness at the beginning of each verse, there would be hope by the end, especially when the couple came to the conclusion that their hometown was probably the best place to be after all...without needing to wear the heels anymore.

"Akai High Heel", like "Momen no Handkerchief", peaked at No. 2 and became the 13th-ranked single of the year. The song became a million-seller and was placed in Ohta's 4th album, "Tezukuri no Gashuu"（手作りの画集...Homemade Art Book）.

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Folder -- Parachuter （パラシューター）

In the early days of my time teaching in the Tokyo area, my teaching schedule was askew in that my weekends were Mondays and Tuesdays. The old NOVA school empire definitely made a regular Saturday and Sunday something to be preciously earned over many years...something that didn't sit well with me initially at least. However, there were some advantages in that visiting the various sightseeing sites and restaurants of Tokyo were much less crowded although my social life (such as it was) was slightly cramped when it came to going out with friends on Saturdays and Sundays since I couldn't stay out long at all.

However, I could be more leisurely about things on those Mondays and Tuesdays and there was a certain feeling of satisfaction that while everyone else had to rush out to work on Blue Monday, I was able to sleep in a bit more although for me, sleeping in meant waking up at 8 am. Often after the news was over at that time on Fuji-TV, I ended up watching the program that followed immediately afterwards which was the kid program Ponkikies（ポンキッキーズ）. That show could only have been geared for the kindergarten set since I couldn't imagine any kids older than 5 in Japan still staying at home at that time. But in any case, it was amusing to watch some of the antics of the characters and the music segments, one of which often included the kids' singing & dancing group, Folder.

This group of seven kids was launched from the Okinawa Actors' School, following in the footsteps of Namie Amuro（安室奈美恵）and SPEED. And it consisted of 5 girls and 2 boys of elementary and junior high school age: DAICHI, AKINA, ARISA, HIKARI, NATSU, MOE and JOE (the capital letters were their idea, not mine).

Debuting officially in August 1997 with "Parachuter", I have to say that this pint-sized engine of song & dance could cut quite the rug (my generation's equivalent of "bust a move") and the song created by Kazuko Kobayashi and Minoru Komorita（小林和子・小森田実）is quite catchy. The background vocals made me wonder if either Toshinobu Kubota or Keizo Nakanishi had a hand in the song's production but that didn't seem to be the case.

The single also made it onto Folder's first album "The Earth" which came out in November 1998. I couldn't find out in either the single or the album's case whether they were successful on Oricon but I'm fairly sure from their television exposure that they had a goodly amount of attention.

As Folder, the unit released a total of 7 singles and 2 albums between 1997 and 2000 before the two boys, JOE and DAICHI, left the group leaving just the 5 girls to keep going for a few more years as Folder5. Marcos V. has already written about one of their songs, "Final Fun-Boy" from 2001. Folder5 then folded (oops, sorry) in 2003.

According to J-Wiki, most of Folder have gone on to bigger and better things such as becoming solo singers and choreographers in their own right. But the most famous member has been HIKARI, or as she is known now, actress Hikari Mitsushima（満島ひかり）who is now showing on TV screens on TV Japan on Monday nights portraying the real-life over-the-top actress/host Tetsuko Kuroyanagi in "Totto Terebi"（トットてれび...Totto TV） on NHK.