To Be Continued - Beyond The Light...

Beyond The Light... is, by a wide margin, To Be Continued's biggest album, the absolute peak of their career. Driven by the gigantic success of their biggest single, 君だけを見ていた (Kimidake Wo Miteita), covered previously on this blog, this album ended up spending eight weeks on the Oricon Albums Chart, peaking at #4. For good reason-- this album is big, big, BIG J-pop, endlessly catchy, extraordinarily crafted, you name something positive to say about J-pop, it's here. Like its predecessor, Bitter Sweet Love, it's all killer and no filler. I can't say if its successor, Day Break, also provides songcrafting this consistently beautiful, but I can definitely say I'll be finding out soon.

The grandeur of this album also reaches out to its packaging. Beyond the typical adornment of the Japanese music disc, the obi strip, it also features a uniquely thick jewel case (so if you get a copy and it comes in broken... good luck replacing it) meant to house a feature I've never seen in any CD I've ever picked up before: a liner note booklet with a real spine. It's not visible from the CD's spine, especially if you have the obi over it, and it does make taking pictures of the inside of the booklet a bit of a pain, but its presence does add another layer of elegant sweetness to this album.

Like any of To Be Continued's output, if you go to a website like Yahoo! Japan Auctions (or any of its internationally friendly forwarding services), there's a good chance you'll be able to find it for cheap. Because of how cheap they tend to be compared to the exponentially higher shipping costs, it would be best to get several of them in bulk. From my limited experience with the band, I would definitely recommend grabbing this album and Bitter Sweet Love together, but if you wanna grab more to make the deal even sweeter, go right ahead. I'm sure you'd be fine no matter what you packed with them.

The tracklisting is as follows:

1. 明日へのAccent

2. Steppin' Out

3. 涙 やめなよ

4. Love Is Just A...

5. Moon

6. 逃げたりしない

7. Funny!? Serious?!

8. 君だけを見ていた (Album Mix)

9. どんな君も愛してる

10. うまく言えないけど (Album Mix)

To Be Continued - Kimidake Wo Miteita

DISCLAIMER: This article has gone through various revisions since its original upload on December 23rd, 2014, some to clarify information about the band and this song, others to fix bum links. This article originally showcased awful attempts at translating the Japanese titles of various assets within, which I ultimately fixed by just writing them in romaji. This is why the link to this article doesn't display the song title in romaji.

You may not have expected something like this! This is a J-pop CD single that I picked up for parts. As you can see, it's a mini-CD in snap-pack packaging, and it had a case that I needed for my Government Wall single. However, I ended up leaving it in my Buyee shipments list for about a month, unclaimed, for seemingly little reason. It was only a few weeks ago that I finally pulled the trigger, and I ended up doing research on this single, and the band behind it, after getting it.

This is a single for 君だけを見ていた, which romajis into "Kimidake Wo Miteita", the lead single from Beyond The Light..., their fourth album. This single actually reached double platinum status by the RIAJ's standards, meaning it reached sales of at least 500,000 units. The song stayed on the Oricon music charts for 18 weeks, peaking at #4; a factor that may have had a serious hand in its success is being featured in the TBS show Moshimo Negai Ga Kanaunara, which vocalist Kohki Okada had an acting role in.

What little I can gather about To Be Continued, considering their Discogs page is absolutely barren, is that they're a J-pop group from the 90s who released seven albums in their time; To Be Continued, How Zit?, Bitter Sweet Love, Beyond The Light..., Day Break, Creston Drive, and Core Pop. (The B-side on this single is a very slightly extended version of the opening track from Bitter Sweet Love.) The lineup of To Be Continued is as follows, and this is where my knowledge of the subject ends for now.

Kôki Okada - vocals

Taka Sato - keyboards

Yusuke Goto - guitar, keyboards

The tracklisting is as follows:

1. 君だけを見ていた

2. 32°僕にもたれてた (Single Mix)

3. 君だけを見ていた (instrumental)