Eriko Tamura Singles, Collected!

 Just About TWO YEARS to the day since I first was introduced to the lovely tunes of “Legendary Idol” Eriko Tamura, and I’m treated to a wonderful new release!!!

As I’ve mentioned before in entires like my recent Yukiko Okada post discussing her Okurimono Albums, once you fall in love with an artist and have exhausted their album discography after playing them over and over and OVER again, the next step is to seek out all their Non-Album songs, the Single-only tracks, the soundtrack releases and of COURSE the ever elusive B-SIDES!
B-Side songs have always had a special element to them, as far back as the 80’s when I realized you could only get Fleetwood Mac’s beautiful Stevie Nicks-penned song “Silver Springs” as the flip side to their single “Go Your Own Way”, B-sides have long been the rabid music fan’s treasure-hunting dream!
Occasionally record companies will release collections featuring both the A and B sides of singles, most famously VICTOR with their wonderful “CD FILES” collections, but usually the only real way a fan can get all the songs is to seek out the actual singles and rip them into MP3s themselves!
Such it was with the Lovely Ms. Eriko Tamura. Originally starting with a Greatest Hits collection, I immediately fell in love with what I was hearing and had to get ahold of all her albums! After months of playing those terrific CDs to death, I became a SUPER fan of hers and knew it was time to investigate the hidden world of her Singles and B-Sides!

Below: Some of my CD singles.

While all of Eriko’s “A” sides had been collected and repackaged a number of times on CD, very rarely did they include any of the B sides. and it was only by acquiring the singles (and, through fan forums, MP3 rips of the ones I couldn’t find) that I was able to put together a real, comprehensive anthology of all Eriko’s ‘rarities” (so to speak)!
Out of her output, a good part of her singles tracks DO appear on albums, but over time I was able to whittle out the core songs that were exclusively her non-album tracks, here highlighted:
1
Locomotion Dream
Namida No Hanbun
2
Sukiyo
Watashi wa Soyokaze
3
Honki
Next
4
Process
Garnet Densetsu
5
Domino
Kibou No Melody
6
Reversible
Niji no Shima Kara
7
Nijiiro no Namida
Innocence
8
Little Darling
Ai No Nightingale
9
Makasete Chin Ton Shan
(Anime Song)
10
Yuuwaku no Cha Cha
Tokyo Venus
11
Saigo No Oshiete
I Love Me
12
Sutekina Ame
Just All My Love
13
Ningyo No T-Shirt
Kara Kara Tenki
14
Ashita no Yukue
Kara Kara Tenki
15
Kanashimide wa Owaranai
Maboroshi no Ai Demo
16
Sabishi ni Kowasaretemo
Owaranai Owaraserarenai

Using the highlighted tracks, I was able to make a nice 1 hour+ collection of new music, and, once putting it together and then uploading it onto my Iphone, it soon became one of my most FAVORITE albums to listen to:

1. Sukiyo
2. Process
3. Kibou No Melody
4. Niji no Shima Kara
5. Innocence
6. Ai No Nightingale
7. Makasete Chin Ton Shan
8. Yuuwaku no Cha Cha
9. Tokyo Venus
10. I Love Me
11. Just All My Love
12. Kanashimide wa Owaranai
13. Maboroshi no Ai Demo

14. Owaranai Owaraserarenai
15. Sabishi ni Kowasaretemo

I had left the track order pretty much as they were originally released, with the one exception of her very last single “Sabishi ni Kowasaretemo/Owaranai Owaraserarenai” ... Instead of having it A-B, I flipped it to B-A as I really wanted to end the album with the hauntingly sweet and achingly melancholy Sabishi ni Kowasaretemo (one of my HUGE favorite tracks from Eriko) -

As an accompaniment to my evening walks, the mix would start at the beginning of my walk, and end RIGHT as I hit the beachwalk, making for a perfect pairing with the sunset as Sabishi ni Kowasaretemo concluded the album!

Now, as PERFECT as this new mix was to me, there WAS one detraction to it- the wildly uneven sound levels from track to track! Naturally, since all of these songs came from various different releases (and sources!), some were louder and some were softer in volume, a real jolt when one song ended quiet only to go to a blaring track next!
WELL, if THAT was my only quibble, it was now to be SOLVED, as Universal Music has FINALLY come out with a collection with ALL her A and B side songs on ONE Release!
Celebrating Eriko’s 35th Anniversary since her debut, ERIKO TAMURA SINGLE COLLECTION gathered all A and B side singles as well as Namida no Hanbun (New vocal Mix) and Nijiiro No Namida (New Remix Version), and remastered(?) on SHMCD for wonderful crystal-clear sound quality!!!

Oh MAN, what a WONDERFUL gift for all us Eriko Tamura fans! Since I only recently got into Eriko (now two years to the date since I first got into her!), this is the FIRST release of hers that i’m buying as a new release that will be counted and of which goes directly to supporting Eriko!
On J-pop forums focusing on Idols and 80’s-90’s act,I was jazzed to find many others excited about the upcoming Eriko release, and I just saw that they’ve already sold out on Amazon Japan! Hope many fans get to grab this so Eriko can see just how much she is still beloved!!!!
OK< Time to take this one out for a SPIN!!!!!

If I Had A Nickel For Every Time Someone Tried To Cover Yuko Araki’s Mouth…

 …I would have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice!

First in Roppongi Class with Yurina Hirate and Ryoma Takeuchi....

And then in the recent Galileo Special Kindan no Majutsu with Yu Sawabe and Masatoshi Nakamura!

At THIS rate, it's looking like Yuko might have been a better choice for the upcoming Hanasaki Mai ga Damattenai reboot since EVERY body seems to want to SHUT her UP! LOL

Keigo Higashino's Galileo: Kindan no Majutsu (Forbidden Magic)

Just wrapped up the 2022 Television Galileo SP  “Kindan no Majutsu" (Forbidden Magic), based on the fourth full-novel in the Inspector Galileo series and eighth overall. This story is the only one of the Galileo full novels not translated into English and therefore one of which I had not read and had no inkling of the plot beforehand!

“Forbidden Magic” wrests with the quote “He who controls Science Controls the World”, and how the advancement of scientific technology is always aligned with war, whether for good or bad.

The Tokyo Police are called in when a journalist is murdered in his office and footage of a terrible new weapon being tested is found on his computer. There appears to be some kind of long-range device capable of delivering huge blasts of destruction from afar and the video shows how, in the wrong hands, it can be used for murder.

Because of the technical aspect of the video footage, detectives Kusanagi (Kitamura Kazuki) and Makimura (Yuko Araki) visit the eccentric genius Manabu Yukawa (Masaharu Fukuyama) to see what he thinks and if he can shed some light on what they are seeing.

As usual the impersonal Yukawa is resistant to assisting the police in their work and reveals little about what he knows, but with a little sweet persuasion from Makimura, grudgingly agrees to watch the msyterious footage.

To say he is surprised by what he sees may be an understatement, but he keeps his thoughts to himself...even as his mind is formulating theories  of what may have caused it!

Asking to examine the site of the destruction, Yukawa becomes grimmer when he realizes to himself that the theoretical design of the weapon is one he knows…and that the culprit who manufactured it may be one of his old students!

The student in question is a guy named Shingo Koshiba (Nijiro Murakami), and at the time, he was one of Yukawa’s brightest students. A natural talent for science, he surprised Yukawa by suddenly changing his studies to the medical field. And shortly thereafter, has quit school completely and seemingly disappeared.

 

Manabu Yukawa and Tomoka Makimura investigate into the hidden paths that the missing student has taken, and after interviewing a girl named Kurasaka (Nana Mori) who worked alongside Koshiba at a factory, realize he has been wrestling with a troubled mind about past incidents involving his sister and a politician named Ohga Jinsaku (Kosuke Suzuki)…and that the plan may ultimately be to assassinate him!

With the police on one side determined to track down Koshiba, Yukawa  hopes to find Koshiba himself, steadfast in the belief that the genius student he once knew is still good and can be talked out of his horrible plans!

WELL, I enjoyed  Kindan no Majutsu, even though I msut admit the vibe mostly underwhelming. Unlike some of the other movies like Devotion of Suspect X or the recent Silent Parade which were real cinematic projects that felt huge, Kindan No Majutsu seemed like a regular episode of the TV series, not that that's a bad thing. There were still lots to love here!

Yuko Araki plays the part of Tomoka Makimura, another character created to fill the place of the Utsumi Kaoru role when Kou Shibasaki doesn’t appear, much like the Yuriko Yoshitaka character of Misa Kishitani. 

They do take the time to give her a bit of personality, like when she’s excited to meet the mysterious Inspector Galileo and does her makeup in the car

or the spirited arguments she has with Ohtagawa (Sawabe), but for the most part, she’s there to walk alongside Yukawa much as Utsumi did. 

I mentioned before how the Utsumi role can be a thankless one and I don't blame either Shibasaki or Yoshitaka for not wanting to return for EVERY Movie or Special, nonetheless I was glad to see Araki "assuming" the part, and would love to see her turn into a recurring character further down the line!

As I've already posted, Shibasaki Kou DID return for the cinematic film "Silent Parade", and in fact, the Kindan no Majutsu broadcast was PEPPERED with advertisements hawking the upcoming movie!

When they inevitably make a movie or special out of Keigo Higashino's latest Inspector Galileo book "Invisible Helix", I'm very curious to see who will be co-starring in it alongside Fukuyama!