The One about Tomosaka Rie – Un (1997)

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1 カフェが終わって
2 エスカレーション
3 2人
4 ジェラシー
5 そんなの気にしない
6 くしゃみ
7 私がついてるじゃない?
8 夢の夢
9 カフェが終わって
10 恋をしたら海へ行こう
11 泣いちゃいそうよ

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The following was reviewed back in 1997

Tomosaka Rie, the actress who has dominated the “Popolo Magazine” ratings for best actress and now, the actress has her eyes set on the Japanese music industry with her first album “un”.

Another young idol actress who has pursued to the music business like current idol actresses, Uchida Yuki, Adachi Yumi, Hirosue Ryoko, etc. and I have to say that her debut album is pretty good.

The music for the album is like a combination of the french music in Nakayama Miho’s “Deep Lip French”, a little Pizzicato Five in there and also a little of My Little Lover. Also, it’s important to note that there are singles released by Rie that are not on this album because the songs were released as her alternate persona Eri Sakatomo (so, you’re not going to find singles “Suki ni Nattara Kirin Lemon” or “Docchi demo IN” on this album.

Unlike Uchida Yuki, Tomosaka Rie’s vocals work well with the music and is catchy. Her first single “Escalation” has that My Little Lover style of musical arrangement which I love. With the groove reminiscent of Shibuya-kei and French pop.

Her second single “Kushami” is a fun and catchy pop song, her third single, a ballad titled “Naichaiso yo” is a beautiful, touching track.

But the tracks that do shine on this album are songs like “Futari” which is a song that really shows off Sakamoto’s vocals, a yeye style of pop song titled “Watashi ga tsuiteru Jyanai” and the French inspired track “Cafe ga Owatte ~je l’ai embrasse~”.

The best part of this CD release is the inclusion of the “Tomosaka Rie CD-Extra”.

There are 4 sections to the CD-Extra. The first is a 3 minute video clip of her upcoming single for her three singles, the second is a promotional for the official Tomosaka Rie homepage (and this one is cool as you can literally take part in a game in which you take Tomosaka out for a date and get different outcomes depending on your selection), the third is a photo gallery with about 15+ photos of Rie and the fourth are video clip promo videos of the following: 2 of Escalation, 3 of Kushami and 1 of naichyaisouyo. The CD booklet insert has photos of Rie, the lyrics and words from Rie are in Japanese and in French.

Overall, I found “un” to be a wonderful album and I really like how Toshiba-EMI really went all-out in making this album release interactive for the listener by including the CD-extras, music videos and I wish more labels and more albums took advantage of this.

If you are a fan of Tomosaka Rie , this is a wonderful debut album for the actress/singer. Definitely recommended!