December brings Karashima's "Life Goes On (Live)"

(tags Japanese pop, Midori Karashima, live, DVD region 2, telephone card, anime)

While on lunch break today, I saw Japanese contemporary/pop music artist Midori Karashima (辛島美登里) on live digital satellite TV. Whenever December comes around, I think of "Silent Eve" (「サイレント･イブ」), which is her breakaway hit from 1990. I suppose she was on a TV special because she's symbolic of Christmas love songs, just like George Michael's "Last Christmas".

Did I mention I am a Midori Karashima fan? I'm a card carrying member of her fan club, Greenfields.

Recently, it seems she switched online shops. In fact, just last week I was able to pick up her latest (only?!) live DVD and concert telephone cards, from the online shop Gyoen Market (株式会社ＭＳエンタテインメント ギョエンマーケット).

Am I ever going to see her in concert? One of these days... maybe next time she comes over to the Kansai area?

For this post, I looked her up in Wikipedia for the first time. I didn't remember that she sang an opening theme song "Egao wo sagashite" (「笑顔を探して」) for the (big hit manga converted to) anime Yawara! just before her big break. Here's the September 1990 8cm single, which I amazingly found within 5 minutes in my room:

Heh, my favorite non-anime artist had some humble beginnings in anime. Ha.