Yūko Andō (singer)
(born 9 May 1977) is a Japanese singer-songwriter and former actress. Andō is part of the Horipro talent agency. Biography Early life and career Born in Kanagawa Prefecture, as a child, music was never a special hobby of Andō; rather she had more of an interest towards drawing. During her college years, driven by her strong interest in creating things, Andō decided to pursue a film making career. However, unable to catch a break with the studios, she then followed her friends and family's advice to join a talent agency in hopes of becoming an actor. This landed her a few spots as an extra in TV dramas. One of the auditions for a play she passed during her Junior year at Ferris University required her to sing on stage. At that time, one of the evaluators was Oricon music charts founder Sōkō Koike and by his recommendation, she decided to pursue a career as a singer-songwriter. Before debuting as a singer, Andō appeared as a regular in the popular TV drama "Ikebukuro Wes ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Kanagawa Prefecture
is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Kanagawa Prefecture is the second-most populous prefecture of Japan at 9,221,129 (1 April 2022) and third-densest at . Its geographic area of makes it fifth-smallest. Kanagawa Prefecture borders Tokyo to the north, Yamanashi Prefecture to the northwest and Shizuoka Prefecture to the west. Yokohama is the capital and largest city of Kanagawa Prefecture and the second-largest city in Japan, with other major cities including Kawasaki, Sagamihara, and Fujisawa. Kanagawa Prefecture is located on Japan's eastern Pacific coast on Tokyo Bay and Sagami Bay, separated by the Miura Peninsula, across from Chiba Prefecture on the Bōsō Peninsula. Kanagawa Prefecture is part of the Greater Tokyo Area, the most populous metropolitan area in the world, with Yokohama and many of its cities being major commercial hubs and southern suburbs of Tokyo. Kanagawa Prefecture was the political and economic center of Japan du ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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A Cappella
''A cappella'' (, also , ; ) music is a performance by a singer or a singing group without instrumental accompaniment, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. The term ''a cappella'' was originally intended to differentiate between Renaissance polyphony and Baroque concertato musical styles. In the 19th century, a renewed interest in Renaissance polyphony, coupled with an ignorance of the fact that vocal parts were often doubled by instrumentalists, led to the term coming to mean unaccompanied vocal music. The term is also used, rarely, as a synonym for ''alla breve''. Early history A cappella could be as old as humanity itself. Research suggests that singing and vocables may have been what early humans used to communicate before the invention of language. The earliest piece of sheet music is thought to have originated from times as early as 2000 B.C. while the earliest that has survived in its entirety is from the first century A.D.: a piece from Greece called the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mezamashi TV
is a Japanese news magazine show broadcast every weekday on Fuji TV from 4:55 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. ''Mezamashi'' is a form of the Japanese verb mezamasu (to wake up). Mezamashi TV has several spin-off shows such as (replacing Meza News which ended in March 2014), which is aired before Mezamashi TV for viewers in the Kanto region starting at 4:00 am (stations in some areas will air Meza News at 5:00 am) which ended in March 2018 and , the Saturday supplement of ''Mezamashi TV'' which airs at a later time from 6:00 to 8:30 am, and ''Mezamashi 8'' which is a replacement to Tokudane! from March 29, 2021. History In the first half of the 1990s, several news magazine shows of Fuji TV in the morning were discontinued after a short period because of low television ratings. The new show featured two presenters, Norikazu Otsuka and Akiko Yagi. Otsuka was a freelance presenter who had been a presenter at NHK. ''Mezamashi TV'' was first broadcast on April 1, 1994. In 1997, Natsu ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Crustacean
Crustaceans (Crustacea, ) form a large, diverse arthropod taxon which includes such animals as decapods, seed shrimp, branchiopods, fish lice, krill, remipedes, isopods, barnacles, copepods, amphipods and mantis shrimp. The crustacean group can be treated as a subphylum under the clade Mandibulata. It is now well accepted that the hexapods emerged deep in the Crustacean group, with the completed group referred to as Pancrustacea. Some crustaceans (Remipedia, Cephalocarida, Branchiopoda) are more closely related to insects and the other hexapods than they are to certain other crustaceans. The 67,000 described species range in size from '' Stygotantulus stocki'' at , to the Japanese spider crab with a leg span of up to and a mass of . Like other arthropods, crustaceans have an exoskeleton, which they moult to grow. They are distinguished from other groups of arthropods, such as insects, myriapods and chelicerates, by the possession of biramous (two-parted) limbs, and by th ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hitoto Yo
is a Japanese-Taiwanese pop singer. Her mother is Japanese and her father is Taiwanese. She can speak three languages: Japanese, English, and Mandarin. Tae Hitoto is her older sister. Her name Hitoto is not her real surname, it is her mother's maiden name. She changed her name when she came to Japan. Her father died when she was very young, and her mother died when she was 16. She is well known for her smash hit single '' Hanamizuki'' released in 2004 which she wrote inspired by the events of the September 11 attacks in the United States, the song has been covered by many artists around the world. History Soon after she was born in Tokyo, Hitoto moved to Taipei, and after she completed kindergarten in Taipei, she moved back to Tokyo and she has lived there ever since. She graduated from the department of Environmental Information of Keio University and participated in the Keio University a cappella group, K.O.E., during her days as a student. She used to have live concerts on th ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Seishi Yokomizo
was a Japanese mystery novelist, known for creating the fictional detective Kosuke Kindaichi. Early life Yokomizo was born in the city of Kobe, Hyōgo Prefecture. He read detective stories as a boy and in 1921, while employed by the Daiichi Bank, published his first story in the popular magazine ''Shin Seinen'' ("New Youth"). He graduated from Osaka Pharmaceutical College (currently part of Osaka University) with a degree in pharmacy, and initially intended to take over his family's drug store. However, drawn by his interest in literature, and the encouragement of Edogawa Rampo, he went to Tokyo instead. There he was hired by the Hakubunkan publishing company in 1926. After serving as editor in chief of several magazines, he resigned in 1932 to devote himself full time to writing. Literary career Yokomizo was attracted to the literary genre of historical fiction, especially that of the historical detective novel. In July 1934, while resting in the mountains of Nagano to recuperat ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Kosuke Kindaichi
is a fictional Japanese detective created by Seishi Yokomizo, a renowned mystery novelist. His first case, ''The Honjin Murders'', is a novel of locked room murder in an old family, which many people regard as one of the best Japanese detective novels, was published in 1946. Kindaichi went on to feature in another 76 novels, selling more than 55 million books and appearing in numerous television and stage adaptations. Works in translation Pushkin Vertigo has published English translations of the Kindaichi series since 2020. ''The Inugami Clan'' (1951) and ''The Honjin Murders'' (1946) were published in 2020, ''The Village of Eight Graves'' (1951) published in 2021, and ''Gokumon Island'' in June 2022. One other novel is available in French translation. * ''La Ritournelle du démon'' (original title: 悪魔の手まり歌 ''Akuma no Temari Uta'') (1959) Cases The Kosuke Kindaichi series consists of 77 cases. * * * Bat and Slug (1947) * The Case of the Black Cat Restaurant (194 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Kon Ichikawa
was a Japanese film director and screenwriter. His work displays a vast range in genre and style, from the anti-war films '' The Burmese Harp'' (1956) and '' Fires on the Plain'' (1959), to the documentary ''Tokyo Olympiad'' (1965), which won two BAFTA Film Awards, and the 19th-century revenge drama ''An Actor's Revenge'' (1963). His film ''Odd Obsession'' (1959) won the Jury Prize at the 1960 Cannes Film Festival. Early life and career Ichikawa was born in Ise, Mie Prefecture as Giichi Ichikawa (市川儀一). His father died when he was four years old, and the family kimono shop went bankrupt, so he went to live with his sister. He was given the name "Kon" by an uncle who thought the characters in the kanji 崑 signified good luck, because the two halves of the Chinese character look the same when it is split in half vertically. As a child he loved drawing and his ambition was to become an artist. He also loved films and was a fan of "chambara" or samurai films. In his teens ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Music Station
is a Japanese music television program. Broadcasting live weekly on TV Asahi since October 24, 1986, it currently airs from 9PM-10PM on Fridays. The program is also colloquially known as , , and . The show is currently syndicated throughout the U.S. The program has been aired internationally on Animax's networks in Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and other regions from March 2007. It is also broadcast in the United States and Canada through the NHK-owned TV Japan, in Hong Kong via TVB TVB J2, J2, in Singapore through Hello Japan! and in the People's Republic of China through CCTV-15. History ''Music Station'' is a weekly one-hour music program similar to the American Total Request Live, ''TRL'' or the British ''Top of the Pops''. It is home to various performances as well as single rankings and other corners. Many Japanese musical acts make their debut on ''Music Station'', but the show has also hosted many artists from around the world. As of October 2021, over 8,300 songs ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Yui Aragaki
is a Ryukyuan Japanese actress, model, singer and occasional radio show host. She has been selected several times as the most desired girlfriend and the most desired female celebrity face in Oricon's yearly survey. Early life She was born on June 11, 1988, in Naha, Okinawa. She is the youngest among her two siblings. After seeing an audition notice for the junior fashion magazine , she applied for it and won the Grand Prix award for the audition. In 2001, at the age of 13, she began her Nicola modelling career and was very well received as a Nicola model, having set a record for appearing on cover for 15 times. One of her co-models, actress Enomoto Ayako, gave her the nickname 'Gakky' as a take on her surname. She moved to Tokyo at 15 and enrolled at Horikoshi High School famous for being the academic base of many famous celebrities including Seiko Matsuda. She made her acting debut in Shibuya in 2005. She also became quite popular as in the Pocky commercials. She also expanded ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Naughty Boys (album)
is the sixth album by Yellow Magic Orchestra, recorded from October 1982 to March 1983, and released on May 24, 1983. It contains the pop-oriented single "Kimi ni Mune Kyun", as well as a "preview" of "You've Got to Help Yourself", which was released in its full version on the companion album ''Naughty Boys Instrumental'', and again with vocals on '' Service''. Overview ''Naughty Boys'' was their final album to top the Oricon charts. After that, no technopop artist was able to reach No.1 until Perfume's 2008 album '' Game''. "Kimi ni Mune Kyun" also became the highest-charting single by a technopop artist on the Oricon charts, debuting at No. 2; a record the song retained until Perfume's "Love the World" debuted at No. 1 in 2008. "Ongaku" ("Music") was reportedly written by Ryuichi Sakamoto for his then-two-year-old daughter, Miu. ''Naughty Boys'' was re-released in 2004 in a double disc package alongside ''Naughty Boys Instrumental''. Various cover versions of "Kimi ni Mu ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Yellow Magic Orchestra
Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO for short) is a Japanese electronic music band formed in Tokyo in 1978 by Haruomi Hosono (bass, keyboards, vocals), Yukihiro Takahashi (drums, lead vocals) and Ryuichi Sakamoto (keyboards, vocals). The group is considered influential and innovative in the field of popular electronic music. They were pioneers in their use of synthesizers, samplers, sequencers, drum machines, computers, and digital recording technology, and effectively anticipated the "electropop boom" of the 1980s. They are credited with playing a key role in the development of several electronic genres, including synthpop, J-pop, electro, and techno, while exploring subversive sociopolitical themes throughout their career. The three members were veterans of the music industry before coming together as YMO, and were inspired by eclectic sources, including the electronic music of Isao Tomita and Kraftwerk, Japanese traditional music, arcade games, funk music, and the disco productions ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |