Pink Lady's farewell concert at Korakuen Stadium, March 31, 1981

About the artist

Pink Lady were Mie and Kei, who today perform as Mie (written 未唯mie) and Keiko Masuda^[1][2]. Junior high school classmates from Shizuoka^[2], they passed a Yamaha audition in 1973 and formed a folk duo called Cookie in May 1974^[1]; Masuda says they chose the name of a sweet because they admired Candies^[3].

In 1976 they were picked at the final round of Nippon TV's talent show Star Tanjō!^[4], and two of its judges, lyricist Yū Aku and composer Shunichi Tokura, wrote their first single. Tokura later wrote that the pair had not stood out at the audition, but there had been no reason to turn them down^[2]. Masuda moved to Tokyo that April^[5], and "Pepper Keibu" ("Inspector Pepper") came out on Victor on August 25^[1], with choreography by Hajime Doi built around bold, wide-legged steps^[2]. Mie recalls that an August debut came late in the year for the newcomer awards, so they needed a hit fast; the single at first failed to make the top 100 and only began to climb after winning a prize at the Shinjuku music festival in October^[4].

Work piled up from late May, and Masuda remembers sleeping about two hours a night. Weekends meant concerts and school holidays meant national tours, and once they flew by helicopter to make a live broadcast of TBS's variety show 8 Ji da yo! Zenin Shūgō. She first sensed how big they had become around their fourth single, "Nagisa no Shindobaddo" ("Sinbad of the beach"), when what looked like rocks on a beach during a location shoot turned out to be crowds of people^[5].

According to Victor, nine consecutive singles from "S・O・S" to "Kamereon Āmī" ("chameleon army") reached No. 1, and ten in a row from "Pepper Keibu" to "Kamereon Āmī" sold a million^[1]. Oricon counted 63 weeks at No. 1 on its singles chart, still the all-time record in 2010^[6]. "UFO," released on December 5, 1977, sold about 1.55 million copies in a year to become their biggest hit^[7]. At the Japan Record Awards they were named Best New Artist in 1976, won a popular-music award in 1977 and took the grand prize in 1978 with "UFO"^[8][7].

In 1978 they played Las Vegas^[9], and in May 1979 they made their American debut with "Kiss In The Dark," sung entirely in English^[7]. It peaked at No. 37 on the Billboard chart^[1], making them only the second Japanese act to reach the US Top 40, after Kyu Sakamoto's "Sukiyaki" in 1963^[10].

Why this was thought to be the end

The turning point people look back to came at the end of 1978, when the duo declined to appear on NHK's New Year's Eve show Kōhaku Uta Gassen and hosted their own TV special on another network instead. Writing in Number 1 Shimbun, the magazine of the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan, Charles Pomeroy called the results disastrous^[10]. Keiko Masuda says the charity show they did instead drew far lower ratings than Kōhaku, and that adults began to see them differently afterward. From around the Record Award and the Kōhaku refusal, she felt as if the gears had slipped: the two of them no longer knew how to go on, and their staff were unsure of the direction too^[5].

After their American debut in 1979^[7], NBC aired an hour-long variety series built around them in 1980, Pink Lady and Jeff, with American musicians and actors joining them for talk segments^[2]; Pomeroy notes that it was short-lived^[10]. Masuda recalls that No. 37 for "Kiss In The Dark" was the best result for a Japanese act since Kyu Sakamoto, yet the Japanese media called the venture a failure, which hurt. A chill crept into everyone's hearts, she says, and she herself felt more and more cornered^[5].

Things were changing at home, too. According to Bunshun Online, Aku and Tokura wrote every single from the debut through the 15th, "Mandē Monariza Kurabu" ("Monday Mona Lisa club"), released in September 1979, with the exception of "Kiss In The Dark"^[7]. Masuda loved that song's disco sound, but it was poorly received at the time and they were allowed to sing it for only two weeks^[11]. The entertainment critic Kaoru Hōsen writes that Pink Lady "stalled abruptly" in 1979^[12]. Pomeroy points to less exposure at home and fading interest in disco as reasons their record sales fell, adding that a later move toward a more adult style missed the mark^[10].

On September 1, 1980, Pink Lady announced that they would split^[1][13]. Band Rinjū Zukan, a book that collects the stories of how groups ended, puts it down mainly to falling popularity. According to a review of the book in Bungeishunju's Hon no Hanashi, there was already talk before the split of how Mie and Kei would carry on in show business, and Yū Aku suggested holding the "funeral" early, describing the breakup as a ceremony for handing back the group's name^[14]. Masuda says both of them knew the boom would end someday^[5].

For the six months between the announcement and the end, they kept appearing on television and touring the regions^[14]. On March 21, 1981, Victor released an LP box of their singles and other recordings, known to fans as the "silver box"^[15]. Ten days later, at Korakuen Stadium in Tokyo, Pink Lady's four years and seven months came to an end^[13][1].

The two later reunited four times for limited periods, and in 2010 they declared that they were no longer disbanded, carrying on under the same name^[13][1]. That is why this archive files the show as "Not the end after all": our rule is to move a show into this category when the act later returns under the same name.

What is known about the day

Korakuen Stadium was where Candies had played their farewell concert on April 4, 1978^[16][14]. Mie and Kei, who had admired Candies since before their own debut^[3], watched that concert on a dressing-room TV between their own shows on tour. Mie said in 2024 that she watched it in tears and did not want to leave the TV when it was time to go on stage^[17]. That July 23, Pink Lady played the stadium themselves with '78 Jumping Summer Carnival^[9]; when footage of the show was released for the first time, CDJournal billed it as the "70,000-person concert at Korakuen Stadium"^[18]. A Re:minder column passes on the story that the 30,000-capacity show filled up at once and so many fans turned up without them that a second night was added^[19].

Five days before the breakup, the duo appeared on TBS's chart show The Best Ten^[20]. According to a column on Uta-Net, they sang "OH!" live from their rehearsal venue, the last time they sang on television as Pink Lady before the split^[21]. "OH!" was their 22nd and final single^[9].

March 31, 1981, was a wet day in Tokyo. Re:minder says the concert went ahead in foul weather, with rain mixed with sleet^[19], and Hon no Hanashi reports that it was cold and raining and the two were soaked^[14]. An interviewer speaking with Keiko Masuda in 2026 still called it "the breakup concert at Korakuen Stadium in the rain"^[22]. No reliable attendance figure was found.

The official live album of the night, Sayonara Pink Lady, opens with the sound of fireworks, according to CDJournal^[23]. The first track is "Hoshi kara Kita Futari" ("the two who came from the stars"), followed by a medley of "Kanpai Ojōsan" ("a toast, young lady"), "Pinku no Ringo" ("pink apple"), "Paipu no Kaijin" ("the phantom of the pipe"), "Nigero Ojōsan" ("run, young lady") and "Redī X" ("Lady X")^[23]. All five had been B-sides of their singles, from the debut "Pepper Keibu" through "UFO"^[9].

Next come "Monsutā" ("monster"), "Tōmei Ningen" ("the invisible man") and "Kamereon Āmī"^[23], the last three of the ten straight million-sellers that began their career^[1][9]. Then came their final single, "OH!"^[23].

After "OH!", the album moves on to "Guddobai Songu" and "Hotaru no Hikari," the song sung at farewells in Japan to the tune of "Auld Lang Syne," and closes with strings playing a medley of hits from "Wanted (Shimei Tehai)" through "Carmen '77," "S・O・S" and "Pepper Keibu" to "Southpaw"^[23]. CDJournal describes the album as a look back over the four years and seven months, though a review on the same page notes that "Kiss In The Dark," their American Top 40 hit, is missing^[23]. The sources checked do not settle which song the duo sang last that night, or whether songs were left off the album.

Of the farewell itself, Hon no Hanashi reports that as the two held each other in tears, a director hurried them along to fit the television slot^[14]. Re:minder likewise writes that they said their tearful goodbyes with a director urging them on^[19]. With that, Pink Lady's four years and seven months were over^[13].

What the show left behind

The two soon went their separate ways. Keiko Masuda's first solo job was a TV drama, starting around July as she remembers it^[22], and later in 1981 she debuted as a solo singer; her first single, "Suzume" ("sparrow"), sold 400,000 copies^[24]. Mie also began a solo career in 1981, under the name MIE^[25].

The farewell concert survived on the LP Sayonara Pink Lady. According to Hon no Hanashi, the critic Masaaki Hiraoka called it a record of Pink Lady's death in fury^[14]. The album came out on CD on December 1, 1994 (VICL-18143), and is now out of print^[23].

The name did not disappear with the split. On May 27, 1984, the duo held a reunion concert at Tokyo Racecourse^[2], and on September 2 they played Shibuya Public Hall with Forever '84 Pink Lady^[26]. They came back again when asked, releasing singles in 1984 ("Fushigi LOVE"), 1993 ("Ninenme no Jinx"), 1996 ("PINK EYED SOUL") and 2003 ("Terebi ga Kita Hi")^[27]. Every reunion had an end date; Victor's profile singles out the 2003–2005 tours as especially well received^[1][13].

On September 1, 2010, exactly 30 years after announcing the split, the two held a press conference at Victor Studio in Tokyo and declared "No more breakup!"^[13]. The room was Studio 302, where they had recorded their debut single, and they made their entrance in silver costumes singing "Pepper Keibu"^[27]. Mie greeted the press with "I'm home!" and explained that this time nobody had asked them; they had decided for themselves. Kei pointed to the deaths of lyricist Yū Aku and choreographer Hajime Doi, saying that the people who had made them were gone^[13]. According to Utamap News, it was Masuda who proposed the comeback, feeling they could not end things as they were, and Mie, shaken by Michael Jackson's death the year before, said yes. From now on, they said, they would be Pink Lady until they died^[27].

Unlike the earlier reunions, this one had no end date: they would keep Pink Lady going alongside their solo work^[13]. They also announced a show in Tokyo for March 31, 2011, 30 years to the day after the farewell concert^[13][27]. The album Innovation followed on December 1, and they toured in 2011^[1].

In 2023, the six-DVD set Pink Lady Chronicle TBS Special Edition gathered footage from the TBS archives^[28], including that Best Ten appearance five days before the breakup^[20].

For the 50th anniversary in 2026, a tribute concert was held at LINE CUBE SHIBUYA in Tokyo on August 25, the anniversary of their debut, and a tribute album came out the next day; the duo themselves did not appear at the concert^[29]. In October, NHK's The Covers devoted two weeks to them, with separate interviews with Mie and Masuda and footage of the tribute concert, including Yo Hitoto singing "OH!"^[30].

On September 19, Mie gave a concert at Tokyo International Forum Hall C marking 50 years since her debut and 45 as a soloist^[25][31]. She opened the second half with "Sorry to keep you waiting, we're Pink Lady," and before "Pepper Keibu," which closed the main set, said that everything had started with this song. Her first encore was "OH!"^[31]. Masuda, too, announced a concert for the 45th anniversary of her solo debut in February 2026^[22].

Looking back on the farewell concert for Re:minder, the writer Rune Gō sees the night not as a symbol of decline but as a symbol of a new start, and argues there is no need to remember the scene as especially sad^[19].

"OH!", sung as their last single in the rain at Korakuen on March 31, 1981, was sung again 45 years later, in the encore of Mie's anniversary concert.