The Nostalgia Series - Old drama theme songs: "Nemurenu yoru wa kimi no sei" by MISIA

Whenever people talk about drama theme songs from MISIA, I think the first song which comes to mind should be "Everything" which appeared in Matsushima Nanako's 2000 drama "Yamato Nadeshiko". That song was such a huge hit at that time partly due to the drama's high ratings of above 20% for every episode. However, the song which I'm introducing today is probably overlooked by most people unless you've watched the drama or you happen to be a MISIA fan. MISIA wrote the lyrics herself for this song which turned out to be her 2nd Oricon No.1 single after "Everything".

"Renai Hensachi", a FujiTV Summer 2002 drama, featured four female leads i.e. Nakatani Miki, Tokiwa Takako, Zaizen Naomi and Shibasaki Kou in three stories spanning the entire season. Nakatani and Tokiwa appear in the first two stories while Zaizen and Shibasaki were co-leads for the last story. Their stories were omewhat unrelated but one common point between these four ladies was that they all were regulars at a bar owned by Sharan Q's Tsunku (also widely known as Morning Musume's producer). The leading men in these ladies' lives were V6's Okada Junichi (paired with Nakatani), SMAP's Inagaki Goro (with Tokiwa), Kashiwabara Takashi and Yanagiba Toshiro (with Shibasaki and Zaizen). Ratings then were between the range of 9.4% and 14.1% which suggested that this drama had slipped under the radar for some reason. Among the three stories, I liked the first one a lot partly because of Nakatani and Okada's great chemistry. That's not to say that the rest of the drama was bad but rather, it didn't move me as much as the first story.

This song from MISIA titled "Nemurenu yoru wa kimi no sei" (It's your fault that I'm having a sleepless night) is rather different from the feel you get from "Everything" and it sounds as if the singer is expressing her feelings of love and pining to her lover in a rather subdued manner. Whenever I hear this song, the image of a person gazing into the moonlit sky while missing the lover comes to mind in a vivid manner and I remember fondly the interaction between the characters played by Nakatani and Okada.

If you are interested to hear this song, please view here.