Hitomi: Encyclopedia II - Hitomi - Biography

Hitomi - Biography

hitomi was born Hitomi Furuya (古谷仁美 Furuya Hitomi) in Tochigi, Japan, but raised in Kawasaki, Kanagawa). Although a consistently above-average student, she was, by her own admission, introverted, aimless, 'anti-social', and 'destructive' during her youth, until she acted on the encouragement of a teacher to join both her junior high school's soccer team. She proved, to most everyone's surprise (including her own), to be unexpectedly talented, and spent two fruitful years playing as a midfielder until her career was ended by injury.

hitomi got her big break while auditioning for a modelling gig, where she met eminent music producer Tetsuya Komuro. In the following year, November of 1994, she made a CD single debut titled "Let's Play Winter" from avex trax. Since then, hitomi has written most of her own lyrics. She has also performed covers, an example being the Bananarama hit "Venus" that she performed an English-language cover of recently, recorded on her June 2005 single, Japanese Girl.

While the first two singles, Let's Play Winter and WE ARE "LONELY GIRL" were considerable failures, her third single CANDY GIRL was used as the theme for a Kodak CM, and secured a Top 20 spot on the Japanese Oricon music chart. Subsequent singles "By Myself" and "Busy Now" established hitomi, barely out of her teens, as a major figure in Japanese entertainment.

Komuro and hitomi went their separate ways in 1999. Though the reasons have never been explained, it is believed that hitomi wanted more creative control over her music and image and was tired of being treated as a second-tier artist by Komuro. The split was apparently amicable, however, and in 2002, hitomi teamed up with Komuro once again for the SongNation project, a various-artists compilation intended to raise funds for the victims of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States. hitomi contributed lyrics and vocals for the song "My Planet."

Many of her songs have been featured on a wide range of products. Examples include "I am," which served as an opening song for the popular anime InuYasha, "kimi no tonari," which was the theme song for a PSX video game Persona II, and "IS IT YOU?" was used as a theme song for a popular FujiTV drama series dekichatta kekkon. In addition, hitomi is a perennial favourite of clothes, cosmetics and accessories brands like Trussardi and Gillette for her modelling experience, photogenic features, and slender figure, despite being a married mother of two. hitomi is currently the spokesperson for Gillette Venus shaver in Japan and has visited Hawaii to film the latest commercial on air in Japan.

hitomi spent most of 2001/2002 dogged by allegations that she was a lesbian, and in a secret relationship with another Japanese pop singer, Yoko Yamaguchi. Both hitomi and Yamaguchi have always denied the allegations, though hitomi is now able to see it in a more humorous light. Commenting about it in a September 2005 interview, hitomi joked: "Of course Yoko and I were angry about it - who wouldn't? Instead of being called bisexuals, we were thought to be 'merely' lesbian!"

hitomi married an advertising executive in the autumn of 2002, shortly after wrapping up her Huma-Rhythm Live Tour 2002, causing the rumours to subside. hitomi had announced to her fans that she had tied the knot through her fan club, No!Cut. hitomi admitted that she had had serious arguments with her husband in 2004, which nearly led to a trial separation, but they worked it out. Now, hitomi is fond of saying that her husband and her children are her biggest fans.

hitomi gave birth to mixed twins in May 2003; she did not release any details to the Japanese press, but disclosed to her fans (through her fan club, No!Cut) that their names were Sumire (her daughter) and Toru (her son), and that Sumire was the older of the two by 69 seconds. Both of her children are named after characters in Haruki Murakami novels (see Trivia); Toru is named after the protagonist of the acclaimed The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, and Sumire is named after the heroine of Sputnik Sweetheart, which is not as well-regarded both in and outside of Japan, but which hitomi apparently likes better; asked in a December 2004 interview to name her biggest hope of the coming year, hitomi said that she would like to play the role of Sumire in a stage or film adaptation of the novel, 'before she got too old' (in the novel, Sumire is an aspiring novelist in her early twenties).

hitomi was largely out of the public eye from mid-2002 to early 2004. Besides enjoying her pregnancy and learning to play the guitar, she also spent her hiatus finishing the final year of a three-year course in health and nutrition sciences at the Kanto Gakuin University in Yokohama (she had spent the first two years as a part-time student, which stretched the programme to some eighteen months). In November 2004, half a year after delivering her children, hitomi received her Bachelor's of Science degree in Health And Environmental Science.

In May 2004, hitomi released a new studio album, Traveler. The concert tour she subsequently embarked upon was a huge success, and she played to packed arenas at almost every stop. hitomi's popularity came as a big surprise, considering that she is one of the oldest performers in Japanese pop, had spent more than a year out of the limelight, and was married, which would tend to hurt any Japanese pop entertainer's career, but was thought to be especially damaging to one built on sex appeal, like hitomi's. hitomi's success is often credited as the catalyst for a rethink on how the Japanese pop audience had 'matured' and 'evolved' since the 1990s, during which hitomi had herself debuted, when teenybopper pop was prevalent and style generally took precedence over substance.

hitomi's 2004 "Traveler Live Tour" was the most successful concert tour undertaken in Japan that year, and the Excite search portal dedicated a special page to her. In fact, hitomi's new niche as a married mother in Japanese pop has won her many new fans from married women in their late 20s and early 30s in Japan, for whom she has almost become an unofficial representative.

hitomi caused consternation among fans in August 2005 when she apparently hinted in an interview given to An An magazine that she was planning to retire. However, she quickly moved to dispel their fears. hitomi did not deny saying any of the quotes attributed to her, including a remark that went " I would be very surprised to see myself where I presently am this time next year", but claimed that they were taken out of context. She proceeded to assert, in her own fan club publication, that she would not quit music as long as the American performer Madonna (her own idol) was still recording, although she also conceded that the odds are against her, as female Japanese pop singers rarely carry on their careers past thirty years of age. In October 2005, it was announced that hitomi would feature at the annual NHK Red And White Song Festival on December 31, as a member of the Red (females') team. However, no announcements of confirmed singing performance for hitomi has been made.

hitomi fulfilled a personal wish in mid-November 2005, when she played the character of Sumire in a stage adaptation of the Haruki Murakami novel Sputnik Sweetheart staged by the Alfred P Drama Company (the company takes its name from the T. S. Eliot poem The Love Song Of J. Alfred Prufrock). hitomi acted in three performances staged in the cities of Kawasaki, Yokohama, and Saitama, to generally favourable reviews, which led hitomi to express relief, and thanking the company for casting her. hitomi felt particularly vindicated by the commendations because of her prior experiences in acting in 2003, when she acted in the little-known film Time Is Journey, playing the female lead in one of the four clips that made up the film, and was panned by the few critics who reviewed it. Several drama companies have expressed interest in casting hitomi in their productions, and hitomi has indicated that she finds stage acting preferable to acting in film, explaining that the presence of an audience makes the difference. "Both singers and stage actors are always provoking and reacting to the audience," she said. "And that's the aspect I simply love, to engage the crowd and draw from their energy."

A proud owner of three dogs, hitomi has also been honorary chairwoman of the Kawasaki City SPCA since 2002. She has put in (incognito) volunteer work and made substantial donations to the city's SPCA since 2001, and was responsible for most of the funding for the organisation's relocation to better facilities in 2003. In addition, hitomi has used her celebrity status to heighten awareness of animal abuse in Japan, going as far as to make a case for tightening restrictions on whaling. In February 2005, hitomi was awarded Kanagawa Prefecture's Hirada Shuichi Public Service Award (under her married name Mrs. Eguchi Hitomi) for services rendered to the community.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Biography", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki