One of the great things about watching terrific (and long-standing) music program MUSIC STATION is the fact that besides watching the show for the artists you already like, they were a PRIME source for hearing NEW talent, and I can’t count how many favorite performers I’d seen for the first time gracing their stage.
Back in mid-1995 or so I rented a couple of MUSIC STATION shows from the local Japan Video store because super-girl-group band Princess Princess was listed on them, but it also introduced me to a couple of new artists, one of whom was an adorable, tiny girl dressed in this pretty dress and looking an AWFUL LOT (to me at the time, anyway) like actress Yada Akiko (whom I’ve mentioned before I loved from her appearance in Aishiteirutte To Ittekure), and so I was really eager to hear what this girl sounded like!
After a brief interview with Tamori and Satsuki (where Tsunku from Sharan Q tried to make it all about him, mugging behind her), this girl, whom I learned was named Mochida Maki, hit the stage with her band, and from the very first drumroll intro, I WAS HOOKED! What a genki, “pure-j-pop” perfect song!! My instant though was how much it sounded like it could have been a song by Pony Canyon artists like Ribbon or Nishida Hikaru. The song even sounded a lot like Hikaru's "Kimi No Yukini Kampai".Maki herself even looked like she would have fit right in with the Paradise GoGo Alumni!
But besides her cute looks and rockin' little song, I have to say that her voice was what really “made” the tune for me; though she didn't seem to have a really strong or loud voice, its sweet-sounding and sincere tone actually made it better! Watching her arms swaying and keeping time to the song with her dance moves also added to the mixture, creating this totally lovable package!
As for the title of the song, at the time, I just couldn’t tell you. There were simply too much kanji in it that I didn’t recognize! Come to think of it, I’m not sure if I’d even learned my hiraganas yet!
A few months later and I’m talking to a coworker, and he mentions that he really likes that artist Mochida Maki, to which I excitedly tell him that I have a performance of hers off of Music Station (but don’t recall the name of it), and he’s welcome to come check it out!
When he finally gets up to my house and I dig up this awesome video, he is totally awed by the performance. “You know,” he tells me as we’re watching the video, “Though I’ve been a fan of hers for a WHILE now, this is the FIRST TIME I’m seeing her actually moving and singing in "real life"!” After the song ends to applause onscreen and off, he quickly adds, “I NEED to have a copy of this!!!”
Of course I happily made a dub off of my copy, and he later returned the favor by making me a copy of Maki’s ASHITA NO IRO album, her terrific CD that featured that kick-ass song that I now knew was called ANATA NO YUUKI NI NARITAI, and soon enough I loved that album enough that I had to march to Tower Records and order a copy for my very own!!
It’s funny in the day and age of the Internet where all the information you desire is right at your fingertips-Back in the days of word-of-mouth and magazines to inform you about everything, things were a LOT harder to dig up! This is true of every subject, but it was REALLY hard for J-pop and Japanese culture where there is distance, scarcity of media, and that darn language barrier when you DO get your hands on anything.
Now I can look up Mochida Maki and see that she was a former member of super-idol group SAKURAKKO CLUB and sustained a j-pop career that blossomed for about 4 years and a movie career that lasts til this very day, but for the longest time, she was simply “That pretty, tiny girl singing that sweet song on Music Station”!