Kohaku Favorites - To Parent Directory

Transcription

Kohaku Favorites.doc
2/13/05
url: http://www.japan-zone.com/news/archives/2004_10.shtml
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Kohaku Favorites
The buildup has already started to this year's Kohaku
Utagassen. The NHK New Year's Eve song
spectacular has seen dwindling audience figures in
recent years and the broadcaster is having a harder
time than in the past attracting top stars. NHK carried out its annual poll of who
people want to see in the lineup: topping the list of male stars was young enka
singer Hikawa Kiyoshi (27), followed by SMAP, a couple more enka celebs - 40time veteran Kitajima Saburo (68) and 33-timer Itsuki Hiroshi (53) - and soul balladeer Hirai
Ken (32). The top female star was Tendo Yoshimi (49). In 2nd and 3rd were a couple of younger
popsters, Utada Hikaru (21) and Shibasaki Kou (23), neither of whom have appeared on Kohaku.
After them came enka singer Sakamoto Fuyumi (37) and pop diva Hamasaki Ayumi (26), who
has been on 5 times. • "Casshern," the
directorial debut by Kiriya Kazuaki (36), is to
be shown at U.S. cinemas through major
studio Dream Works. The news follows the
recent U.S. debut of Kiriya's wife, Utada
Hikaru (21), who sings the movie's title track.
• Kabuki actor Nakamura Jakuemon (84) is
one of five people to receive the Order of
Cultural Merit this year. Among 15 others
commended for their contribution to culture
were movie director Yamada Yoji (73) and
theatrical director Ninogawa Yukio (69).
Yamada was known for years as the director
of the long-running "Otoko wa Tsurai Yo"
movie series. But in the last couple of years
he has made a very successful switch to
Takarazuka
period, samurai dramas. October 31, 2004
Table of Contents
Kitajima Saburo
Hikawa Kiyoshi
SMAP
Hirai Ken
Utada Hikaru
Hamasaki Ayumi
Wada Akiko
Glay
Komuro Tetsuya
Matsuda Seiko
Go Hiromi
Johnny’s Jimusho
2
3
5
6
7
8
9
10
12
14
16
18
Koizumi Kyoko
Nakayama Miho
Morning Musume
Dreams Come True
Fukuyama Masaharu
Amuro Namie
BoA
hitomi
Hajime Chitose
Hotei Tomayasu
Pink Lady
Takarazuka
20
21
22
24
25
26
27
29
30
31
33
35
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Kitajima Saburo (Hokkaido, 1936- )
http://www.japan-zone.com/modern/kitajima_saburo.shtml
The Japanese entertainment world (geinokai) has a very clear
and strict hierarchy. The grand dames and elder statesmen of
the geinokai are always treated with great respect, even
subservience. They get to do the grand finale performance at
the year's biggest TV concert, the Kohaku Uta Gassen
(Red/White Song Contest shown every New Year's Eve).
Their opulent and often over the top lifestyles are indulged
and they are never, ever made to look foolish - not without
their consent anyway.
Kitajima Saburo, or Sabu-chan as he is affectionately known,
is one of these grandaddies. He is one of the kings of enka, Japanese soul ballads that dominated
the music world in the first half of the 20th century. Coming from a Hokkaido fishing family and
being the eldest of seven children, Kitajima was familiar with the struggles of the working man.
This combined with his masculine voice was to make him popular with the common man as well
as a successful actor in gangster roles.
Inspired as a teenager by the great Misora Hibari, after leaving high school Kitajima came to
Tokyo to become a singer. He worked for six years as a nagashi, a kind of wandering minstrel
who accompanied themselves on guitar or accordion, until he was introduced to the famous
composer Funamura Toru. After two years as his student, Kitajima made his debut in 1962 and
the following year went on to win the New Singer award.
Enka no longer makes a serious dent in the music charts but it continues to be popular on TV,
especially NHK. Singers like Kitajima, Itsuki Hiroshi, Ishikawa Sayuri and Fuji Ayako
regularly grace the screen and occasionally manage to cross over to the popular mainstream for a
hit song or commercial. But to see these veterans in all their glory, you have to tune in to the
New Year spectacle or visit one of their regular theater appearances. The Koma Gekijo theater
in Shinjuku, Tokyo is one of the most famous.
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Animefringe Coverage:
Kiyoshi Hikawa - Enka for the New Generation
By Ridwan Khan
http://www.animefringe.com/magazine/2003/05/feature/04/index.php3
Before we look at Kiyoshi Hikawa's work, something ought
to be said for his genre. At its core, enka is classical
Japanese music in pop form. Much like American countrywestern music, enka uses classical Japanese instruments in
short pop songs. Also like country-western, enka has been
mainly popular with Japanese adults; it has been uncool
amongst Japanese teenagers, until Hikawa came on the
scene. One of the youngest, most popular enka singers in
the genre's history, Hikawa's strong voice and good looks
have popularized enka among Japanese youth.
Kiyoshi Yamada was born September 6, 1977, and was
latter dubbed Kiyoshi Hikawa by Kitano Takeshi, who also
played the teacher in Battle Royale. Kiyoshi's big break was
in 1994, when he sang "Kita no Hou" on "Star wa kimi da."
In 1995, Kiyoshi really made it into the music scene with "Otoko no Umi." His
performance of the song attracted Hikawa to the attention of composer Hideo Minamoro,
who became the younger man's mentor. His 1996 performance on "Ookawa Ongakusai
(music festival)" won him the top prize in that competition. That same year, Hikawa
graduated from Hukuoka Daiichi commercial high school, the same school as the wellknown J-pop duo Chage and Aska.
After graduating, Hikawa traveled to Tokyo for three years to study under Minamoro. In
2000, Hikawa Kiyoshi released his first single, "Hakone Hachiri no Hanjirou," which
popularized the phrase yadanettara yadane (from iya da ne, very roughly translated as
"I'm saying no!"). In fact, the phrase became so commonplace it won the Ryuukougo
Taishou award. "Hakone" is an extremely good example of Hikawa's talents. Both the
instrumental composition and Hikawa's strong voice are excellent on this track. He
followed up "Hakone" with mini albums in June and October 2000 and a second single,
"Ooi Okkake Otojirou" on February 2001.
Hikawa's first album, "Hikawa Kiyoshi Enka Meikyoku Collection Ooi Okkake Otojirou
~Seishunhen~" (The Anthology of Hikawa Kiyoshi enka songs Ooi Okkake Otojirou
~Youthful Days~) came out June 2001. Since then, he has released six more albums,
three mini-albums, nine videos, and one DVD.
Hikawa Kiyoshi has appealed to Japanese fans from many walks of his life, for many
reasons. His good looks have appealed to many fans, including middle aged Japanese
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women, who go to see him in throngs. His strong, melodic voice has endeared him to
traditional enka fans, while his youth and his ability to go from enka to pop have
enthralled Japanese youth. Hikawa's music is something extremely Japanese, so thus far
he's virtually unknown in the US.
I would strongly recommend Hikawa Kiyoshi to anyone interested in Japanese music. He
is one of the hottest singers of enka today, and his ability to create catchy, powerful songs
makes him an excellent introduction to Japanese enka.
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SMAP
http://www.japan-zone.com/modern/smap.shtml
SMAP (Sports Music Assemble People) are a kind of
Japanese version of the Monkees. Besides being the
country's most popular boy-band (and J-Pop's best
selling group ever), they also present their own variety
shows, make commercials and frequently appear in
trendy TV dramas. As members of the ubiquitous
Johnny's Jimusho (Johnny & Associates) talent agency,
they have a lot of clout behind them but still have lasted longer than most people expected. Even
rumours of systematic rapes of his young charges by guru Johnny Kitagawa couldn't dent the
group's marketability.
Nakai Masahiro, Kimura Takuya (Kimutaku for short), Katori Shingo, Kusanagi Tsuyoshi
and Inagaki Goro and former member Mori Katsuyuki started out as skateboarding back-ups to
popular group Hikaru Genji in 1988. The turn of the decade saw the end of the so-called 'idol
groups' but clever marketing by their agency ensured that the members of SMAP were
everywhere - TV shows, concerts, musicals, commercials, radio. Kimutaku in particular became
poster boy for his generation and could demand huge fees for commercial appearances. Singles
such as 'Gambarimasho' and 'Celery' have been huge sellers. Even the departure of Mori in
1995 to pursue a less-then-successful career as a motorcycle racer couldn't stop the SMAP
juggernaut. Thanks largely to their popularity, Johnny's Jimusho has become easily the most
successful agency in Japan, with earnings of almost 3 billion yen in 1995.
Ironically there was talk of SMAP breaking away from Johnny's until Inagaki Goro got himself
arrested for turning a simple parking violation into an attempted hit and run in August 2001. The
incident happened when Inagaki noticed a policewoman standing in front of his car, illegally
parked in the youth culture center of Shibuya on a Friday night. Inagaki tried to drive away and
hit the policewoman in the process. She was only slightly hurt but more serious damage had been
done to Inagaki's career and SMAP's future. One immediate casualty was a 200 million yen
drama series starring Inagaki that had been set to air just weeks later. As is the case when a TV
star is arrested, all Inagaki's commercial tie-ins were also cancelled. Ratings for the popular
SMAPxSMAP show hit an all-time low when the scheduled show was replaced with a rerun.
Kimura Takuya - often voted the sexiest man in Japan (not to mention Taiwan etc), Kimutaku
nevertheless has gained my grudging respect as an actor. He has undoubted charisma and screen
presence, particularly compared to the standards set by most 'daikon yakusha' (ham actors) on
TV. Fueled by his popularity, dramas like Beautiful Life, Long Vacation and Nemureru Mori
(A Sleeping Forest) have topped the ratings. His marriage to popular singer Kudo Shizuka
became one of the biggest news stories of 2000 as did the birth of their daughter Kokomi the
next year.
(By the way, a friend once met Kimura at a party and found him very friendly and talkative,
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more than could be said for the stunning model he was with at the time. I guess you can't always
judge people by the company they keep.)
Katori Shingo - forever cast as the baby
of SMAP, Shingo-kun has had one of the
most varied careers of all the group
members. From nude magazine photo
shoots to a variety of cross-dressing TV
roles - witness the huge popularity of
Shingo Mama and her 'O-ha Rock' - he
seems to be fighting any attempts to
categorize him while at the same time
sending a lot of ambiguous signals about
his sexual orientation. He also starred in
HR, Japan's first ever real sitcom, though
still a pretty sad bit of television.
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Hirai Ken (Osaka, 1972- )
http://www.japan-zone.com/modern/hirai_ken.shtml
You could be forgiven for thinking that Hirai Ken had mixed
blood. Tall, handsome, with a decidedly Caucasian profile
and curly hair (think skinny Lenny Kravitz without the
tatoos), he didn't look anything like the typical Japanese pop
singer when he made his debut back in 1993. But as J-Pop
started featuring more artists with a distinct R&B flavor in
the late 90s, it was Hirai's sultry, exotic appearance as much
as his soulful style and piercing falsetto voice that helped
propel him to the top.
While still a student in 1992, Hirai took part with 7,500 other hopefuls in an audition with Sony
Music in Yokohama. He signed with the label the next year and in 1995 he released his debut
single Precious Junk from the album un-balanced. This and his second single, Video Jam, were
both used as theme songs for TV dramas, a sure-fire way to boost sales. His first national tour
followed at the end of the year. He recorded his second album, Stare At, in 1996 to considerable
acclaim but that was when Hirai dropped below the radar.
The next three years saw just three singles as Hirai worked on developing his style and image.
He hit the big time in 2000 with his third album The Changing Same and the hit single Rakuen
(Paradise). The single got considerable FM airplay and firmly established his reputation at home
and abroad. He was the first Japanese artist to take the classic test of a true R&B performer playing at the Apollo Theater in New York, where he got a warm reception. Building on his
popularity in Asia, he appeared at the MTV Music Summit in Taiwan later in the summer and
went to Hong Kong to receive the Best New Japanese Act award from RTHK radio.
2001 saw his single Kiss of Life used as the theme for the popular Love Revolution TV drama
series. His fourth album Gaining Through Losing and a national tour of the same name built on
his solid reputation. He had already shown that he had the urge to perform abroad, so his live
appearance on the Music Fair show in March 2002 with producer/singer Babyface from an LA
studio was very much part of the plan. In the summer, things like winning the Best Male Artist at
the inaugral MTV Music Video Awards Japan and appearing in the official FIFA World Cup
concert with Chemistry and Lauryn Hill seemed like they were just par for the course.
Already an established star, Hirai went one step further when he released a cover of Okina
Furudokei (My Grandfather's Clock) in 2002. A popular nursery rhyme, it was expected to be a
minor success, but it went on to become one of the biggest hits of the year.
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Utada Hikaru (New York, 1983- )
http://www.japan-zone.com/modern/utada_hikaru.shtml
Young singer/songwriter Utada Hikaru is the biggest new name in
Japanese music. Born in New York, her mother is the famous enka
singer Fuji Keiko. "Hikki" spent a lot of her childhood in
recording studios and started writing song lyrics in English when
she was only 10. At that time, she liked rock bands such as Bon
Jovi and Queen but she later became a fan of R&B music. By the
time she was 12 she had already released 3 singles in the US,
where she uses the name 'Cubic U'. She released her first English
album in Japan, Precious, under this name in January 1998. The
record was reasonably well received but by way of a re-entry into
the Japanese pop music market, it was decided that she would use
her real name.
The first single 'Automatic' was a No.1 hit, as was the second 'Movin' On Without You',
which was also used in a Nissan TV commercial. As expected, her debut Japanese album 'First
Love' went straight to No.1 in the charts. But more than that, it became the most popular debut
album ever in Japan, selling more than 8 million copies.
This success was quickly followed up when her next single was used as the theme song for a
popular TV drama series and she made a TV commercial for Sony. She said: "I want to continue
to make my own music. And I want to continue to surprise people with my music." Utada's
obvious talent, equal to that of similar artists in the US, sets her apart from her peers in Japan,
whose main assets are not the ability to sing or dance but manipulability, nice looks and a
squeaky-clean image. She looks set to build her own kind of career that could change the face of
Japanese music.
In the summer of 2002, she surprised the media with the announcement of her marriage to a
little-known photographer 15 years her elder. Kiritani Kazuaki is the son of a wealthy
Kumamoto family, who ran away to the US in his teens. Based in New York, he was
commisioned to take photos and direct videos for Utada's early work. She had the media in a
frenzy again shortly afterwards, with the announcement that she was fighting cancer. Helped
perhaps by her youth -- this was before she even turned 20 -- she made a quick recovery. Not
only that but she won the Gold Disc award for album and single sales for the year, racking up
well over 6 million copies sold.
It remains to be seen if her attempt to break into the US market will be as successful. She's
certainly putting a lot of time and effort into it since signing with the Def Jam label early in
2002.
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Hamasaki Ayumi (Fukuoka Prefecture, 1978http://www.japan-zone.com/modern/hamasaki_ayumi.shtml
Click here for an enlarged photo
If you're in Japan, you've seen that face. The huge vacant eyes and
'lemur caught in the headlights', 'am I real or just a robot' expression
that for some strange reason makes certain young people want to
buy a Tsu-ka mobile phone. And then there's the voice, a kind of
husky Minnie Mouse effect. But, the critics will have you know,
this is a J-Popster with a difference. This girl writes her own song
lyrics and in them she is not afraid to speak her mind. She is also a
fashion leader who commands the unquestioning respect of schoolgirls across the country.
Hamasaki grew up in Fukuoka in southern Japan listening to her older brother's rock music
collection (Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple) but, like Utada Hikaru, later drifted towards the soul
music of Babyface and En Vogue. She spent time in New York getting vocal lessons and
perhaps this time spent abroad accounts for her self-confidence and independent spirit. She
returned to Japan to make her debut in 1998. Within a couple of years she had released more
than a dozen singles and a clutch of albums.
Getting to the top of the J-pop world is one thing. Staying there is
another. Ayu has had her share of bad press, a lot of it to do with her
"diva” mage and her being something of a control freak. Given how
the music business in Japan is built on record labels pulling all the
strings and singers and bands being money-making puppets, perhaps
it's understandable. She took another hit after having a go at a frontrow fan at one of her gigs who insisted on sitting through the set. It
turned out the fan was disabled, and the wide shows and Net rumor
mills fed off the story.
But Ayu couldn't be kept down for long. Her relationship with Nagase
Tomoya of the Johnny's band Tokio has kept her in the spotlight, with reporters speculating on
when the pair will get hitched. And there have been a lot more TV and radio appearances in an
all-out "image-up" assault. She even designed a cartoon character in her own image. "Ayupan"
quickly became popular among the high school girl set.
Hamasaki strives to always be honest in her lyrics, writing from experience and letting the bad
times come through with the good (she lists Nicholas Cage and his dark cult classic Leaving
Las Vegas as favorites). But it looks like nothing but good times ahead for this songstress.
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Wada Akiko (Osaka, 1950- )
http://www.japan-zone.com/modern/wada_akiko.shtml
Soul singer Wada Akiko is often referred to as the God Nehsan (God
Big Sister, as opposed to Godfather!) of the Japanese entertainment
business, and she has even been called Japan's Aretha Franklin.
Certainly, strength of character helped both women reach the top of the
business almost as much as their singing ability. Popularly known as
Akko, Wada also has a tall and solidly-built physique which, though it
was a burden in her early years, has become a major part of her image.
Born in Osaka in 1950, she dropped out of high school at the age of
17 and started working in a jazz coffee shop, something that was all the
rage at the time. She was scouted by the Hori Pro talent agency and made her singing debut in
1968. The following year, she had her first big hit with Doushaburi no Ame no Naka de (In the
Pouring Rain). In 1972, she won for Best Song at the Japan Record Awards. In 1976, she
married the president of a promotion company but the marriage only lasted eight months. In
1981, she married photographer Iizuka Koji.
In the ever-competitive music business, her size made her an easy target for psychological
bullying. She would be told that she was in the wrong dressing room and to go join the other
men. On her many television appearances, she sometimes relates tales of her early days but says
it helped her build character and toughness. These characteristics in addition to a rich voice have
carried her through a career that has seen over 70 single and album releases. She has also
appeared over 20 times on the annual Kohaku Uta Gassen (Red-White Song Contest) held
every New Year's eve and has been a team leader several times.
Though she can be seen singing on TV, she spends more time as a variety show host. On
popular shows like Akko ni Omakase (Leave it to Akko) and Beauty Colliseum, she is very
direct and often critical, especially of those whose problems are caused by their own weakness.
In a culture where women have traditionally been discouraged from speaking out and expected to
be submissive to men, Wada is an inspiration to those who want to break this mold.
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Glay
http://www.japan-zone.com/modern/glay.shtml
The Japanese band Glay ("not black, not white but something in
between"), are so cool that they don't care what people think about
their name. "We know it's not how you spell the color in English, but
it's our way of being different." They are so popular that Japan's
telephone system was disabled on February 15, 1998 as thousands of
fans tried to book tickets for their concert tour.
Vocalist Teru, lanky composer Takuro, guitarist Hisashi, and babyfaced bassist Jiro started Glay when they were in high school in Hakodate, Hokkaido. Soon after
graduation, the band moved to Tokyo, where they developed their sound.
They have a punk-rock style mixed with melodies and philosophical lyrics. "We don't want our
music to sound like everyone else's," says Takuro. "So we take from lots of different people."
The hard-rock style upset some listeners, but attracted others who were tired of teenage idol pop
stars, many produced by Komuro Tetsuya.
Osaka radio station FM802 noticed the trend in 1997 and had a Komuro-free "Hot 100 Special."
At the top of the music list was Glay. Fans seem to agree with the station's choice. Glay's besthits album, Review, sold more than 4 million copies and was the top-selling album ever in Japan.
"Glay's really, really cool," says Mika Kohno, 19, from Tokyo. "They've suffered a lot to get
here, and you can hear it in their music. Plus, they're really cute." In the summer of 1999, Glay
played to a sell-out crowd of 200,000 at an outdoor venue on Tokyo's waterfront.
During the last couple of years, Glay have become a bit more low profile. They played the
biggest rock concert ever held in China but otherwise the biggest headlines have ben for Teru's
marriage to Onuki Ami of the pop duo Puffy.
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Komuro Tetsuya (Tokyo, 1958- )
http://www.japan-zone.com/modern/komuro_tetsuya.shtml
Depending on who you talk to, Komuro Tetsuya is either a musical
and marketing genius or the man who destroyed what little
credibility Japanese pop music had left at the end of the 20th
century. The fairest description is probably that he's a bit of both.
Already a successful musician and producer, Komuro started
building his "komuro family" in the early 1990's and helped make
the Avex Trax label one of the biggest forces in the Japanese music
business.
Born in Tokyo, the young Tetsuya learned violin from the age of
three. But when he was in junior high school, he came across his
first synthesizer and it was love at first sight. He secretly pawned
his violin, guitar and keyboard to buy a Roland SH1000 of his own for the whopping sum of
160,000 yen. He joined a band while a student at the prestigious Waseda University and with two
members of the band, Utsunomiya Takashi and Kine Naoto, formed TM Network in 1983.
The techopop band had some success but Komuro did even better as a producer for such stars as
Matsuda Seiko, Koizumi Kyoko and Nakayama Miho.
In 1988, Komuro left the TMN project, as the band was now called, and went to spend a year in
London. He indulged in every aspect of the rave scene that was sweeping Europe at the time. On
his return to Japan, he set about creating a new scene at home, as a svengali-like guru constantly
on the lookout for the right talent. His breakthrough came in 1992 with the group trf (Tetsuya
Komuro rave factory), which consisted of a female vocalist, a DJ and three dancers who
performed to Komuro's pre-recorded music. Most Japanese music fans had never seen the likes
of trf, at least not at home. The steady eurobeat music and onstage confidence of the group
caught the public imagination and trf's first two singles EZ Do Dance and Boy Meets Girl sold
over a million copies each. The group went on to sell over 20 million singles and albums over
the next six years.
Meanwhile Komuro was busy creating another star, Amuro Namie. The impish-faced, longlegged teenager from Okinawa became the style guru for a generation of school girls (much like
Hamasaki Ayumi several years later). She later became pregnant by and married trf dancer Sam,
putting her career temporarily on hold. Other huge stars from Okinawa included Max (who
started out as Amuro's backing dancers) and Speed. Komuro himself played keyboard in the trio
globe. All of these projects reaped huge financial rewards for Komuro and his "family".
Some controversy surrounded the career of another protege Kahara Tomomi after the 21-year
old became Komuro's live-in lover. Very noticable weight changes and accidents with a gas oven
and some razor blades came with their eventual breakup and almost ended her singing career.
But she began a comeback in 2001, around the time that the 42-year old Komuro announced his
marriage (his second) to singer Yoshida Masami, aged 26 and 4 months pregnant at the time.
That lasted less than a year but Komuro was soon back in the saddle again, this time marrying
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globe vocalist Yamada Keiko in a ceremony televised live. It was a sign of Komuro's somewhat
diminished status that many top stars declined invitations to the event.
Komuro has made several efforts to expand his reach beyond Japan. He wrote the theme music
for the France World Cup in 1998 with Jean-Michel Jarre. He is making the most of the
popularity of Japanese pop music throughout Asia and has also set up companies (such as
orumok and tk news - notice how his name is always there) to search for and produce talent in
such places as Hong Kong and Taiwan. But the kind of success he achieved at home has so far
eluded him abroad. And now that Tsunku and his Morning Musume-led crew are ruling the
home turf, will Komuro ever get back to the No.1 spot?
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Matsuda Seiko (Fukuoka Prefecture, 1962- )
http://www.japan-zone.com/modern/matsuda_seiko.shtml
When Japanese hear the term burikko, the first person that comes
to mind is Matsuda Seiko. Describing an adult woman who acts
cute and girlish, usually to appeal to men, the word captures the
essence of how many Japanese women have traditionally acted to
attract the man of their dreams. In the case of Seiko-chan, the
target wasn't a guy but stardom, and buckets of it. Often
compared (in Japan anyway) to Madonna, Matsuda does have
one thing in common with the queen of pop - the ability to
manipulate the media and ride the storms of criticism that periodically come her way.
Born Kamachi Noriko in a small town in Fukuoka, southern Japan, she had the same dreams
of becoming a pop singer as her schoolfriends but also had enough ambition to do something
about it. She beat out 4,500 fellow 16-year olds to win a regional CBS-Sony sponsored talent
contest but her civil-servant father refused to let her go to the nationals. But encouraged by a
record company executive, she continued taking singing lessons and travelled alone to Tokyo in
1979 to audition, successfully, for the Sun Music talent agency. CBS-Sony gambled on the
newly named Matsuda Seiko with a huge 70 million yen campaign that included her face and
debut single on a TV commercial spot. Sales of over a quarter of a million copies for that single
alone and revenue of over 8 billion yen in her first year proved the gamble to be a wise one.
During her peak, and the heyday of the idols, in the '80s Matsuda racked up an amazing 24
consecutive No. 1 singles. As her fame grew so did the number of burikko girls across the
country, causing a lot of consternation among feminists but at the same time becoming a defining
phenomenon of the decade. Matsuda, meanwhile, was also pursuing the man of her dreams,
fellow idol Go Hiromi. The media was abuzz for several years with rumors about when this
'couple of the century' were going to name the day. But Go was a traditional country boy who
expected the hugely ambitious Matsuda to give up working after marriage. Eventually, in 1985,
she married actor Kanda Masaki, who proved to be more ready to make sacrifices for his wife's
career.
During their 12 years of marriage, it was Seiko who constantly grabbed the limelight, though for
unexpected reasons. Rather than settle into married bliss, she got involved with reportedly
dozens of men. Also, long determined to make it in America she crossed the ocean alone 1988
only to fail miserably. But with her new-found freedom and perhaps in imitation of Madonna,
she developed a whole new persona, that of the straight-talking, independent woman. But after
her reported affair with popular star Masahiko Kondo led Kondo's girlfriend and number one
Seiko-rival Nakamori Akina to attempt suicide, her stock was in serious decline. She started a
long affair with out-of-work actor Jeff Nichols and was even seen in public in Tokyo with him,
her mother and young daughter Sayaka. A later breakup led to Nichols publishing several tell-all
books. Another media frenzy grew of her affair with dancer Alan Reed but when her husband
defended her and their marriage in a press conference the effect was startling. Suddenly Seiko
was a victim of the media and increasingly a heroine of the growing women's movement. A well-
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timed saucy TV commercial put her in the headlines and her star was rising again.
Further attempts to break into the US market included an album on Mercury Records in 1995
and a blink-and-you'll-misss-it appearance in the blockbuster Armageddon. Her divorce from
Kanda in 1997 was followed by a short-lived marriage to a dentist (who conveniently also has a
clinic in the US) and a make-up duet with Go Hiromi, on a comeback trail of his own. It's been a
long time since Japan experienced 'Seiko fever' but this model of pure ambition will be with us
for some time to come. Her daughter Sayaka is set to make her official singing debut with Sony
Music in early 2002, having already caused a media flurry by appearing in a TV commercial in
Summer 2001. Will the legend carry over to another generation? Watch this space.
2/13/05
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Go Hiromi (Fukuoka Prefecture 1955)
http://www.japan-zone.com/modern/go_hiromi.shtml
The Peter Pan of the Japanese pop world, Go Hiromi finally
decided to call it quits - one last farewell concert tour and then a
move to build a new life in a rebuilding New York. Thus ended
a remarkable career in the limelight, a career that spanned four
decades and spawned 62 albums. A talented self-promoter who
once seemed set to create the perfect match with superstar
Matsuda Seiko, Go used the flexibility of his adopted stage
name to great effect in rebuilding his household-name status in
the last few years.
Born Haratake Hiromi on October 18, 1955 in Kasuya, Fukuoka Prefecture, he was scouted by
Johnny's Jimusho at age 15 and made his professional debut under his stage name the following
year. His debut year was a huge success, seeing the release of his debut single Otoko no ko,
Onna no ko (A Boy, a Girl) and an appearance in an NHK Taiga (Period) Drama. And the
reward: the Japan Records Newcomer Award.
Pretty soon the newcomer was a big star and by the end of the 70s he had played at the Nippon
Budokan, won more industry awards, appeared in eight movies and 20 TV dramas and was
named Japan's Top Idol for five years in a row. Go was obviously an exhibitionist, even by
showbiz standards and had a habit of going barechested and fondling himself on stage. This of
course drove his legions of female fans wild.
One of those fans had grown up to become the leading lady of Japanese pop. Driving ambition
had propelled Matsuda Seiko to the top of the idol heap and now she had her sights set on the
baby-faced Hiromi. For several years, the pair dropped hints about their mutual admiration and
the media speculated wildly. But those were days when stars were not in control of their private
lives. Career came first and Seiko was not prepared to sacrifice hers for the sake of this
surprisingly conservative (given his onstage image) Kyushu country boy. She went on to marry
actor Kanda Masaki and Go got hitched to Nitani Yurie. They had two children but the
marriage ended in divorce in 1998, a time when Go's career had been sliding for some time.
The day after his divorce saw a new beginning for Go. The
release of a tell-tale book called Daddy had the media in a
frenzy. The Hiromi-Seiko dream couple still lived in many
people's minds and fans bought the book in droves and combed
it looking for the gory details on why it had never materialized.
It was all there and more and the book was a huge bestseller. It
was also the perfect publicity for a relaunch of his music career.
The 44-year old Go belied his age as he strutted to the Japanese
version of Ricky Martin's huge hit La Vida Loca. A "guerrilla
live" event on the streets of Tokyo's trendy Shibuya district, the
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catchy "Acchi-chi achi" refrain, the latin beat and Go's inimitable stage antics made Goldfinger
99 a mega-hit that stayed in the Top 10 for more than seven months. Suddenly Go was
everywhere, notably in car commercials chanting his own name. 2000 saw the dream duet - Go
and Matsuda singing the ballad True Love Story - but Go found love further afield, announcing
plans to marry New York born Oneda Nami in November 2001 (Oneda, 15 years younger than
Go, is the daughter of a wealthy venture capitalist). After a final album release, promotion tour
and series of year-end dinner shows, the couple will be set to start a new life in the US.
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Johnny's Jimusho
http://www.japan-zone.com/modern/johnnys.shtml
The talent agency which was established by Johnny Kitagawa back
in the early 1960's has dominated the boy-band market in the four
decades since. All the top ma le groups on Japanese TV today are
members of his stable: SMAP, Tokio, Kinki Kids and V6, while
Arashi and Johnny's Junior are among the up-and-coming younger
generation.
Johnny's Jimusho - or Johnny and Associates as it is officially called
in English - started in 1963 when Kitagawa launched his first group,
not surprisingly named Johnnies. They were followed by the hugely
successful foursome, the Four Leaves (who recently announced a
comeback some 23 years after they broke up in 1978). Kitagawa built on the success of this
"idol" quartet and churned out one group after another over the decades. The Golden Age of the
idols was in the 1980's, and Johnny's created the biggest of all the stars: the Tanokin Trio,
Ninja, Shibugakitai and Hikaru Genji, at their peak when I arrived in Japan in 1989. Two
members of the Tanokin Trio, Kondo Masahiko (now a racing car driver who has driven in the
24-hour race at Le Mans) and Tahara Toshihiko went on to hugely successful solo singing
careers with over a dozen No.1 hits each, while Motoki Masahiro (usually known as Mokkun,
left) of Shibugakitai has become a respected actor. Hikaru Genji became the first group to start
off their career with eight straight No.1's and in 1988, they had the three top-selling singles of the
year, a rare feat. Their roller-skating theatrics was a crowd-pleasing idea that Kitagawa said was
inspired by the stage shows of Alice Cooper (they're not woooorthy!).
The 1990's saw former Hikaru Genji backing skateboarders SMAP
reach the very s ummit of the Japanese entertainment world. As the
idol boom had faded, they had struggled to achieve real success as just
a singing group. So Johnny's turned them into multimedia talents.
Within a couple of years, they were quite simply everywhere. Their
own regular TV and radio shows (reminiscent of the Monkees),
commercials, best-selling albums, dramatic roles, magazine covers
and more kept them in the spotlight and at the top of the popularity
rankings. Kimura Takuya (left) became the dream boy for a whole
generation of schoolgirls and continues to be voted Japan's Sexiest
Man. His marriage to Kudo Shizuka, herself a former idol, was one
of the biggest stories of 2000. Ironically there was talk of SMAP
breaking away from Johnny's until member Inagaki Goro got himself arrested for turning a
simple parking violation into an attempted hit and run in August 2001.
While SMAP have long been the crown princes of Japanese entertainment, other groups in their
stable have built up huge followings, too. Tokio and V6 are in the SMAP mould and the same
age bracket. Tokio member Nagase Tomoya (left) achieved new heights of fame when he was
dicovered to be the love interest of pop diva Hamasaki Ayumi. Kinki Kids, made up of Domoto
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Tsuyoshi and Domoto Koichi (they're not related), started out as comedians but have become a
best-selling singing duo. Arashi is a splinter group from the sprawling membership of Johnny's
Junior. All of the groups have their own regular TV shows and sell out arenas across the country.
But why the Johnny's focus only on male groups? Well, the man
himself once cl aimed that they're just easier to handle. But the exact
meaning of "handle" has been the subject of great speculation over
the years. In 1988 Kita Koji, a member of the Four Leaves, wrote a
tell-all diary in which he described being molested by Kitagawa and
other idols. Similar claims were made in another book published in
1996. One story has Inagaki Goro hardly able to do his dance
routines after enduring the romantic advances of Kitagawa. Though
they're widely believed to be true, the squeaky clean image of pretty
boy-next-door groups has hardly been dented by these accusations.
This is perhaps associated with the fact that many young Japanese
women are also fans of bishonen manga, comic books in which
pretty young boys have romantic encounters. Also Johnny's Jimusho has been so hugely
powerful for the last couple of decades that the media dares not kill this goose that has laid so
many golden eggs.
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Koizumi Kyoko (Kanagawa Pref, 1966- )
http://www.japan-zone.com/modern/koizumi_kyoko.shtml
At its peak in the '80s, the aidoru (idol) phenomenon was an
impressive production line, churning out dozens of teenage,
mostly female starlets every year. Koizumi Kyoko is one of the
few idols from the early '80s to have survived with her image and
popular appeal intact. She became less active in her acting career
following her marriage to popular actor Nagase Masatoshi in
1995 (she met Nagase when he was taking photos for the
magazine AnAn, to which she contributes). But she remained in
the public eye through regular TV commercial appearances.
While she's old enough to play the stereotypical CM mother, her
image remains that of the perky girl next door. Her divorce from
Nagase came in early 2004, around the time that she was
receiving a lot of offers to get back into acting more. This
difficulty in combining marriage and work seems to be a real
hurdle for many women in Japanese showbusiness and one of the
two usually has to suffer.
Popularly known as Kyon-kyon, Koizumi made her breakthrough on the TV audition show
Staa Tanjou (A Star is Born) in 1981 and her debut followed the next year. The usual string of
slickly packaged pop singles, albums, TV dramas and movies followed. She first appeared on the
annual New Year's Eve extravaganza Kohaku Uta Gassen (Red-White Song Battle) in 1984,
just a week after her movie debut. In 1987, she won the award for the best-selling single in
Japan. She was cast quite out of character as the villain in 1997's hit movie Odoru Daisosasen
(Bayside Shakedown), which starred Oda Yuji.
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Nakayama Miho (Tokyo, 1970 - )
http://www.japan-zone.com/modern/nakayama_miho.shtml
Nakayama Miho is one of the few aidoru (pop idols) of the 1980's who
managed to use the transition to actress to build a career as an established
star. She is now one of the most commonly seen faces in TV
commercials, a sure sign of success. Her face, like those of most
successful actresses not entirely 'au naturale', is used to hock everything
from cosmetics to computers, cameras to beer.
Like many young singers, actresses and models, Nakayama was
discovered by a scout while shopping in Tokyo's Harajuku, a popular
spot for young teens. She made her debut in 1985, at the age of 15, with
the single C and in the teen movie Be-bop High School. Over the course
of (count them) 17 albums in five years, she followed the usual idol path
of bland but big-selling pop releases, TV appearances and movies but was
beautiful and ambitious enough to keep this career going beyond her
teens. In the '90s, she started writing her own songs and moving beyond
the boundaries of pop into jazz and latin music, releasing another 23
albums, many of them collections.
Her acting breakthrough came in 1995 when she starred in
the critically acclaimed movie Love Letter (poster) and the
popular TV drama For You. Love Letter won the Audience
Award at the 1998 Montreal Film Festival. She also starred
with Kimura Takuya in the 1999 drama series Nemureru
Mori (A Sleeping Forest). Like Koizumi Kyoko, as a
successful and maturing actress, Nakayama can pick and
choose her dramatic roles and doesn't appear often. She has
appeared in over 30 drama series but most were in the first
decade of her career. But also like Koizumi, her commercial
appearances keep her very firmly in the public eye.
In June 2002, Nakayama's marriage to Akutagawa prizewinning novelist and musician Tsuji Jinsei (42) caused quite a stir.
(Note: her younger sister Shinobu was also briefly a successful idol.)
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Morning Musume
http://www.japan-zone.com/modern/morning_musume.shtml
Yaguchi Mari (leader, pic below), Ishikawa Rika, Yoshizawa
Hitomi, Takahashi Ai, Ogawa Makoto, Konno Asako, Niigaki
Risa, Kamei Eri, Tanaka Reina, Michishige Sayumi and
Fujimoto Miki.
(As of February 2005. Former members: Nakazawa Yuuko,
Ishiguro Aya, Fukuda Asuka, Ichii Sayaka, Goto Maki, Yasuda Kei,
Kago Ai, Tsuji Nozomi, Abe Natsumi, Iida Kaori.)
When we worn-around-the-edges foreign veterans of Japan want to let off a bit of steam about
the country's pop culture, one of the easiest targets (and believe me there are a lot of easy targets)
is Morning Musume. By anybody's standards a cliched, manufactured money-spinning venture,
this 15-girl pop group epitomises everything we love to hate about J-Pop. The only problem is,
and I'm going to take some stick for this, is that some of their tunes are actually quite catchy.
Notice I don't go anywhere near the word 'good' and a lot of it is down to a group singing
reasonably in tune being infinitely better than the nasal whine of a solo Kahala Tomomi or
Morisaka Chisato.
Morning Musume started in 1997 as a five-girl unit put together on the TV Tokyo talent-search
show Asayan by SharanQ vocalist Tsunku. The criterion for being allowed to make their
professional debut was to sell 50,000 CDs in five days. With TV crews on hand, the teeny tots
(actually they ranged in age from 12 to 24!) did a circuit of stores and radio shows, made streetcorner appeals and used the newly popular medium of e-mail to spread the word. Guerilla
marketing is nothing new but with the kind of backing these kids had there was never any real
doubt that they'd succeed. Their debut single Morning Coffee got to No 6 in the charts and next
thing you know there's suddenly eight members in the group.
Another couple of singles and there they were, at the top of the
charts and the talk of the town. Their own TV show was a natural
next step as well as doing the music variety show scene.
There's no doubt that these girls have ambition and worked hard to
pull off their image as a genki, polished team. And while not setting
any new standards for originality, Tsunku has managed to put
together some half-decent pop songs. Their 2000 hit Happy
Summer Wedding had an infectious enthusiasm and a catchy
melody. It was definitely not a song you wanted to hear before
going to work in the morning 'cause it would haunt you all day
long.
There are now even spin-off groups, Pucchi (petit) Moni and Mini-Moni as well as groups
made up of MM members and girls from other groups in the "Tsunku Family". It's has all been
expanded into what's called the "Hello! Project", that includes over 40 girls and young women.
From a marketing point of view, these various groups give unlimited ways to sell CD's and other
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products. The sad thing is that the Japanese market seems to have no saturation point for this
stuff. Early 2001 saw the release of MM's greatest hits album but with the youngest members
still in their mid-teens - the se guys are going to be around for a while yet. With the constant
morphing of all these spin-off groups and
changing of members, It's hard work trying to
keep this section up to date! Anyway, if some
young Japanese ask you if you like Momus, don't
be fooled into thinking they're into obscure
Scottish songwriters - it's just an abbreviation of
their favorite J-Pop group.
================
Links
The Hello Project (http://www.helloproject.com/
)is the official Morning Musume page.
There are other related sites for Pucchi Morni
(http://www.pucchimoni.com/ ),
Tampop
o
Mini Moni (http://www.helloproject.com/minimoni/ )
and Tanpopo (http://www.helloproject.com/tanpopo/ )
and (Japanese only) The Morning Musume Planet (http://idolplanets.kitone.com/morning_musume/ ) fan site has member profiles and lots of photos while
Morning Enjoy Net
(http://hello.to/morning-musume/ )
is in Japanese only.
Pucchi – Moni
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Dreams Come True
http://www.japan-zone.com/modern/dct.shtml
Nakamura Masato (Tokyo, 1958- )
Yoshida Miwa (Hokkaido, 1965- )
(Former member, Nishikawa Takahiro (Hokkaido,
1964- ) left in early 2002)
Dreams Come True are something of a rarity in the
Japanese pop world: a band that have achieved great
success on the back of talent alone. Led by the
infectious and uplifting vocals of Yoshida Miwa,
Doricamu (as they are known to their Japanese fans) built a solid reputation over 13 years that
has recently been rewarded with the prestige of recording theme tunes for Disney movies (think
Elton John or Phil Collins).
DCT started in January 1988 in Tokyo when Yoshida teamed up with bassist Nakamura Masato
and childhood friend and keyboard player Nishikawa Takahiro. They played live houses around
the city for several months before recording their first album in the UK, which was released in
March of the next year. The eponymous debut album became a million-seller, as have all 10
original albums since. The 1992 release The Swinging Star sold two milion copies in its first
week of release and was for several years the most popular album in Japanese music history with
over four million copies sold. In 1993, one of their biggest hits, Winter Song, was the opening
theme to the Hollywood movie Sleepless in Seattle. They had a No.1 in 1994 with Wherever
You Are with Maurice White of Earth, Wind and Fire. Yoshida also released some singles as one
half of a duo with the strange name of Funk the Peanuts.
"The band was created to introduce everyone to Yoshida the singer," says Nakamura. Born and
raised in Hokkaido, Yoshida developed a love for the rhythmical music she listened to on US
Armed Forces Radio, at the time the only real source of Western music in Japan. She remembers,
as a child, being mesmerized by legendary jazz singers such as Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah
Vaughan. "I want to be able to stand up at the age of seventy or eighty and move people with the
sound of my voice," she says.
In 1998, the band released an all-English version of their Sing or Die album. Despite the fact
that Yoshida's ventures into singing English lyrics have been almost flawless, the band remain
virtually unknown outside Asia. But they acheive a rare feat - making Japanese lyrics compatible
with western music. So the world may yet learn about this jewel of "beauty and harmony" (the
meaning of the kanji for "Miwa").
Nishikawa announced in March 2002 that he was leaving the group to pursue a solo career. He
was arrested the following October on assault and drug charges.
Links The official DCT (http://www.dctgarden.com/index.html ) site is in Japanese only but
links to an English site.
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Fukuyama Masaharu (Nagasaki Prefecture, 1969- )
http://www.japan-zone.com/modern/fukuyama_masaharu.shtml
Fukuyama 'Masha' Masaharu was born in Nagasaki and had a
reputation as a prankster in his youth. He got his nickname
seemingly because his father has trouble with his teeth and
couldn't say his name properly. He came to Tokyo straight out
of high school and auditioned for the Amuse film company. But
his first few were spent trying to build a career as a musician.
He made his less than sparkling live debut in August of 1989 no-one turned up. His debut single, released in 1990 didn't fare
much better. But a later single from his debut album Message was used in a Victor TV
commercial and he had his break. Weekly broadcasts on the famous All Night Nippon radio
show made him a rare DJ/actor combination and also did wonders for his popularity.
He appeared in his first TV drama in 1991, (Because there is Tomorrow) with popular actress
Imai Miki. In 1993, the drama Hitotsu Yane no Shita (Under One Roof) was a smash and made
a star of Fukuyama. He was chosen that summer as 'best jeanist', a bizarre title that gets a lot of
publicity, and he had his first million-selling album Calling. He has since starred in several
successful TV series, such as Hitotsu Yane no Shita 2 and Meguriai (Chance Encounter) with
actress Tokiwa Takako, for which he has often recorded the title tune. He was sent by TV Asahi
as a photographer for the 2000 Sydney Olympics. In an NHK poll of the most popular male
performers for 2000, Fukuyama was chosen 5th overall and was the second-ranked musician
(behind Kimura Takuya)
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Amuro Namie (Okinawa Prefecture, 1977- )
http://www.japan-zone.com/modern/amuro_namie.shtml
A quarter Italian on her mother's side, Amuro Namie had the kind
of exotic look and a reasonably decent voice that made her a
potential star. But driving ambition - her first performance was in a
supermarket at the age of twelve - and teaming up with the right
people also played a big part. Her success started something of a
wave of starlets from Okinawa, including the hugely popular girl
groups Max and Speed.
Amuro Namie's heyday was in the early 1990s but her nature - she
is a determined and ambitious survivor - ensured that she lasted
well past her "Sell By" date. A native of the southern island of
Okinawa, she joined the Okinawa Actors School in her early teens.
At the age of 15, together with four other girls, she was part of a group called Super Monkeys
(perhaps because of Amuro's simian features!) with the Toshiba EMI label.
A move to Tokyo helped them build a solid fan base with their Eurobeat sound and stardom
seemed to be on the horizon. After some moderate success with their first few singles, it was
clear who the real star was. The group was renamed "Namie Amuro with Super Monkeys".
But it was only when Amuro went solo and switched to the Avex Trax label and the remaining
four girls formed Max, that all five enjoyed real success. The 5'2" Amuro got a regular gig on the
popular children's TV show PonkiKids. The fledgling Avex label went all out to make her a star
and soon Amuro had become the biggest pop idol of her time. School girls copied her every
move and fashion whim and called themselves "Amurah", and she was at least partly responsible
for the whole "ganguro" (cancer black) tanning boom.
A large part of Amuro's success was due to her being under the wing of Avex producer Komuro
Tetsuya, a hugely influential figure in 90s J-Pop. With his guidance and influence, Amuro
became the biggest music star of the latter half of the decade. Her hits have tended to follow a
familiar Komuro pattern in that they use ridiculous or meaningless English in their titles. "Can
You Celebrate" and "Chase the Chance" are bad enough but the worst has to be "Body Feels
Exit".
In 1997, the three-months pregnant Amuro married Sam (Maruyama Masaharu), a dancer with
Avex group TRF in the showbiz wedding of the year. The next spring, their baby son Haruto was
born in a hospital run by Sam's father. Amuro took a break from the music business but, still
being in her early twenties, motherhood couldn't match the appeal of superstardom. Shortly after
resuming her career, she was stunned by the death of her mother. But she bounced back from
that shock, too. With similar but not always parallel careers, Amuro and Sam eventually found
themselves announcing their divorce in 2002. Rumors abounded of Amuro's disinterest in childrearing and her overwhelming desire to get back to the top. Others may have usurped that
position but Amuro won't be going away any time soon.
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BoA (Korea, 1986- )
http://www.japan-zone.com/modern/boa.shtml
The Korean peninsula was colonized by Japan for
most of the first half of the 20th century. The
Japanese language and aspects of its culture were
imposed on the Korean people - even the spelling of
Korea was changed by the Japanese (previously it
was spelled Corea). As a formerly oppressed people,
it is perhaps understandable that the Korean
government banned Japanese popular culture for
decades following liberation after World War Two.
The two countries maintained a bitter rivalry, with
Korea always playing catch up with its richer and
more developed neighbor. Ethnic Koreans make up
the largest ethnic minority in Japan. A great many of these so-called "zai-nichi kankokujin" were
born and raised in Japan, but are still considered outsiders and often face discrimination. So
when it was decided that the rival countries would be co-hosting the 2002 World Cup, it was
seen as doomed to failure by many. But it was also seen as a golden marketing opportunity by
some.
Korean singer BoA made her CD debut in her home country in August 2000 at the age of 13,
and was an immediate hit. Six months later she attended a "debut convention" in Tokyo, an event
covered by 1,000 members of the world media. Shortly after, she made two TV commercials and
released her Japanese CD debut in May 2001. Her powerful vocals and energetic dancing on ID;
Peace B fooled a lot of people into thinking she was older than her
fourteen years. Her good looks combined with a confidence beyond
her years brought her a growing following among the influential
teen market. This and her added potential in the Korean market
made her an ideal choice for the Avex label, which had some of
Japan's biggest stars but was not achieving the same kind of success
it enjoyed in the late 1990s.
BoA continued to release singles and make commercials until
2002's album Listen to My heart went straight to No.1 in the
Oricon charts and became a million seller. This was of course
during the huge hype surrounding the buildup for the World Cup.
When it came to finding someone who could bridge the gap
between the rival countries, BoA fitted the bill perfectly and she
was one of the most visible faces on TV during that summer.
The intervening years have seen a gradual thaw in Korea's policy regarding Japanese pop
culture. There has long been a huge underground market for music and videos and the popularity
of stars like BoA, TV personality Yoon Son Ha and soccer player Awn Jun Hwan has helped
bring the two peoples closer together. BoA's ability has been recognized outside east Asia, and
she was featured as a guest vocalist on an album by Mondo Grosso and the Asian edition of an
2/13/05
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album by Irish boy band Westlife. In 2003, she became the first artist
to release an original Japanese single at the same time in Japan and
Korea, at the ripe old age of 16. Often compared to Jennifer Lopez,
BoA seems capable of rising to the same kind of heights - she has a
bright future ahead of her in two countries at least.
Links
BoA's official site (http://www.avexnet.or.jp/boa/index.html ) is on the Avex dance label.
2/13/05
Page 29 of 37
hitomi (Tochigi Prefecture, 1976- )
http://www.japan-zone.com/modern/hitomi.shtml
If you spend any time watching Japanese television, you'll have seen this
slinky songstress apearing in commercials advertising not just her latest
single but also cars, makeup or a host of other products. Starting as a teenfashion magazine model while still in school, hitomi (she dropped her
family name, Furuya, and went all lower case - very hip!) has been around
longer than Hamasaki Ayumi, who in many ways she resembles, but has
only lately started to catch up in the popularity stakes.
She married a design company employee in November 2002 and went
"into hiding" for a year and a half. In May 2004, she started her first tour
in almost two years. She got publicity for the tour by playing an unannounced "secret live" in the
departures lobby of Tokyo's Haneda Airport.
One of the many artists discovered and raised by J-Pop super-producer
Komuro Tetsuya, hitomi got her start in music with the avex trax label
in 1993. She made her debut with Let's Play Winter in 1994 and the
next year sold 400,000 copies of Candy Girl, her third single. She
released three chart-topping albums and had considerable success under
the guidance of Komuro, who encouraged her to write her own songs.
But she really hit the big time after she went her own way in 1999.
Like Hamasaki, she is more independent than the closely-guarded "idols" and chooses her own
look, which has made her one of the fashion leaders adulated by teenage girls across the country.
Her skinny frame and come-hither expression have also ensured her a large male fan base. This
broad-based popularity have enabled her to make the leap from recording artist to "image" girl,
with all the lucrative comercial deals that brings.
hitomi is not afraid to use her sexuality, and indeed looks up to Madonna as one of her role
models in this respect. Even when dressed, she tends to leave plenty of skin showing. She has
appeared nude, with strategically placed long golden locks, on an album cover (right), released a
single called Sexy, and her last release with Komuro was a greatest hits album simply called H.
The double entendre is lost unless you know that the letter is pronounced "etchi" in Japanese,
which is slang for sex.
She knows the right names to drop to establish her credibility, listing Beck, Bjork and
Radiohead as her favorite western artists and Jane Birkin, Serge Gainsbourg and Vincent
Gallo as her favorite actors.
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Hajime Chitose (Kagoshima Prefecture, 1979- )
http://www.japan-zone.com/modern/hajime_chitose.shtml
Hers has been described as a "once-in-a-century" voice. It has been
known to reduce those who hear it to tears. Certainly the rise to
fame of this unassuming island singer has been attributable to the
unique, plaintive tremolo quality of her distinctive singing style.
Passing the usual route of having a single used in a TV show or
commercial, Hajime's breakthrough came through word of mouth.
It took a few months, but her single Wadatsumi no Ki gradually
crept up the charts. It actually reached the No. 1 spot and stayed in
the top 10 for three months, a very rare feat.
Hajime went to a school that had four students. At her entrance and graduation ceremonies, she
was the only participant. Such was life in her small community on the island of Amami Oshima,
off the south coast of Kyushu. With the encouragement of her mother, she started to learn to sing
and play the shamisen at an early age. Music was very much a part of the island culture and its
best known form is shimauta.
Meaning literally "island song", shimauta appeared on the J-Pop radar in the 1990s when a song
of the same name became a huge hit for the band The Boom. It remains one of the most original
and fresh-sounding Japanese songs of recent years. Originating in the southern islands of
Kagoshima and Okinawa, the style evokes the tropical climate and warm nature of the people.
Hajime started to learn the shimauta style while still in elementary school and was soon winning
prizes at the local minyo (folk song) song contests. A report on the late-night Tonight II TV
show brought the attention of a record label, but she turned them down. After graduating high
school, she went to Osaka to study to become a beautician. But a spell in hospital that she was
told had been caused by the chemicals of her chosen trade persuaded her to follow a new path.
This time, she headed for Tokyo and was quickly signed up by the independent Augusta
Records. She spent the next couple of years writing material and working towards making her
recording debut. Her first eponymous mini album was all cover versions but her slowly growing
fan base called for something original. A second mini album Kotonoha was released in the
summer of 2001 and a series of indie events followed.
The next year saw her major label debut, with the release of the album Hainumikaze on Epic
Records, which featured her breakthrough single. She was also invited to sing on the fourth
album by French duo Deep Forest, marking her debut on the international stage.
2/13/05
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Hotei Tomayasu (Gunma Prefecture, 1962- )
http://www.japan-zone.com/modern/hotei_tomoyasu.shtml
At 190cm, Hotei Tomayasu is one of the most
intimidating people in the Japanese music world. This
image has also been put to good use when casting him as
the villain in movies and TV commercials, most notably as
the sinister man in black chasing Nagase Masatoshi in the
Boss coffee ads. Over a long musical career as a guitarist
with one of Japan's legendary rock bands, guest artist and
solo performer, he has developed a worldwide reputation
as Japan's premier axeman and has sold over 25 million
albums.
Hotei first stated playing the guitar in junior high school.
In high school, his band Blue Film finished runners up in a
school contest to Death Penalty, a band led by Himuro
Kyosuke. Hotei was expelled shortly before graduation.
The reason was supposedly that, when warned about his
long hair he replied "Jesus had long hair!" Shortly after, he
went to Tokyo where one day he received a phone call from Himuro. The two had never
really known each other but hit it off and went on to hold auditions for a new band, which
in 1981 became the six-member Boøwy.
The band name was originally written in kanji, with the meaning of "tyrant". They
played their first gig at Shinjuku Loft "live house" in Tokyo but shortly after lost their
drummer. He was soon replaced but after the release of their debut album, Moral in
1982, two more members left the band. From that point on, they continued as a basic
four-man unit: Himuro (vocal), Hotei, Matsui Tsunematsu (bass) and Takahashi
Makoto (drums). They chose an old school friend of Hotei as manager and decided not to
sign with a label but set up their own production company ø Connection.
Boowy
Logo Moral
Hotei (left) and Kikkawa
Boøwy quickly built up a reputation as Japan's No.1 rock band. They also saw
themselves as having appeal abroad and played London's Marquee Club in 1985. But at
the time rock was not mainstream in Japan and it wasn't until their 5th album, Beat
2/13/05
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Emotion in 1986 (album cover), that they had their first million seller. However, it is an
indication of the band's stature that their farewell gigs, two nights at the newly opened
Tokyo Dome in 1988, sold out all 95,000 tickets in ten minutes. Scalpers were looking
for 500,000 yen apiece for the tickets.
In 1988, Hotei released his first solo project, a techno/rock album of songs all in English
called Guitarhythm which was the first in a series of four albums under that name. That
year he also formed the band Complex with longtime friend Kikkawa Koji. They
released two studio albums over two years, both of which reached No.1 in the Oricon
charts. But the two years had put a strain on their friendship and Hotei expressed regret
over ever having formed the band. A live album of their final concert at Tokyo Dome and
a greatest hits album were later released. In 1995, Hotei had his biggest hit of the
Guitarhythm series with Poison.
Over the years Hotei has produced many Japanese artists, including his former wife rock
singer Yamashita Kumiko, and his present wife Imai Miki, whom he married in 1999.
He made his movie debut in the well-received Samurai Fiction (1998), for which he also
wrote the soundtrack. The movie was the first Japaneseproduction released in Korea
since WWII, while the album was the first Japanese rock album ever released there. He
co-starred with Kikkawa and recorded the soundtrack for the remake yakuza movie Shin
Jingi-naki Tatakai in 2000 and won the Newcomer of the Year award at the Japan
Academy Awards the next year.
But what sets Hotei apart from most Japanese musicians is the fact that he has played
with some of the world's top artists. A very abbreviated list:
• He backed Tracy Chapman and PM Dawn in the ANC's 60th anniversary concert at
London's Brixton Academy in 1993.
• He palyed on Ex-Stranglers Hugh Cornwell's 1993 solo album.
• In 1994, he played at a historic UNESCO concert at the Todaiji temple in Nara. The
lineup included Bob Dylan, INXS and Bon Jovi.
• In 1996, he appeared at the Nippon Budokan as a special guest with David Bowie.
• He was asked by Michael Kamen (who he worked with at the UNESCO gig) to play at
the opening ceremony of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.
• He wrote and played songs on the soundtrack of Terry
Gilliam's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
• He did a cover of John Lennon's Happy "Xmas/War is
Over" for Merry Axemas (1997), an album put together by
Steve Vai of the world's top guitarists, including Jeff Beck,
Joe Perry and Brian Setzer.
• In 1998, played at France's biggest live event at Belfort
and at the Fuji Rock Festival in Tokyo.
• He appeared at the Roskilde festival in Denmark and was
the opening act for a Blondie gig in Hamburg in 1999.
LinksThe official Hotei (http://www.hotei.com/pc/index.html ) site (Japanese, English,
Russian, Korean).
2/13/05
Page 33 of 37
Pink Lady
http://www.japanzone.com/modern/pink_lady.shtml
Mii (Nemoto Mitsuyo, Shizuoka Pref, 1958- )
Kei (Masuda Keiko, Shizuoka Pref, 1958- )
The 1970s was the golden decade of the idols,
packaged pop stars whose every move, every
thought seemed to be controlled from behind the
scenes and whose real purpose was making money
for sponsors and promoters. The level of their success was measured by sales, not only of
records but of the various products they endorsed in TV and print commercials. So the
more successful they were, the more the public were saturated with their gleaming smiles
and choreographed enthusiasm. In most cases this wore thin pretty quickly and a new star
was born, or hatched.
The perfect case study for this phenomenon was Pink Lady. The bubbly duo of Mii
(Nemoto Mitsuyo) and Kei (Masuda Keiko) totally domnated the pop culture scene for
five years and then promptly disappeared. Their breakthrough came in 1976 when the
two fresh-faced country girls appeared as a folk duo on the NHK talent show Star
Tanjo! (A Star is Born!) and won over the judges with their charm and energy. The
released their debut single Peppa Keibu six months later, by which time they had been
moulded into slick, choreographed disco stars.
The real impact was in their dancing, something that idols weren't really supposed to do.
The standard was simple hand gestures and body movements, easily mimiced by fans and
absolutely none-threatening. Pink Lady's gyrations were nothing short of shocking and
fans loved it. Even today, ask any Japanese over 30 to do the moves that accompanied
UFO, one of their biggest hits, and they'll do it without hesitation. But the duo steered
clear of any too suggestive and were seen as acceptable by parents and, more importantly,
sponsors.
Putting Pink Lady on a magazine cover or TV ad was a sure-fire way to see sales
skyrocket. Between 1976 and 1978, Pink Lady became the image talents for almost a
dozen different companies and had a string of nine consecutive No.1 singles. They even
had a hit with a cover of Village People's "In the Navy" (singing "Pink-a-Lady" in the
chorus!). But it couldn't last.
In retrospect, most people agree that the beginning of the end came at the end of 1978,
when the duo turned down an invitation to appear on NHK's Kohaku Uta Gassen, the
annual New Year's Eve song spectacle. An appearance on the biggest show on Japanese
TV, with audience ratings of 70% or more at the time, would have propelled them to even
greater heights. But they decided they were big enough to put on a rival charity show of
their own on NTV. They announced that kids from a school for the blind would take part,
2/13/05
Page 34 of 37
but the school denied knowing anything about it. A scandal ensued and the show was a
flop that they never really recovered from.
Record sales were disappointing the following year, and with members of the Beach
Boys backing them on one record, and they tried to revive their fortunes abroad. "A Kiss
in the Dark" was their first international release, which made No.37 on the US Billboard
chart. In 1980, they did Pink Lady and Jeff with comedian Jeff Altman on NBC in the
US, picked by some for their Top Ten worst network shows ever. The show lasted only
six weeks and was seen as the final nail in the coffin for prime-time variety shows in the
US. They bowed out with a concert at Korakuen Stadium (now the site of Tokyo Dome)
in March 1981. Time is a great healer and their only TV performances have been on
Kohaku of all places.
Indeed, time and nostalgia brought about a
Pink Lady boom in the mid-90s, with fans
reaching an age where collectibles become
an investment. Sales of the record catalog
got a boost and their old management
company even launched a copy group, Pink
Lady X. But fans had to wait until April
2003 to hear the news we all knew would
come someday -- a comeback after 22
years. Even at the ripe old age of 45, I think
they look pretty good (photo, left). No one
expects them to hit the same giddy heights
as in their heyday, but there'll be more than
a few middle-aged men dancing to UFO in
their living rooms.
2/13/05
Page 35 of 37
Takarazuka
(L-R) Takumi Hibiki, Otori Rei, Aika Mire and Juri Sakiho pose at Aika's retirement press conference.
My own first inkling of this cultural phenomenon came just after I arrived in Japan.
Walking through the pouring rain along a back street in the Hibiya theater district of
Tokyo, I and a Japanese friend turned a corner and ran into a buzzing crowd of hundreds
of umbrella-toting people. A department store sale? A Hollywood star in town? A
political rally? No, my friend informed me, they were waiting for their idols to leave the
Tokyo Takarazuka Theater. Never having heard the name and noting that every single
person in the crowd was female, I assumed that the stars must be young, good-looking
and male. Well, I got two out of three.
The all-female Takarazuka Revue Company is such a fanatically supported institution
that you know it must touch something deep in the Japanese psyche, or at least the female
Japanese psyche. Some ninety percent of fans are female and most are under twenty-five.
And the stars they adulate the most are the otokoyaku, the actresses who play the male
parts. In Japan's male-dominated society, which only recently has begun to give any more
than lip service to equality of the sexes, the otokoyaku represent a vicarious way for
young women to live out fantasies of strength and power. But what they really come for
is romance, the pure, old-fashioned, fairy-tale variety. So Takarazuka gives them just
that, clearcut stories full of romance and spectacle but devoid of crudity or passion, much
as Disney sugar-coats its love stories.
The company is made up of hundreds of members that put on performances across the
country and abroad year-round. Thousands more teenage girls apply to join every year
but the Takarazuka Music School takes on only 40 to 50 new students a year. Those
lucky enough to get in face two years of strict discipline and rigorous training. The
younger students must walk along the edges of the school's corridors, and bow and greet
any sempai (older students) they meet. A daily routine of classes in acting, singing,
dancing, music and theater history is coupled with cleaning of dorms and classrooms.
Cleaning is done by hand, with mops, scrubbing brushes and even toothbrushes, and
2/13/05
Page 36 of 37
keenly checked by the sempai. After their first year of training, students choose whether
they want to be an otokoyaku or musumeyaku (female role). Again competition is fierce,
with factors like height, build and voice playing a large part. Once training is complete,
students graduate and join one of the troupes.
Aika Mire in a Heian
Period stage costume
(left). The male and
female leads from
Guys and Dolls (right).
Takarazuka uses
anything from
Japanese and Chinese
classics to famous
Broadway musical hits
as the inspiration for
itshad
shows.
Until recently, the company
five troupes: Hana, Tsuki, Hoshi, Yuki, and Senka
(Flower, Moon, Star, Snow, and Special Course), and in 1998 the Sora (Cosmos) troupe
was added. Each troupe has over 80 members, or Takarasiennes, with a male and a
female lead. The Senka troupe was originally created for members who had reached 40
but later became a place for actresses who could move between the other troupes. Every
year, each troupe does one run in the company's home city of Takarazuka, near Osaka,
and one in Tokyo. The rest of the year, they play other theaters around the country or tour
abroad.
Though Takarazuka incorporates many elements of western theater (at the time of
writing, the main theater was hosting a performance of Guys and Dolls), it retains strong
Japanese elements. The epitome of the Takarazuka show is The Rose of Versailles. It's
the story of Oscar, a girl who is brought up as a boy in 18th-century France, but it comes
not from a romantic French novel or play but a Japanese manga. The company's structure
and the school's training regimen strictly follow the sempai-kohai (senior-junior)
relationship that forms the core of many Japanese institutions, including those in sports
and business.
This strictness and the all-female nature of the company are why many Westerners find
something "not quite right" about Takarazuka. Claims that the members must be all
lesbians are way off the mark, but the perceived eccentricity and sexual ambiguity
certainly added to its appeal to the gay community, which embraced the Revue when it
toured the UK in the mid-1990s. At the same time, a review in the Guardian newspaper
dismissed the show, calling it "Curiously sexless". But this attempt to pan the show is in
fact closer to the truth than the reviewer may have intended. After all, while attitudes
toward sex in Japan remain liberal to this day, the prominent sex industry is run by and
for men. Takarazuka provides a form of escape from this harsh reality for many women.
2/13/05
Page 37 of 37
Taka razuka was founded in the
city of the same name in 1913 by
Kobayashi Ichizo, the president of
Hankyu Railways. The city was
the terminus of a Hankyu line
from Osaka and famous for its hot
springs. To boost both travel on
the line and business in the city,
Kobayashi decided to take
advantage of the public's
increasing interest in Western
song-and-dance shows but with a
cast of young, unmarried girls of
A poster for the production Asakiyumemishi,
based on a popular manga, in turn based on
unquestionable virtue. In a
the famous Tale of Genji.
country that even until recently
frowned on kissing in public, such
scenes - implied rather than acted out - between two girls was deemed more or less
acceptable. By 1924, the company had become popular enough to get its own theater.
The Dai Gekijo (Grand Theater) has been home to the company ever since and it remains
part of the Hankyu Group.
I've never been able to sit through more than a
brief excerpt of a Takarazuka performance, on TV
at that. What's more, my Japanese wife finds it all
a bit embarrassing, too. But it has legions of loyal
fans, not all in Japan, and certainly seems to
provide a form of entertainment that is very
important to a lot of people. It might just be your
cup of tea.
Links
The official site (http://kageki.hankyu.co.jp/ ) has a brief history of the company and info
on current shows in Takarazuka and Tokyo in the English section.
Fan site (http://shoujo.tripod.com/takara.html )with star profiles, show synopses and
much more.

Kohaku Favorites - To Parent Directory

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