One day my friend Dan set the timer on his VCR to tape some sports show. Unfortunately for him (or rather, quite fortunately), he forgot to set the CHANNEL on the right station, so he ended up getting UTA NO LUNCHBOX, a show featuring japanese pop videos! On that fateful episode were both Miura Rieko’s new PV for her song “Dakishimete Destiny” ” (which will also have to appear on this list at some point!), and the latest video from Rieko’s group CoCo, a PV for a song called “Koi No Junction”! He immediately fell in love with the group and made the decision to find out all he could about Rieko and her group CoCo!
He Moseyed his way on down to Tower Records, where there was a pretty good selection of J-pop laserdiscs to look through, and found a concert called “DELUXE EDITION”, which had not only the Koi No Junction PV, but also the PV for “Yokohama BOY STYLE” as well as the “Making of’s” for both PVs…AND the WHOLE 1993 Concert, besides!
By the time he got around to introducing me to CoCo, he’d already acquired quite a few other their things- Two CD’s, (Ichiban and Sweet and Bitter) as well as the laserdiscs of Deluxe Edition 1993, The CoCo Collection First and Last Video Clips, and…their farewell concert, FOREVER!
Yes, by the time I got into it, the group had just disbanded! But it was hardly the end for US… Dayo had gotten his hands on a wonderfulinformative CoCo book (Mirai Wa CoCo Kara) that listed just about EVERYTHING we needed to know, CD and Single discography as well as shashinshuus and laserdisc collections, and this gave us the “checklist” we needed to get strated on ourJ-Pop Idol scavenger hunt!
Years later, (and many paychecks later, too!) we finally completed our collections, and we’re talking CDs, singles, as well as EACH INDIVIDUAL MEMBER’S solo singles and CDs, too! Ah, it wa a happy day when we completed that very last single…I’m not sure which one it was for him, but for ME, the last thing I needed was Reiko Miura’s single for “Kamisama Kara Moratta Chance”, a single that ironically enough was performed on that very first laserdisc DELUXE EDITION that Dayo bought all those years ago!
But here it is…the CoCo single that started it all, and led us on a still-continuing journey of J-pop, KOI NO JUNCTION!
But here it is…the CoCo single that started it all, and led us on a still-continuing journey of J-pop, KOI NO JUNCTION!
