The first time I came across Kohki Okada (credited as "Kenichi" Okada) was in the incredible five-star drama AISHITEIRU TO ITTEKURE (Say You Love Me) as Takako Tokiwa’s best friend Ken-Chan, the guy who’s always there to support her while secretly liking her, and ultimately coming between her and Etsushi Toyokawa’s characater Koji! (Upon re-watching it years later, I’ve come to see his character in a lot more sympathetic light, and realize he REALLY tried to “do the right thing” and advise Kyoko whenever she had troubles with Koji, but hey, when the opportunity to be with her came up, he couldn’t help himself!)
Anyway.
A year or so after Say You Love Me ended, a friend turned me onto a new single called BUKIONNA LOVE SONG, and what do you know, the singer turned out to be none other than Ken-Chan! Why, I didn’t know he sang...Silly Me! Little did I realize that I ALREADY knew quite a few songs from him; more precisely, I knew songs from j-pop trio TO BE CONTINUED, the vocal group that I was to learn Kohki was from! In fact, a couple of THOSE songs are probably gonna be featured at some point on this blog here, they were really good!
I was able to get a live performance of Kohki performing Bukkionna Love Song on some music show, either Music Station or Music Fair, can’t really remember which one, but that perf really solidified him (in my eyes) as a cool guy, forever distancing himself from the shady "Say You Love Me" character once and for all…And that’s a good thing!
He seemed to play these kind of characters well, and I would see him next as a foil AGAIN, this time coming between Domoto Tsuyoshi and Sachie Hara in TO HEART~KOINI SHINITAI and later (much later) as one of the “Night Kings” in YAOH starring Masahiro Matsuoka!
Awesome song, though, and listening to it now makes me want to break out my TO BE CONTINUED songs as well!
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The first 20 seconds or so of this Music Station performance of Kohki playing "Bukionna Love Song"
is a bit out-of--sync, but bear with it- it stabilizes!