BeForU's Debut
The year 2000 was a year of new beginnings for Konami. With the DDR series already being 2 years old, Naoki Maeda (music producer & advisor for DDR) wanted to add music that was unique to Japan. He held auditions for a girl band to debut in the next DDR game (5th mix). Fliers were posted in game centers all over Japan requesting vocal talent, hence the auditions were held. Four girls with very unique voices were chosen. These girls were soon to be known as BeForU. The name BeForU was chosen through a popularity contest, in which the fans voted for a name. BeForU is short for I will always BE there FOR yoU.
By the year 2001 BeForU was complete and ready for their debut. At this time BeForU consisted of Riyu Kosaka, Noria Shiraishi [aka NORIA], Yoma Komatsu, and Shiyuna Maehara.
[From left to right: Shiyuna, Noria, Riyu, Yoma]
BeForU debuted in 2001 with their song DIVE, which was notable as being the first J-POP song in the Dance Dance Revolution series. The lyrics of DIVE was written by Riyu Kosaka, who was only 15 at the time. The song was quite popular and the fans demanded more music from them.
A few months later DDR 6th Mix was released and a new BeForU song as well, titled Firefly. The arcade version of this game also included a solo from Riyu Kosaka titled true... and its tance remix. One month after the arcade release DDR 6th mix, Riyu Kosaka released her first single titled true... The single included full versions of the previous true...'s and a brand new song called Dive to the Night (Riyu's solo version of DIVE) and a rock remix of it.
*please do not copy and paste this anywhere without notifying me first!
[to be continued]
