[Romantic ballad]
No.224 "Teddy bear to Christmas Eve" by Lemon Angel
Hi. Hope you are having a good Christmas time.
The song we would like to introduce to you today is, "Teddy bear to Christmas Eve" (Teddy bear & Christmas eve) by "Lemon Angel".
Charming, and romantic Pop ballad "Teddy bear to Christmas Eve" is a song performed by a popular idol pop group "Lemon Angel" released in 1989.
The idol pop group "Lemon Angel" was uniquely popular by their lovely, but a little sexy stage performance, which was derived from a founding concept of the group to promote a romantic TV anime series for high-teen to young adult. (Will come back to it later.)
Burt because of that, "Lemon Angel" enjoyed considerable popularity particularly among high-teen boys, and young men. (and actually, loved by a few of teenager girls as well.)
Regardless of such nature of the idol group, the songs of them were all quality idol pops with no doubt. And harmonies of three young women are pretty cute and charming.
If you like please listen to.
Links to the music shops, offering song samples, are located on the bottom of this page.
Some contents have been put away in tabs with "▶" mark in each section, so please click it to see.
This will be the last post in the stormy year of 2022.
And we are planning to set out posting for new year on the 7th January 2023(Sat).
If you like, please continue to have a look.
We wish you a merry Christmas and happy new year!
Cover art today
Song data
| Title | Teddy bear to Christmas Eve(Teddy bear & Christmas Eve) |
|---|---|
| Artist | Lemon Angel |
| Album Title | White |
| Catalog Number | PCCA-0010 |
| Track No. | 3 |
| Duration | 5:12 |
| Released | 1989 |
| Publisher | Pony Canyon |
| Lyricist | Kaoru Asakura |
| Composer | Takashi Kudoh |
| Arranger | Motohiro Tomita |
About the creators
Kaoru Asakura Lyricist
"Kaoru Asakura" is a scriptwriter, theatre director, lyricist, composer and singer active since around 1970.
"Kaoru Asakura" is known as a principal of a girl's theatre group "Asakura Engeki-dan" led by him.
Brief Bio.
"Kaoru Asakura" started his career by becoming an apprentice with a leading theatre director, "Shigemi Satoyoshi".
And learned the play in "Satoyoshi"'s theater group. "Gekidan Mirai Gekijō" (Theatre group "the future theatre").
After left from the theatre group, "Asakura" experienced several jobs like a journalist, or music producer.
And in 1992, "Asakura" finally founded his own theatre group, "Asakura Kaoru Engeki-dan" (Kaoru Asakura theatre group).
"Asakura Kaoru Engeki-dan"
"Asakura Kaoru Engeki-dan" is a theatre group featuring many actors of young women.
Not like famed "Takarazuka Revue Company", Asakura's is a small scale, more experimental musical theatre, but because of that reason, "Asakura Kaoru Engeki-dan" maintains a certain level of popularity until today.
The main pillars of "Asakura theatre group" are "Girl's hyper musical" series and "Dolls theater" series.
Ten to thirty women actors wear costume beautifully, and perform musical or drama play just in front of the audience in relatively compact sized venues located around Tokyo.
A few of young members, including "Tomo Sakurai" a member of "Lemon Angel", have developed into female actors, after learned in this theatre group.
And it might be another important job for "Asakura".
If you have a chance, please join.
Or if you like, please search the word "officedoll1" on Youtube, and you can watch some short videos of "Asakura Kagekidan".
References
For more details on "Kaoru Asakura", please have a look at the references linked below.
Takashi Kudoh Composer
"Takashi Kudoh" is a Japanese composer active since around the early '90s.
"Kudoh" has written many Pop songs or Anime songs for well-known artists or groups like, "Wink", "Mariko Takahashi", "Hekiru Shiina", "Yumiko Takahashi", "Megumi Hayashibara", "Hitomi Mieno" etc etc.
However, there are not much information about himself on the internet space, so we presume he is a type of creator who prefers not to disclose personal information much.
Anyway, we would like to add information in the future if we found some.
References
For more details on "Takashi Kudoh", please have a look at the references linked below.
Motohiro Tomita Arranger
"Motohiro Tomita" is a keyboardist, arranger, composer, and music producer active since around the early '1980s.
"Motohiro Tomita" has composed, or arranged many songs of prominent singers like, "Yō Hitoto", "Masaharu Fukuyama", "Yasushi Nakanishi", "Masatoshi Nakamura", "Fumiya Fujii" or "Amii Ozaki". Or often collaborated with them as a keyboardist.
Though he had done excellent jobs as a musician so far, the information related to his biography is very limited as long as we see at the moment.
So, we would like to update information about him if we find some.
References
For more details on "Motohiro Tomita", please have a look at the references linked below.
Song image & Lyrics
Open
Link to the lyrics
Some notes on the lyrics link
Sound impression
Charming & romantic
This song seems to be a romantic and melodious Pop ballad in 6/ 8 metre fast waltz rhythm.
Cute & alluring
Twinkling sound of the electronic piano, horn & string synthesizers, and the electric guitar begin a peaceful introduction, then main part begin.
In the main section, the drums, bass, percussions (Conga drum, wood blocks) also join, and support the beautiful harmony of the members of "Lemon Angel".
The main lyrics was sang by "Tomo Sakurai" on this song. Her cute & a little alluring vocal is also an enchantment of this song.
Reference
About Google translate
About the artist
Lemon Angel Healthy Sexy
"Lemon Angel" was an idol pop group teamed up in 1987, by three women idol stars, namely "Miki Emoto", "Erika Shima", and "Tomo Sakurai".
The group was formed as a part of TV station's marketing mix "Lemon Angel" project, which was aiming at attracting high-teen boys and young gentlemen mainly.
Even "Lemon Angel" was regarded as a bit of "subcultural" idol group, but had a surprising level of popularity as an idol group in the late '80s.
And it might be also notable, but a core member "Tomo Sakurai" later became one of the pioneers of "Voice actor & idol star" style talent, after finishing "Lemon Angel" project.
"Lemon Angel" debuted in 1987 with a single, " Dai-ikkyu-Renai-zai" (Love In the First Degree - A cover of the same title of "Bananarama" (UK)). Since then, 5 singles, and 4 original, and 3 best albums have been released until now.
(Ref: Wikipedia-en, Lemon Angel)
Back ground
First of all, we would like to explain a little bit about why, and how this 3-piece idol group, "Lemon Angel" was born.
Otherwise, it is not easy to understand the unique position and popularity of this group, we suppose.
According to some references, A TV broadcaster in Tokyo, and a publisher who were publishing a famous (or notorious? ) 18+ anime series "Cream Lemon", conceived an idea in 1987 to begin a new mid-night sexy TV anime series in the form of media marketing mix.
They named this project "Lemon Angel". And decided to launch four individual project under the name of media mix project "Lemon Angel"
Namely.
- A new mid-night sexy TV anime series "Lemon Angel"
- A new idol group, "Lemon Angel", as image girls for "Lemon Angel" project, as well as voice actors for above sexy TV anime series.
- A new radio program featuring the members of "Lemon Angel" as MCs.
- A new comic series "Lemon Angel" on a weekly comic magazine
- Sale of related VHS Video, LD, CD, and goods
So, from birth, idol group, "Lemon Angel" was expected to push their cuteness & sexual charms as a character of the group.
Just for your reference, but there are two generations of "Lemon Angel" series exist. Namely,
- "Lemon Angel" TV series & Idol group(1987-1990)
- "Lemon Angel Project" TV series, and movie (2006)
Basically, they are independent, and irrelevant with each other, though they are using same series title.
And the one we are going to talk about is the first series. Just for your information.
"Lemon Angel" was born
In 1987, the promoter held an image girl contest for "Lemon Angel" publicly.
Some 800+ young women contestants gathered, and competed in the contest. And "Miki Emoto" won the Grand Prix, and "Erika Shima" took the second place.
"Emoto" and "Shima" were requested from the promoter to contact with them, and form a new idol Pop group "Lemon Angel" with another "would-be" young idol star, "Tomo Sakurai".
"Emoto", "Shima", and "Sakurai" got along smoothly. And agreed to team up a cute & sexy idol Pop group, "Lemon Angel".
Debut as voice actors
In October 1987, a little sexy midnight TV anime series began to be aired.
The members of "Lemon Angel", namely "Emoto", "Shima", and "Sakurai" participated in the series as heroines, by using their charming and sexy voices.
In this TV series, some music clips of potential idol stars, namely "Emoto", "Shima", and "Sakurai" were also broadcasted together with animated films.
And thanks to the popularity of the TV series, the members of "Lemon Angel" also began to be recognized particularly among teenagers and young men.
Radio personalities
Almost simultaneously with the start of midnight TV anime series, a new radio show featuring members of "Lemon Angel" as main personalities was launched also as a midnight program.
Also on this radio variety, the members of "Lemon Angel" presented mildly naughty talks which still satisfy the unclean delusion of high-teen boys more than enough.
(In fact, "Emoto", "Shima", and "Sakurai" were almost same age with them at that time. So, the girls of "Lemon Angel" were like classmates for the boys.)
The young men who were listening this program soon fell under the enchantment of "Lemon Angel".
And the idol group "Lemon Angel" successfully increased its presence.
Record debut
In December 1987, "Lemon Angel" released their first album "Lemon Angel first" as their very first album.
This album basically consisted of the songs used in TV anime series "Lemon Angel", then it was somewhat more like a sound track album.
In May 1988, the group finally released their first single " Dai-ikkyu-Renai-zai" (Love In the First degree).
A bright & danceable idol pop song "Dai-ikkyu-Renai-zai" was a cover of a UK Pop group "Bananarama"'s 1988 hit song, "Love In the First degree".
In general, this song seems to be regarded as the debut song of the Idol pop group, "Lemon Angel".
Since this, the group released 4 singles plus 4 albums of nice Idol Pop songs just within two years.
This high pace was obviously because of the passion of the fans.
Top idol group in subculture
"Lemon Angel" started the activity as an Idol Pop group in full scale after released their first single "Dai-ikkyu-Renai-zai".
They chose relatively smaller venues in the beginning, and sang, danced and talked in front of the full of passionate audience.
At the stage, each members of "Lemon Angel" wore a shiny tops and short flair skirt with a lot of frills which was a typical costume for female idol stars in the '80s.
And danced aggressively while showing their beautiful legs like water to the audience.
Their singing, and healthy sexy dancing stunned young men, and powerfully stimulated their sparky animal instincts, though it was a little irregular approach as an Idol Pop group.
But, through these actions, "Lemon Angel" established a unique position in Japanese Idol Pops sector.
Because of a little unique approach, they could not be a top in main stream Idol Pops, but were certainly a top group in sub-culture in the '80s.
Healthy Sexy
Idol Pop group "Lemon Angel" became famous by their charming & a little sexy singing and dancing.
But because of that, people sometimes commented that they were a little too sexy.
However, when viewed from the modern perspective, their sexiness was just at "Healthy Sexy" level which satisfy the dream of teenager boys, and nothing comparative with modern erotic anime series which is really seductive and stimulative.
That is just our opinion though.
End of the project
Some reference says, but in 1989, a core member "Miki Emoto" happened to experience a health problem. And, she had to take some time off from work for recovery.
For replacing her, a new member "Ai Kobayashi" was joined the group as a relief.
But in 1990, "Lemon Angel" project reached a tentative end point, and the idol group "Lemon Angel" also completed its mission.
"Tomo Sakurai", as a solo
After concluding "Lemon Angel" project in 1990, members also basically ended their activities in entertainment business.
But among them, "Tomo Sakurai" quickly restarted her motion by participating in a musical in 1991.
And in 1993, also she debuted as a voice actor by joining a football TV anime series, "Dragon league".
Then in 1994, "Sakurai" was selected as a voice actor to voice-over "Mylene Flare Jenius", the heroine of super popular Robot Anime series "MACROSS 7".
Thanks to the popularity of the TV series,"Sakurai" became all the rage as a voice actor.
"Sakurai" also started to sing idol pop songs again like she was doing before.
And she established a new style in this business, namely "Voice actor & Idol star".
In fact "Sakurai" is one of the earliest example of that style, which is very common now a days though.
Since then, she has been one of the most well known voice actors until now.
Recent
"Tomo Sakurai" seems to be actively continuing her job in entertainment business even now.
And it is said but "Erika Shima" also has come back to this business recently, and working as a model.
References
For more details on "Lemon Angel", please have a look at the references linked below.
Video clip
Lastly, we would like to introduce a music clip of today's song, "Teddy bear to Christmas Eve" (Teddy bear & Christmas Eve).
Thanks to Pony canyon record, this song is uploaded on Youtube as a "Topic".
Please enjoy this nice melodious ballad pop on Christmas Eve.
Good night!
Music Samples
3
(試聴する)
AD: Listening samples (Free)
Amazon JP(en)
music.tower.jp
music.apple.com (Track No.3)
Japanese Letters
| Song Title | テディベアとクリスマスイヴ(Teddy bear to Christmas Eve) |
|---|---|
| Artist | レモンエンジェル(Lemon Angel) |
| Album Title | White |
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