It told the tale of a pretty girl from the countryside named Hiroko Minagawa who comes to the big city to support her younger brother Yutaro (Mirei Moriyama) as she looks for her fiance who had run back home.
Half the fun of this drama was watching the wide-eyed and naive country girl taking in the sights of the city lights and learning its fast paced lifestyle, and whenever they had a montage of Hiroko “glowing up” i.e. trying on clothes, etc, they would always play this cute bubbly insert song which I really liked! It always sounded to me like the girl was saying "tandoori" in the verses, making me call it the "Tandoori Chicken Song", but I had to laugh when I realized that she wasn’t singing “Tandoori” at ALL, but the word “Tenderly”, albeit in full “Engrish” mode! LOLOL
After a few episodes of listening to this catchy tune, I just HAD to get a copy of it, or at least in MP3 form, but had no IDEA what it was called or who sang it! The Dramawiki and Asianwiki stats were no help, as insert songs were rarely credited, and only the main theme song was ever posted. But doing some digging, I found the tracklisting for original SOUNDTRACK for Kiken Na Aneki, and WHADDAYA know, that insert song was the FIRST song on the album! The song was called “Tender Love”, sung by an artist known mononymously as “Rie”! And though I didn't realize it, she was an artist I'd heard before!
Though this girl went by "Rie" on the CD, upon further digging, I found out her full name was Rie Yatsuka and GET THIS- she was part of the awesome trio Letit Go back in the mid 90's! WHAAA!!! Letit Go was a trio from back in my "Golden Age of J-pop" that I REALLY loved, an act that sang one of my all-time favorite J-pop songs, the beautiful "200 Bai No Yume", a song which I've gushed about here and have loved all my life!
Reading up, seems both Rie and sister Junko Yatsuka left after making that first landmark album and replaced by singer Taemy, which explained why whenever I saw Letit Go later, it was a duo instead of a trio! Who KNEW!! In any case, It's great to find that the sisters, or Rie at least, continued to make great catchy tunes, ones that really spoke to my bubblegummy sensibilities! Here's TENDER LOVE!
Posted by zdorama @zdoramaaagain.blogspot.com
