A Wild Nana Appeared!

 Was watching the last two episodes of the fun “Saiko no Obahan Nakajima Haruko” and was THRILLED to realize that the main villain of the final story was played by none other than NANA of MAX fame!

Oh my GOSH, I haven’t seen this gal in YEARS, but as soon as she came onscreen as a foil for poor Izumi’s (Marika Matsumoto) romance interests, I was like, “Hey, that chick looks JUST like Nana! Is she…acting as her primary gig now?” 

So much fun to see her try and test her mettle against the world’s greatest “Obahan” Haruko Nakajima (Mao Daichi) but of course we all knew who wuz gonna win THAT one!

Hope ALL the MAX girls are doing well~ GOSH did I LOVE them back in the day!

EDIT: Just found out that the original line-up of MAX (with Mina but sans Reina) have reunited and have been BACK onstage!!! Congrats!!!!

In Praise of the Original “Super Monkeys” Tracks

I got into J-pop just as singer Namie Amuro was ascending to the heights of J-pop popularity,  back in 1995, it seemed like there was no place you could go or show you could watch  (J-pop wise) without seeing her face or hearing one of her catchy songs. I had already picked up her CD “Dance Tracks” which featured all of her recent electronic dance hits, but it was when the J-pop buyer of Tower Records had brought in all of Namie’s earlier singles with Super Monkey’s that I decided I had to investigate her music more!

 I bought all four of the singles, and upon getting home, i was happily surprised at how catchy and FUN the songs were! I was used to associating Namie Amuro with the Electonic style music, and it was thrilling to hear her doing actual, bubbly and cutesy J-POP!

The first single, from late 1992 was the song “Koi No Cute Beat” and it was very much in the style of Pony Canyon acts, jangly synth pop, but it was the B-side “Mister USA” that really caught my ear- so dancey and full of happy pop  (think Radio Disney) that I just couldn’t get enough! It was hearing this song that I knew Namie was going to be an artist whom I would love for life!

The next song was the theme song from the cartoon Nintama Rantarou, a tune called “Dancing Junk”. Anna Makino had left the group by this time and they had changed their name to “Super Monkey’s 4”. 

This was an OK song, (though I must admit this live performance below is really great) but it is noteworthy that the B-side for this single was a Namie Amuro solo track, “Rainbow Moon”. Namie was already being groomed as the focus of the group and she proved she had the voice to do it!

The next single was a dancey number called “Aishite Muscat” which I really dug, and WOW, the "sound" of the future Namie Amuro and Super Monkeys was finally here!!! Such a rocking song!!

The B-side was the Namie Amuro Solo song “Wagamama Wo Yurushite”, and this was a powerful ballad that showed beyond doubt that this girl had the vocals worthy of superstardom! Give a listen to that powerful soulful choruses- hard to believe Namie is only 15 years old here!

The fourth single was “Paradise Train”, a super catchy groovy song, and the breezy vocal style of hers is unmistakeable!!!

...and if I thought the A-Side was good, the B-Side “Kanashiki Broken Boy” was even BETTER- So cool and CATCHY, this happy song is still one of my all-time favorite Namie Amuro tracks ever!

Listening to it, it’s AMAZING to realize how much this group had grown in such a short time- Within just 4 singles, Super Monkey’s had gone from a Disney-styled Kid Group to a full-fledged J-Pop Group with one HELLUVA singer! They had gone from Koi No Cute Beat to Paradise Train and their ascent was now complete as their very next single would be TRY ME~Watashi o Shinjite!!

Try Me, was, of course, the first single of the new “Techno-fied” Namie Amuro who would go on to conquer Japan with singles like Stop the Music, Chase the Chance, Taiyo No Season, Stop the Music,  A Walk In The Park and the all-time classic Can You Celebrate?! And to think, it all started with that cute little girl group Super Monkeys!

PS: By the time Namie had released her Tetsuya Koumro-penned song “Don’t Wanna Cry”, Namie had completely gone solo and the Super Monkeys were nowhere to be found. My world was oncea gain rocked when my co-worker Holly told me,  “You know that after Namie went solo, the other girls in Super Monkeys continued on as a new group, right?  They’re called MAX”. “WHATTT!!!!” I said. I made my way to the local J-pop Video rental store (this was a Japanese video rental shop in Waimalu Shopping Center, another long-gone store) and picked up the latest MUSIC STATIONs, and right there onstage was Mina, Reina, Nana and Rina as the newly formed MAX, singing their AWESOME new song “Tora Tora Tora”  and from there, a BRAND NEW favorite group was born!

Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com

Favorite J-Pop Singles: MAX / Tora Tora Tora

Probably the first group I loved after the huge explosion of obsession I had with the discovery of CoCo was NAMIE AMURO with SUPER-MONKEYS, a group I'd seen pretty regularly on j-music shows like POP JAM and Hey Hey Hey. I’d picked up Namie’s DANCE TRACKS VOl.1 and her solo single CHASE THE CHANCE, then Tower Records brought in the Super Monkeys’ ENTIRE back catalog of singles, and it was there I became a HUGE fan!

One day, a co-worker noticed my new mania for Namie and the Super Monkeys, and offhandedly said to me, “You know that after Namie went solo, the other girls in Super Monkeys continued on as a new group, right?”

“WHAT!!!?!” I excitedly exclaimed, causing my co-worker to jump back with mock alarm. This was AWESOME NEWS! In fact, I had actually been WONDERING whatever had happened to the other girls after Super Monkeys demise!

Looking into it, I found out that my co-worker was absolutely RIGHT: Nana, Mina Reina and Rina had come together as a new AVEX TRAX dance group called MAX and their latest single was a song called TORA TORA TORA!

I immediately put in a special order for that single and figured I had a few weeks to go before I could get it and hear just what the girls sounded like, bur as fate would have it, MAX appeared on the latest MUSIC STATION type I’d rented that weekend!  And the song they were on the show to promote? You guessed it- TORA TORA TORA! YATTA!

Hearing the song for the first time blew me away- catchy changes mixed with sassy dance moves, a perfect example if the AVEX TRAX sound, but what really knocked me out was how fricking CUTE the girls were!! Dressed in these adorable checkered outfits & white go-go boots, these girls totally took me in with their beaming smiles, and I fell in love BIG TIME!

At the time, the girl that really caught my fancy was the luxuriously long-haired NANA, but MAX became the one group where EVERY member became was my favorite at one point or another, I just LOVED them ALL!

I must have played and PLAYED that Music Station performance OVER AND OVER like 10 times, it was sooo good! I played that clip so much that my brother started wondering WHAT THE HECK was going on!!

A few weeks my single came in, and I even found out that they’d released two lesser-known singles BEFORE Tore Tora Tora, and I made sure I got THOSE singles, too! From there came a long lasting love of the group that introduced me to SO many other things!

Favorite J-Pop Singles: Amuro Namie / Stop The Music

Another one of the very first groups I saw performing on HEY HEY HEY all those years ago, Amuro Namie and Super Monkey’s (YES, with the grammatically incorrect apostrophe) was a regular visitor to the show, and became one of the first artists I fell in love with!

This performance of STOP THE MUSIC (which was, thankfully, recorded by Dano) was only the second time I saw Amuro and the girls singing live, and though I’d been properly blown away by the girls’ sexy appeal with TRY ME, all I could think during the interview with Hamada and Matsumoto during this episode was GOD DAMN those chicks is so FREAKIN’ PRETTY!!!!!

Watching this clip after so many years, it’s easy to see why we all loved Namie so much, with her sweet demeanor and that raspy voice, it was a surefire j-pop seller! And it’s also worth noting that it was here that I first became interested in knowing more about the girls behind Namie, the “Super Monkey’s” so to speak, since they were so darn cute, too, and this attraction later blossomed into a huge love of their later venture, MAX!!

PS: There was this beautiful poster of Stop The Music hanging in the j-pop section of Tower Records, and when it came time to take it down, I asked if I could have it and was told that a manager named Derrick was taking it. I was amazed, since this guy was a total heavy metal headbanger type who wouldn’t be caught dead listening to j-pop! When I saw him later that night, I asked him why he wanted that Namie Amuro poster if he didn't even like Japanese music, and he replied, “’Cause she’s a FRICKIN’ BABE!” Ah, I see!

Favorite J-Pop Singles: Akiko / Happy Little Time

My obsession with obtaining as many live performances of Super Monkeys alumnae MAX led me to a whole new world of music shows, and one of the shows I began watching was a nifty little show called YORU MO HIT PARADE.  This was more like a variety show with various geinokai (with MAX being one of the regulars) taking turns singing the latest hits off the weekly charts.

The format allowed me to hear songs that I wouldn’t have normally come across, and I fell in love with a good many songs and artists once I saw the tune sung and performed by MAX and/or one of the other regulars or one of the featured guests.

On one such occasion, I was thrilled to see Rieko Miura (beloved princess of Pony Canyon idols CoCo) as a guest, and was even further amped when I saw that she’d be singing along with MAX! Being a huge fan of both CoCo AND Super Monkeys, this was like a crossing of two worlds!

The song that they were chosen to perform was a song called “Happy Little Time”, a new single from an artist known only by the first-named moniker AKIKO. This was a cool, funky little tune, and I fell in love with it instantly! Such a catchy song, and I have to say the excitement of watching Rieko sing with MAX made me rewind that tape over and over again, til I knew I just HAD to have the “real” single for myself!

Having only heard the Rieko Miura / MAX rendition of the song, I was completely blown away hearing AKIKO ‘s cool R&B vocals signing the song for the first time HOLY CRAP, now THIS was the way the song was MEANT to be sung! Happy Little Time quickly became my favorite single at the time, and it became to opening track for the cassette mixes I was making for friends and myself!

Favorite J-Pop Singles: Shizuka Inou / Nakitai Kurai

         Back in the days when my favorite J-pop group was the Super-Monkeys offshoot group MAX, (that spectacular group featuring Mina, Rina, Nana and Reina) I was obsessed with getting my hands on anything and everything they appeared in! This led to a lot of introductions to great TV shows that I wouldn’t have known about otherwise, including Countdown TV, Utaban and a variety-style show called YORU MO HIT PARADE
The procedure was like this: The show would invite a variety of guest stars to sit on the bench, and they’d randomly(wink wink) choose some new song within the current top record charts by spinning a wheel, and the guests would take turns singing the different tunes of the day. There’d be a whole bunch of different musical guests every week, but one of the “house” guests, that is, some of the ones who were there every week, were Hide Nakamura, TV personality Marcia, and...yep, MAX!
  I loved MAX so much, it seemed like very time they performed some obscure song, I’d love it so much, I had to run out and buy the actual single from the original artist! This happened quite a few times, and one of the many singles I picked up was a low-bass little number called “Nakitai Kurai” by an artist I’d never heard of named Shizuka Inou.(and haven't heard from ever since, either!)

This is another one of those mysterious artists where all I have to go on is the pretty picture of Shizuka on the CD single sleeve, and not much else! Checking in with the handy Wikipedia, I came up with INFORMATION, at LAST!


Annie Shizuka Inoh (Chinese: 伊能静; pinyin: Yīnéng Jìng; Japanese: Inō Shizuka) is an actress from Taiwan. Born on March 4, 1969 in Taipei, Taiwan with the birthname of Wu Jingyi (吳靜怡), she changed her name after her mother remarried a Japanese man and then simplified it to Yi Neng Jing upon returning to Taiwan in 1988 to launch her singing career. She speaks Mandarin, Taiwanese, Cantonese, Japanese, English, and a little French. She married Harlem Yu (庾澄慶), a fellow Taiwanese singer and television personality, in the United States on 14th February 2000. Her height is 5' 3 1/2". She gave birth to Harrison on March 16, 2002 with husband Harlem Yu.
Wow! For someone I didn't know almost anything about, there sure is a LOT to digest!!!
I proudly present my favorite single from Annie Shizuka Inou: Nakitai Kurai!