“Love to Love”

“Love to Love” is a song by UFO that gives Misuzu’s online performance of Daisuké Taniguchi a glimpse of feeling that cannot be reduced to a search for the real man. When her invented Daisuké says the song made him cry, the post joins a concrete musical detail to Misuzu’s private act of remembering: she is not simply impersonating her former lover, but bringing the person she remembers back into reach.

The song as a trace of Daisuké

Misuzu and Kyoichi build a Facebook account for Daisuké from old photographs, biographical details, and musical preferences. The account follows Michael Schenker and two of his former bands, Scorpions and UFO. Misuzu recalls that Daisuké was especially devoted to UFO, and the band’s official page briefly seems like a possible route to finding him. They abandon that idea because searching among its 250,000 followers would be impractical. The song belongs to this trail of personal clues: it marks a specific taste that Misuzu associates with Daisuké, even though it cannot identify which of the many people bearing his name is the one they seek.

A remembered voice made present

The Daisuké Misuzu plays online is vigorous and cheerful, timid yet competitive, and sensitive enough to write that “Love to Love” made him cry. These qualities describe more than a convincing profile. The account gives form to the Daisuké she wishes him to be—or, more precisely, the only Daisuké she can imagine. By posting in his voice, Misuzu revisits the past through her own recollection. The song’s emotional force therefore comes through an act of projection: its reported effect belongs to the Daisuké she carries in memory, not to a newly verified account of the absent man.

Love, performance, and the limits of recovery

The song’s place in the account sharpens the difference between finding Daisuké and recreating him. Misuzu’s posts make the invented profile feel intimate, but they do not establish that the real Daisuké will see it or respond. Kido suspects that the performance could disturb him if he encountered it, especially as it presents a version of himself exchanging intimate comments with his former lover. Yet whether he would take the bait remains uncertain. “Love to Love” thus anchors a longing that the impersonation can revive but not resolve: Misuzu can touch her remembered love through music and performance, while the real person remains beyond the account’s reach.