Among the J-pop artists that were featured on that very first j-pop cassette mix I got from a friend back in 1995 was a singer that would go on to record MANY of my very favorite j-pop singles, and that was Miss Kyoko “Kyon Kyon” Koizumi, and the very first song I ever heard from her was the sultry and rockin’ number TSUKI HITOSHIZUKU!
At the time it struck me how similar she sounded to another one of the artists on that cassette mix, Miho Nakayama, and I would learn later that they both came from just about the same era, starting out in the early 80’s as pop idols and making their way up to adult contemporary singers and established actresses in their own right with movies and dramas! In fact, to this day I still consider them two peas from the same pod, and I love ‘em BOTH!
Going to the local Japanese video rental store, I was able to rent some Christmas Music specials, and wouldn’t ya know it, right along with others like Nakayama Miho, Kudoh Shizuka and SMAP was Kyon Kyon all dressed up cute, silvery and glitzy as befitting a star singing her ode to the Moon, complete with a huge crescent moon necklace and a transparent guitar perfect for air-guitaring along with the music! It was AWESOME! Kirei Da Ne, Indeed!
If that wasn’t enough to make me just fall in love with the song, and additional treat came along with j-pop music show HEY HEY HEY’s year-end NG special, where they aired all the fun “bloopers” of the past year, where there was this hilarious scene when Kyon Kyon was singing Tsuki Hitoshizuku and when the camera zoomed up, it hit the stand, making the microphone bop Kyoko on the head! LOL! It didn’t hurt her, but as she tried to sing the re-takes, she kept laughing thinking about it! SO FUNNY!
Ahhh, she had so many great songs that when she came out with her singles collection ANY TIME, I picked that one up right away, and she was one of the few non-CoCo artists I’d bought at the time along with acts like Be-B, Ohguro Maki and Zard! And she wasn’t done yet, as she would go on to record even MORE of my favorite j-pop songs and star in some of my very favorite DRAMAS, too! Whatta Gal!
