The “longing for Akina’s return” that bubbles up after 31 years of watching “Bare Faces,” starring Akina Nakamori and Narumi Yasuda in W…

Beyond That Incident

This is a series of articles that (after all this time) follows the last episode of so-called “trendy dramas” from the late Showa to early Heisei periods. This time, we will be looking at “Bare Faces,” which was aired 31 years ago on Fuji Television during the April 1992 season.

The casting of Akina Nakamori and Narumi Yasuda in the lead roles made this drama series, which aired on Mondays from 9:00 p.m., the so-called “Tsuki 9” series, very popular. The average rating was 26.4%, and the highest rating for the final episode was 31.9% (Video Research, Kanto region), so it was quite a success.

The story is about Kanna (Akina Nakamori), who is a yankee and has a rough upbringing, and Yumiko (Narumi Yasuda), who is elegant and neat, but they somehow hit it off and move in together and move on with their lives.

The fact that “that” Akina Nakamori appears in the film must have been a major reason for the huge buzz it generated. She won the Japan Record Award two years in a row for “Mi Amore” (1985) and “Desire” (1986). In addition, from “Southern Wind” (1984) to “Tattoo” (1988), she had 15 consecutive No. 1 singles on the Oricon Chart, and she became a “diva” who dominated the music scene in the 80s!

In addition, we must mention Akina Nakamori’s “suicide attempt” on July 11, 1989. We also have to mention the press conference between Masahiko Kondo and Akina Nakamori that hit right behind the NHK Kohaku Uta Gassen at 10 p.m. on New Year’s Eve that year.

The following is an excerpt from “Seiko Matsuda and Akina Nakamori [enlarged edition]: Revolution in the 1980’s” by Usuke Nakagawa (Asahi Bunko).

–The press conference was to show that Akina Nakamori’s wounds had healed and that she and Masahiko Kondo are still good friends. It was reported that Kondo’s side led the press conference. There were rumors that Akina Nakamori was tricked into coming to the press conference because she was going to announce her engagement. He and his office needed to get rid of the “bad guy who drove his girlfriend to attempt suicide” image that had been attached to Kondo.

The amazing thing about Akina Nakamori, however, is that even beyond these incidents, her musical activities did not stagnate. The following year, in 1990, she released “Mizu ni Sashita Hana,” a beautiful piece of glasswork that sold 380,000 copies and reached the Oricon No. 1 position.

＜–Come on, I’ll take you back to when you were a little girl, and you can have the days when you were loved once again.

This lyric, which appears in the middle part of “Mizu ni Sashita Hana” (released in 1990), seems to express her girlfriend’s feeling at the time, that she wanted to go back to those days when she only thought about singing.