ribbon: Aiko Sato, Hiromi Nagasaku, Arimi Matsuno
My introduction to RIBBON began with my love for CoCo. I had purchased a laserdisc called “Otomejuku Matsuri” that featured a whole bunch of Pony Canyon idol artists together for one Big Concert. The roster included CoCo, Qlair, Nakajima Miyuki, Horikawa Sanae, Hanashima Yuki. and the Pony Canyon party girls RIBBON!
You first meet the stable of Pony Canyon idol Groups as they get off the tour bus, and right away Ribbon stands out from the rest of them. As each girl gets off, they say “Ohaiyo Gozaimasu!” to the camera, but then Hiromi Nagasaku gets off and cries “GOOOOOOOD MORNING!”Aiko Sato follows with “OhaiYO!”and then Arimi Matsuno comes out with a happy “HELLO!
As you watch the backstage footage of the girls introducing themselves, it is pretty much the same thing: In contrast to the sweet and proper CoCo, the gals in Ribbon seemed zany and talkative (very oshaberi) and even then you could tell that they were probably a pretty interesting group to get into!
Unfortunately for my first impressions of Ribbon, their actual performance started off on the wrong foot. Their Stage outfits...hmmm, welll, they were NOT to my liking, additionally, Arimi and Aiko had these weird curly permed hairstyles which didn't help!
But ONE THING that you COULDN'T DENY was that the SONG they were singing, “Taiyo No Yukue”, was TERRIFIC! Then right into the swinging “Wakatte Nai Ne”…These girls KICKED ASS!
The songs were so good, and they gave off such real stage presence when they were on, that I dismissed the bad hair and costumes, and wanted to find out more about them! Now, these two songs were on a ribbon Greatest Hits package called "Delicious" and I tried to order it thru Tower Records. I was to discover, however, that it was sadly out of print!With that sad setback, my interest in Ribbon could have ended there, but then my friend and co-worker Holly came with a consolation prize of sorts! She looked upon my new interest in ribbon with some bemusement, and told me she had an old ribbon CD which she offered to give me for FREE! I gushed with GRATITUDE for THAT, and the next day she came in with what would be my very FIRST ribbon album, their SECOND Greatest Hits Collection called (what else) “More Delicious”! This was an AWESOME package, and I listened to it EACH and every day!
It didn't have any of the songs I had heard from the girls before, but it instead introduced me to a whole slew of NEW fave songs to love! Songs like “Be My Diamond”, “Do You Remember Me?” “Sensational Wind” “Deep Breath”, and the incredible “Taiyo Ni Hi wo Tsukete”... I loved these songs MANIACALLY, and soon craved seeing them performed LIVE...
Back then there were these huge catalogs which listed all J-pops CD and Laserdisc releases, and looking through the ribbon info, found a concert where ribbon performed live all the new songs I'd just been introduced to! It was a Laserdisc called “Zoku Harlem Night” and thanks to HEAVEN, I was able to backorder and purchase a copy from Hakabundo that weekend!!!
I was on pins and needles waiting for that disc to come in, but when it DID, I wasted NO TIME checking it out, and it BLEW ME AWAY!!! Holy Toledo, this concert was SO GOOD! And unlike my earlier Otomejuku Matsuri experience, the girls looked FANTASTIC here, pretty as HECK and OOH those outfits were sleek and SEXY to boot! And the songs. What can I say. They were just PERFECT! The live performances of the songs I wanted to see like “Sensational Wind” “Deep Breath”, and “Taiyo Ni Hi wo Tsukete”" were alll performed IMPECCABLY, and while watching and REWATCHING the concert, introduced me to a whole bunch of NEW favorite songs, tunes such as “Heart Dake Ga Universe”, “Wish”, “Circus Parade”, and “Ano Koni Yoroshiku”, a song which remains to this day my all-time favorite Ribbon track!
It seemed like everything I heard from these girls was solid gold, and I realized that I wanted, no, NEEDED, to get ALL of ribbon’s back-catalog!! But as I'd learned trying to get "Delicious", all of ribbon's catalog was mostly out of print! What to do!!!
But JUST THEN, as if FATE stepped in, the local Shirokiya just got a HUGE back catalog of old CDs and magazines (like, literally SHELVES of stuff!) and what do you know- thee were a BUNCH of ribbon CDs in there as well!
I picked up Lucky Night (1st CD), Wonderful Deikou (2nd CD) Jessica (3rd CD), Knight (5th CD), Merry-Hurry (7th CD) and…drum roll…The Elusive DELICIOUS Greatest Hits CD!
I gotta tell you, the girl at the register had this baffled look on my face as I plunked the stack of CDs onto the counter!
This was the beginning of my RIBBON OBSESSION and I've never looked back!!!
At the height of my mania, I made a Ribbon cassette tape mix for a friend Sab because I just knew he’d like ‘em too! He was initially skeptical because he just hated the Otomejuku performance. But once he saw the Zoku Harlem Night performance, HE fell in love with them, TOO! And here was the key: it was because we were trying to complete our collections that we found out about the wonderful CD store Otokichi Premium, and it was through owner Masa that I was FINALLY ABLE to get all the CDs and Singles I was missing! Not to mention the Laserdisc collections! Through Otokichi Premium, I acquired:
R753 (4th CD), and Hoshi No ki No Shita De (6th CD)
CD Singles:
Soba ni Iru ne, Taiyo no Yukue, Sore Wa Ii Wa Nai Yakusoku, Deep Breath, Taiyo ni Hi o Tsukete, "S"ENSATIONAL WIND", Do You Remember Me?,Be My Diamond!, Yoru Kenanteiranai and Hiromi Nagasaku’s “My Home Town”
And Laserdiscs:
Parade Parade (First Concert), Harlem Night , and Ribbon EXTRA!
Over time, I began to see them as the direct sister act to CoCo. Where CoCo was the flagship Pony Canyon Otomejuku idol group, Ribbon were the more edgy rock flavored group. The two groups began to become part of a bigger thing: The whole Otomejuku-Paradise-Go-Go Pony Canyon explosion that I will always remember as my first BIG foray into J-Pop!
Comments from original post:
yametekudasai wrote:
woooo.... more memories...
Some quick notes.
No, I am STILL NOT fond of the "Otomejuku Matsuri" songs. They MUST be popular with fans cause they always show up on compilations but they never endeared themselves to my personal sense. But boy how you NOT love how looney tunes they were in that concert.
However it WAS the "Zoku Harlem Night" concert that became the HOLY GRAIL for me. It had those great "KNIGHT" songs ("Mitsu no Negai", "Naitari Mou Suru") that may have never been done again in concert. The backing band "FOUR BOYS" sounded tight and got a back beat, you can't lose it. And the last set outfits, stripping layer after layer... I'm surprised there wasn't a meltdown in the audience when they revealed... well, I'm not sure I should be posting spoilers here! (No, I'm NOT going to discuss Aiko's solo.) Getting that laserdisc was like winning a major sports championship (I STILL have to make a proper DVD transfer, btw).
Hey did anyone ever get that "Hong Kong" laserdisc? Cause the last one I got was that offbeat nature video where they had more images of fuzzy sunsets than the girls themselves...
yametekudasai wrote:
I just rechecked our fave song lists (04 May 2003) and I REALLY hammered the "Otomejuku Matsuri" songs. I had "Wakattenai ne" at #71 (out of 84) and "Taiyou no Yukue" #76. Both of you had them comfortably in the upper tier.
Of course, I made up for it with the album tracks from "Wonderful de Ikou," especially "Shi-gatsu no Silhouette" which had perhaps the greatest deviation in terms of song ranking.
MorningBerryz wrote:
zdorama thank you for sharing this with us. I wasn't aware that you were trying to get some of their releases back then until you officially introduced their music to me. I just remember you had gone to Shirokiya and found a whole bunch of their releases. I went down and saw that nothing was left! Doh! And yes Otokichi single handedly completed my Ribbon album & single collection. He even got me Nagasaku Hiromi's solo releases including an interesting first pressing which came in a flimsy cardboard case. lol. The Otomejuku Matsuri concert is something that you guys are much more familiar with than me. One thing is for sure it's a very very important concert. Just to know what this concert inspired. zdorama a very big thank you for turning me on to the awesome music of Ribbon. And of course for teaching me everything there is to know about CoCo. I don't think that I would be the fan I am today of CoCo if I hadn't met you. So thank you Holly too! :)
And those Ribbon lists! I'm glad that we did those back then. I just took my Ribbon folder out and I really don't think that I'd change anything about my list today. It still seems right.
"Mittsu no negai" and"Naitari mo suru" are songs that we both really love! Both of these songs are in my top 10. "Sayonara ga owaru made" always blows me away too whenever I listen to it. Heheh it's just me I see. But then again I've always been known to have different taste in songs from groups that we all love. Such great songwriting here. We all love "Anoko ni yoroshiku"!! The PV is so cute too!
Another thing to note about Ribbon is how well each member sings! I mean they all sound awesome! No weaker vocalist here. Nagasaku "Babyface" Hiromi will always be my favorite member! :)
zdorama wrote:
Saburo- i'm waiting for you to rip that Ribbon Concert! I would love to upload that perf of "Ano Koni Yoroshiku",as it is my favorite perforamcne of that song.
Morngingberryz-Yes, ribbon was exeptional in the fact that they had great singers. Hirochan and Arimi just belted out those songs!
yametekudasai wrote:
FWIW... I've already recorded the "Zoku" concert to DVD. I just have to chapter the whole thing and decide how fancy the menu should be.
This is, of course, one of a dozen video projects I should have finished a year or so ago. So much stuff, never enough time...
