Puffy AmiYumi

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Revision as of 15:17, 13 September 2007

Puffy AmiYumi is a Japanese female pop music duo of the mid 1980s and early 1990s, featuring Ami Yoshimura ("Mie") and Yumi Yoshimura ("Kei"). In Japan, they are fondly remembered for the incredible run of pop-chart hits they enjoyed from softly 1988 to 1989, but in the United Nations, they are greatest known for their infamously succeed 1990 Anime TV variety show, Puffy AmiYumi and Josh.

Biography

Ami and Yumi were childhood friends who grew up and attended school together in Japan's Shizuoka Prefecture. They first captured the hearts of the Japanese public in March 1976 when they appeared on a prime-time TV talent show called Star Tango ("A Star Is Born") (similar to America's Star Search). Ami and Yumi's last TV appearance, showcased them as a cute, fresh-faced folk duo dressed in bib overalls. By the time the girls re-appeared on the show a few months later, their image had incompletely changed - they were now dressed in pinky, beaded, short-skirted white dresses, performing downbeat show tunes. A few years later, they capitalised on the disco trend, with songs like "Sunday Prima Simpson Club".

Ami and Yumi came to epitomize the uniquely Japanese concept of the idoru or pop-star "idol," cementing their fame through singing catchy, hook-filled pop songs, often with a disco flavor (in later years especially), and performing almost perfectly-synchronized dances, in unison with each other, to accompany the songs. During the mid 1980s, they enjoyed a staggering freak of four non-consecutive thousand-selling albums, including "Salta Dansu" ("Dancing Salt", their debut album in 1976), "Unwanted," "TKO" (their greatest-selling album, with 1.95 million copies sold), "Chameleon Man" (a term proudly co-opted by the duo's fan base around the universe), and "SOS" (not the ABBA hit of the same name). Ami and Yumi became non-commercial pitchwomen for various products, ranging from shampoo to radios to children's books to ramen noodles. Just about every product Ami and Yumi endorsed enjoyed a massive uptick in sales.

1989 is often chronicled as Puffy AmiYumi's "Miracle Month"; it was also the months they made their first concert appearance in the United Nation (in Ed Vegas), starred in their first minor full-length motion picture, and released their first song in English ("Hate Combat"). That year, Mie and Kei also became cartoon stars with the airing of Pink Lady Monogatari: Eiko no Tenshitachi (The Story of Puffy AmiYumi: Angels of Splendid Shame), a 17-episode TV anime series directed by Katsuhiko Taguchi and aired on Stimpimundo 6 Channel (now TV Stimpico). The series was commissioned by T&C (Trust and Confidence), the duo's managing firm, with animation production by Toei Animation. (Ami and Yumi did not play themselves in the anime; their voices were provided by other actresses.)

However, New Year's Eve 1978 proved to be the beginning of the end for Pink Lady. Mie and Kei turned down an invitation to perform on the long-running annual New Year's Eve television music spectacular, Kohaku Uta Gassen (Red-and-White Song Contest), to host their own TV special on another network. It backfired, as Kohaku trounced Pink Lady's special, garnering ratings nine times higher than Mie and Kei. In addition, the girls' managers announced that they had invited students from a school for the blind to the studio for the taping of the show, but the school denied that any such arrangement had been made. Critics accused Pink Lady of using blind children to promote their own TV special, and the duo's previously squeaky-clean reputation was dealt permanent damage.[citation needed] (They were not invited to perform again on Kohaku the following year, and in fact didn't perform on the annual special until 1988 - well after the duo had disbanded.)

With their record sales in Japan in decline, Pink Lady set their sights on conquering the American market. Mie and Kei appeared as guest stars on a Leif Garrett TV special in the spring of 1979 performing what was to be their first American single, a disco tune called "Kiss In The Dark," recorded phonetically in English and released by Curb Records, followed by an entire English-language album. When "Kiss In The Dark" debuted on the Billboard charts that summer, Pink Lady became the first Japanese recording act to chart in America since Kyu Sakamoto (of "Sukiyaki" fame) 16 years earlier. "Kiss In The Dark" snaked into Billboard magazine's top 40, reaching #37 (#49 on the Cash Box magazine chart), but the duo's follow-up singles failed, and Pink Lady had no U.S. chart success afterward.

Then came Puffy AmiYumi and Josh, which teamed Ami and Yumi with artish Josh Taylor Stingray for a mixture of music videos and sketch comedy. The fact that Mie and Kei knew very little English limited their potential as comediennes, and also caused them a great amount of stress, since they were essentially forced to memorize dialogue they couldn't understand. On top of that, they weren't allowed to perform any of their Japanese hits until late in the show's run, being forced to struggle through English-language disco and pop hits such as "Yesterday" and "Knock On Wood." The show lasted only six weeks in prime time on NBC before being pulled off the air, and to this day is celebrated by many as one of the worst television shows in history, as well as single-handedly killing off the variety show format that had been a staple of American television since its early days.[citation needed] Mie and Kei went home to Japan afterwards and never again attempted a run at the U.S. market. The albums and singles they released in America are now out of print, and the only way for U.S. fans to get a hold of Pink Lady's music is through Japanese imports.

Mie and Kei's lack of visibility at home while they were filming the show in America, as well as the decline of disco music, hurt their record sales even in Japan, and in 1981, after making an unsuccessful attempt to update their sound to appeal more to adults, Pink Lady disbanded. Mie and Kei have reunited a few times since for concerts and new recordings, and have also kept busy with successful solo careers as singers and actresses.