Yumiko Takahashi – Wonderland (1992 JVC Victor S-VHS Idol Music Video Tape)

This is Yumiko Takahashi’s “Wonderland” (VIVL-73), a late video tape release on JVC Victor’s S-VHS video tape system.

Yumiko Takahashi was a popular Japanese idol from approximately 1990-1999. Her nickname was “Good-P” which was short for “Good Personality” due to her extremely cheerful and happy personality. She is called the last traditional idol (with a “pure” personality) by many. She later moved on to become a television personality and actress.

“Wonderland” is a collection of music videos from her 1992 album, “Dream.” These music videos are exclusive to this release (which was also available on DVD & LaserDisc). Most of the videos consist of our star walking, posing, and singing in various costal locations. The music video for “Genki! Genki! Genki!” appears to indicate that this was taped in the Philippines.

S-VHS was the high-resolution enhancement to the VHS video tape system which was so popular in the 80’s and 90’s. The main benefit of the S-VHS system was improved horizontal resolution (400 lines vs. VHS’s 250 or so lines), but it didn’t improve VHS’s abysmal color resolution and only slightly improved the noise floor of the picture. Since it’s improvements were not quite revolutionary and the tapes were not backwards compatible with standard VHS, it generally failed to take hold in the marketplace and there were very few prerecorded S-VHS tapes released.

Fun(?) Fact: Like many comedians and those known for their always happy & outgoing personalities, Good-P’s life story appears to have been quite dark. At various times, she has fallen into alcoholism, some of which led to public scandals. These issues have earned her negative press which continues to this day by the sensationalist media and has caused her to retreat from the public eye.

Fun Fact 2: Her music was also featured on the Japanese visual novel “Yumimi Mix” for the Sega Mega CD game system which features “Genki! Genki! Genki!” from this album.

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Chapters (by song):
00:00 – Opening
01:04 – Video Girl
04:31 – Anohikara Bokuwa (あの日から僕は)
08:40 – Miss Tarzan
13:05 – Kaze no Prologue (風のプロローグ)
17:46 – Itsuka Aoune (いつか逢おうね)
22:30 – Genki! Genki! Genki! (元気! 元気! 元気!)
25:57 – Ending ~元気! 元気! 元気! (Instrumental)

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This was played back using a restored Victor HR-W1 W-VHS player.

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