Thanks so much for posting this great Noriko Sakai clip, Twinkle Twinkle! The crowd reminds me of "Yuuyake Nyan Nyan" from around the same time. Nice many fusendama. I hear these kind of genki early Nori-P songs and I wonder if she guessed she'd be doing songs like "Aoi Usagi" and other serious ballads in a few years. I wonder if she was friends with Nishimura Tomomi chan yet.
@@twinkletwinkle374 I think "Aoi Usagi" is well done, but it is not one of my favorites either. I think it appealed to maybe older fans and fans who watched the hospital drama with Tomochin that used it for a theme song. Among my favorite Sakai Noriko songs are "...Please Your Smile," "Love Letter," the "Amino Ai Video Girl" anime theme "Ureshii Namida," "Kimi No Sonzai," "Hohoemi Wo Mitsuketa" and her version of "Koibito Tachi" that Okada Yukiko did first on her "Okurimono II" album just before her final album "Venus Tanjo." In my Japanese CDs library, Noriko Sakai is filed between Miki Sakai and Mika Sakaki (underground idol who autographed her CD to me on 2013/6/01 "For Mr. Bob Thank You" with a smiling rabbit).
@@twinkletwinkle374 I started gradually buying after hearing Pink Lady's 1979 US Top 40 hit, hearing Yellow Magic Orchestra, Akiko Yano in 1984 at a college radio station, taking a chance on the one Wink US 12 inch single released because it was covers of Kylie Minogue songs, hearing Seiko Matsuda's first US release in 1990, discovering San Francisco's Japantown shortly after that, taking the first of my 28 Japan vacations in 2000 and so on. But I love Japanese music in general. I bought about a hundred more Japanese CDs yesterday, mostly enka, but most of my Japanese CDs are pop, along with minyo, gagaku and so on.
