Sakai Noriko(born: February 14, 1971), nickname: NoriPi (or Nori-P),  was a top idol in late 1980s. She was arguably the cutest 1980s idol, too cute that she could melt your heart. lol.

It started in October 1985 when she participated in an audition by Sun Music, a big entertainment agency at that time. The one who won the grand prix was another idol: Mizutani Mari, but Sakai Noriko won a special award, a made-up award didn't exist before just because the managing director of Sun Music saw her and interested in her potential. December the same year, a 15 years old Sakai Noriko moved from her hometown in Fukuoka to Tokyo and began living in Sun Music boarding house (*where she met the idol Okada Yukiko who was about to move out from boarding house to live on her own. Comparing the timeline and bits of information, seems like they had lived together for a short while. Okada Yukiko was said to be fond of her cute junior and gave her a gift when she moved out).

Sakai Noriko made her debut in entertainment industry by appearing in a drama in 1986. At that same year, she also appeared in idol magazine: Momoco Club and automatically registered as their "member" number 1482 (*they had about 3000+ "members"). Momoco Club also had their own varitety show which Sakai Noriko became one of their main cast..

Sakai Noriko made her official debut as idol singer in February 1987. She had a promising start, she was regularly nominated for newcomer awards, competing with other idol potential newcomers like BaBe, Hatada Rie, Tachibana Risa, etc  in various awards shows, and she won one of the newcomer awards. In her peak between 1987 - 1990, her songs were consistently ranked between #4 - #10 in Oricon chart, with her highest record is one song that reached #2 (in one of her recent concert, she said that was because the one reached #1 at that time was Akina's song).

Nori-P

Earlier in her career, she was also known as her nickname: NoriPi (sometimes written as Nori-P). This is not just a nickname, but a unique concept and a creative marketing strategy. When Noriko was Nori-P, she even spoke the "NoriPi language", consisted of some made up words and some normal Japanese words with the last syllable replaced with "pii" (example: "ureshii" becomes "urepii"). She even created a mascot character called "NoriPi chan". NoriPi-chan could be seen anywhere: as doll, keychain, as manga character in weekly manga (*which Noriko drew herself, she was also a mangaka although just briefly),  painted in her concert bus, made into stage sets, or sold as merchandise in her "NoriPi Store". Yeah, she even had her own merchandise stores in late 1980s. "Nori-P" is not just a mere nickname, it was a money-making brand. 

 Opening of her store selling this "Noripi-chan" doll and merchandise. 

As she grew older and entered her 20s, she thought she was too old for this gimmick and gradually discarded the Nori-P concept, and become just Sakai Noriko. (*But in recent years, she seems to bring back this Nori-P concept, although only in moderation)

Entering the 1990s, she started to extend her career to Taiwan, Hong Kong, mainland China and other Chinese speaking countries; a market that most Japanese singers didn't pay attention to. That makes her famous not only in Japan but also in some Chinese speaking countries, she regularly held concerts there. Some of her popular songs were also made into Chinese versions.

Her idol career in late 1980s already qualified to be called top idol, but Sakai Noriko made another breakthrough in 1995 when she starred as female lead in a popular drama "Hoshi no Kinka" and her single "Aoi Usagi" used as OST for that drama exploded in sales, recording total sales of 997,380 copies (*before that, her best record was several songs with 90k sales). That song brought her to Kohaku Uta Gassen 1995.

As a singer, Sakai Noriko has released a total of 36 singles and 15 original albums. Her total song sales (all singles + all albums) are about 3,800,425 copies. She has performed 1 time in Kohaku Uta Gassen.

As an actress, she has starred in 21 dramas (1986 - 2007, mostly as main lead), 16 one-shot dramas (1988-2013) and 8 movies (1991 - 2014). She won 4 awards.

About this song

This song is her 4th single released in November 25, 1987 and reached #4 in Oricon chart with 69,050 sales. This is one of her representative song, she still ocasionally sings it in modern days.

This song was used as an anime OST:

it was also used in a commercial:

^ Too cute.  "irresistibly cute.." said the narrator. (^▽^ )

Her live performances:

^ in "Yoru no Hit Studio"

^ in "The Best Ten" that had their own ranking system independent from Oricon chart, this song was ranked #10

^ in "Uta no Top Ten"

^ in "Young Studio 101"

in other music programs:

in 1989:

in 1993:

in 1995:

in 1996:

Noriko in late 1990s / early 2000s, singing Chinese version of this song:

And....this was Sakai Noriko singing this song in January 2023:

^ with Nishimura Tomomi (the one who clapped when she sang).  And the tv host is Kashiwabara Yoshie (next to the guy).

There's even more recent one. This is Sakai Noriko in April 14, 2023:

Even more recent one... Sakai Noriko, July 2023

Sakai Noriko, February 2024