The romanization of Japanese is the application of the Latin script to write the Japanese language. This method of writing is known as rōmaji (ローマ字^?) (Japanese pronunciation: [ɽóːmadʑi]  listen (help·info)), less strictly romaji, literally "Roman letters", sometimes incorrectly transliterated as romanji or rōmanji. There are several different romanization systems. The three main ones are Hepburn romanization, Kunrei-shiki Rōmaji (ISO 3602), and Nihon-shiki Rōmaji (ISO 3602 Strict). Variants of the Hepburn system are the most widely used.

Japanese is normally written in logographic characters borrowed from Chinese (kanji) and syllabic scripts (kana) which also ultimately derive from Chinese characters. Rōmaji may be used in any context where Japanese text is targeted at non-Japanese speakers who cannot read kanji or kana, such as for names on street signs and passports, and in dictionaries and textbooks for foreign learners of the language. It is also used to transliterate Japanese terms in text written in English (or other language that uses the Latin script) on Japanese topics such as linguistics, literature, history, and culture. Rōmaji is the most common way to input Japanese into word processors and computers, and may also be used to display Japanese on devices that do not support the display of Japanese characters.

All Japanese who have attended elementary school since World War II have been taught to read and write romanized Japanese. Therefore, almost all Japanese are able to read and write Japanese using rōmaji.

Japanese writing

Kanji

Kana

• Hiragana
• Katakana
• Hentaigana
• Man'yōgana
• Sogana

Uses

• Furigana
• Okurigana

Rōmaji

• Hepburn (colloquial)
• Kunrei (ISO)
• Nihon (ISO translit.)
• JSL (transliteration)
• Wāpuro (keyboard)

Punctuation

• v
• t
• e

History[link]

The earliest Japanese romanization system was based on the Portuguese orthography. It was developed around 1548 by a Japanese Catholic named Yajiro. Jesuit presses used the system in a series of printed Catholic books so that missionaries could preach and teach their converts without learning to read Japanese orthography. The most useful of these books for the study of early modern Japanese pronunciation and early attempts at romanization was the Nippo jisho, a Japanese-Portuguese dictionary written in 1603. In general, the early Portuguese system was similar to Nihon-shiki in its treatment of vowels. Some consonants were transliterated differently: for instance, the /k/ consonant was rendered, depending on context, as either c or q, and the /ɸ/ consonant (now pronounced /h/) as f, so Nihon no kotoba ("The language of Japan") was spelled Nifon no cotoba. The Jesuits also printed some secular books in romanized Japanese, including the first printed edition of the Japanese classic The Tale of the Heike, romanized as Feiqe no monogatari, and a collection of Aesop's Fables (romanized as Esopo no fabulas). The latter continued to be printed and read after the suppression of Christianity in Japan (Chibbett, 1977).

Following the expulsion of Christians from Japan in the late 1590s and early 17th century, rōmaji fell out of use, and was only used sporadically in foreign texts until the mid-19th century, when Japan opened up again. The systems used today all developed in the latter half of the 19th century.

From the mid-19th century several systems were developed, culminating in the Hepburn system, named after James Curtis Hepburn who used it in the third edition of his Japanese–English dictionary, published in 1887. The Hepburn system included representation of some sounds that have since changed. For example, Lafcadio Hearn's book Kwaidan shows the older kw- pronunciation; in modern Hepburn romanization, this would be written Kaidan (lit., ghost tales.)

As a replacement for Japanese writing system[link]

In the Meiji era (1868–1912), some Japanese scholars advocated abolishing the Japanese writing system entirely and using rōmaji instead. The Nihon-shiki romanization was an outgrowth of that movement. Several Japanese texts were published entirely in rōmaji during this period, but it failed to catch on. Later, in the early 20th century, some scholars devised syllabary systems with characters derived from Latin (rather like the Cherokee syllabary); these were even less popular, because they were not based on any historical use of the Latin script. Today, the use of Nihon-shiki for writing Japanese is advocated by the Oomoto sect^[1] and some independent organizations.^[2]

Modern systems[link]

Hepburn[link]

Hepburn romanization (ヘボン式ローマ字, Hebon-shiki rōmaji^?, "Hepburn-style romaji") generally follows English phonology with Romance vowels. It is an intuitive method of showing Anglophones the pronunciation of a word in Japanese. It was standardized in the USA as American National Standard System for the Romanization of Japanese (Modified Hepburn), but this status was abolished on October 6, 1994. Hepburn is the most common romanization system in use today, especially in the English-speaking world.

The Revised Hepburn system of romanization uses a macron to indicate some long vowels, and an apostrophe to note the separation of easily confused phonemes (usually, syllabic n ん from a following naked vowel or semivowel). For example, the name じゅんいちろう, is written with the kana characters ju-n-i-chi-ro-u, and romanized as Jun'ichirō in Revised Hepburn. Without the apostrophe, it would not be possible to distinguish this correct reading from the incorrect ju-ni-chi-ro-u. This system is widely used in Japan and among foreign students and academics.

Nihon-shiki[link]

Nihon-shiki romanization (日本式ローマ字, Nihon-shiki rōmaji^?, "Japan-style Rōmaji"), which predates the Hepburn system, was originally invented as a method for the Japanese to write their own language in Latin characters. It follows the Japanese syllabary very strictly, with no adjustments for changes in pronunciation. It is therefore the only major system of romanization that allows lossless mapping to and from kana. It has also been standardized as ISO 3602 Strict. Also known as Nippon-shiki, rendered in the Nihon-shiki style of romanization the name is either Nihon-siki or Nippon-siki.

Kunrei-shiki[link]

Kunrei-shiki romanization (訓令式ローマ字, Kunrei-shiki rōmaji^?, "Cabinet decree style Rōmaji") is a slightly modified version of Nihon-shiki which eliminates differences between the kana syllabary and modern pronunciation. For example, when the words kana かな and tsukai つかい are combined, the result is written in kana as かなづかい with a dakuten (voicing sign) ゛on the つ (tsu) kana to indicate that the tsu つ is now voiced. The づ kana is pronounced in the same way as a different kana, す (su), with dakuten, ず. Kunrei-shiki and Hepburn ignore the difference in kana and represent the sound in the same way, as kanazukai, using the same letters "zu" as are used to romanize ず. Nihon-shiki retains the difference, and romanizes the word as kanadukai, differentiating the づ kana from the ず kana, which is romanized as zu, even though they are pronounced identically. Similarly for the pair じ and ぢ, which are both zi in Kunrei-shiki and both ji in Hepburn romanization, but are zi and di respectively in Nihon-shiki. See the table below for full details.

Kunrei-shiki has been standardized by the Japanese Government and the International Organisation for Standardisation as ISO 3602. Kunrei-shiki is taught to Japanese elementary school students in their fourth year of education.

Written in Kunrei-shiki, the name of the system would be rendered Kunreisiki.

Other variants[link]

It is possible to elaborate these romanizations to enable non-native speakers to pronounce Japanese words more correctly. Typical additions include tone marks to note the Japanese pitch accent and diacritic marks to distinguish phonological changes, such as the assimilation of the moraic nasal /n/ (see Japanese phonology).

JSL[link]

JSL is a romanization system based on Japanese phonology, designed using the linguistic principles used by linguists in designing writing systems for languages that do not have any. It is a purely phonemic system, using exactly one symbol for each phoneme, and marking pitch accent using diacritics. It was created for Eleanor Harz Jorden's system of Japanese language teaching. Its principle is that such a system enables students to better internalize the phonology of Japanese. Since it does not have any of the advantages for non-native speakers that the other rōmaji systems have, and the Japanese already have a writing system for their language, JSL is not widely used outside the educational environment.

Non-standard romanization[link]

In addition to the standardized systems above, there are many variations in romanization, used either for simplification, in error or confusion between different systems, or for deliberate stylistic reasons.

Notably, the various mappings that Japanese input methods use to convert keystrokes on a Roman keyboard to kana often combine features of all of the systems; when used as plain text rather than being converted, these are usually known as wāpuro rōmaji. (Wāpuro is a blend of wādo purosessā word processor.) Unlike the standard systems, wāpuro rōmaji requires no characters from outside the ASCII character set.

While there may be arguments in favour of some of these variant romanizations in specific contexts, their use, especially if mixed, leads to confusion when romanized Japanese words are indexed. Note that this confusion never occurs when inputting Japanese characters with a word processor, because input Latin letters are transliterated into Japanese kana as soon as IME decides what character is input.

Long vowels[link]

In addition, the following three "non-Hepburn rōmaji" (非ヘボン式ローマ字, hi-hebon-shiki rōmaji^?) methods of representing long vowels are authorized by the Japanese Foreign Ministry for use in passports.^[3]

• Oh for おお or おう (Hepburn ō).
• Oo for おお or おう. This is valid JSL and modified Hepburn.
• Ou for おう. This is also an example of wāpuro rōmaji.

Archaic variants[link]

• The vowel i plus o was sometimes used to represent the Japanese yōon sound: hence Tokyo becomes "Tokio" and Kyoto becomes "Kioto". This romanization can still be seen in the species name "mioga" of the Japanese vegetable myōga.^{[citation needed]}
• The kana え and ゑ were rendered as ye. The actual pronunciations of these kana were once e and we, but the w of we had already been lost by the time that (e.g.) ゑど "Edo" was first romanized as Yedo, "Iyeyasu" instead of "Ieyasu", "Inouye" instead of "Inoue", and "yen" instead of "en". This usage reflects the older pronunciation of e as ye. This pronunciation was lost sometime in the late 19th to early 20th centuries.^{[citation needed]}
• The kana づ (Nihon-shiki du) was romanized as dzu, as seen in the plant names adzuki and kudzu. This enjoys some currency even today as Hepburn-like wāpuro rōmaji, and has a phonetic value distinct from zu in many dialects of Japanese.^{[citation needed]}

Romanization of Japanese names[link]

Names can be subject to even more variation, with spellings depending on the individual's preference. For example, the manga artist Yasuhiro Nightow's family name would be more conventionally written in Hepburn romanization as Naitō.^{[citation needed]}

Example words written in each romanization system[link]

Differences among romanizations[link]

This chart shows in full the three main systems for the romanization of Japanese: Hepburn, Nihon-shiki and Kunrei-shiki:

This chart shows the significant differences among them.

Kana without standardised forms of romanization[link]

There is no universally accepted style of romanization for the smaller versions of the y kana (ゃ/ャ, ゅ/ュ and ょ/ョ) when used outside the normal combinations (きゃ,　きょ etc.), nor for the sokuon or small tsu kana っ/ッ when it is not directly followed by a consonant. Although these are usually regarded as merely phonetic marks or diacritics, they do sometimes appear on their own, such as at the end of sentences, in exclamations, or in some names. The detached sokuon is sometimes represented as an apostrophe or as t; for example, あっ might be written as a' or at.

Full-sized kana combined with smaller versions of the vowel kana ぁ/ァ, ぃ/ィ, ぅ/ゥ, ぇ/ェ and ぉ/ォ, mostly used to write loanwords, can be romanized in the "obvious way", reflecting the sound that they are meant to represent. For example, ディ, consisting of katakana de and small i, would typically be romanized as di. Sometimes this may create potential conflicts; for example if トゥ (katakana to and small u, used to represent sounds as in the English word "too") is romanised as tu, it may be confused with the Nihon-shiki and Kunrei-shiki romanizations of the kana ツ, also written tu. However, ツ is romanized as tsu in the Hepburn system, and since Hepburn is dominant among three systems, this kind of confusion is less likely to occur.^{[citation needed]}

On a computer or word processor, smaller kana may be produced in various ways. For example, an "x" or an "l" preceding the romanization of the full-sized kana produces a small version on some systems, thus xtu gives "っ" on Microsoft Windows. However this is not standardized, and these forms are restricted to use in input systems; they are never used to represent the smaller kana in romanized Japanese.

Historical romanizations[link]

1603: Vocabvlario da Lingoa de Iapam (1603)

1604: Arte da Lingoa de Iapam (1604–1608)

1620: Arte Breve da Lingoa Iapoa (1620)

Alphabet letter names in Japanese[link]

The list below shows how to spell Latin character words or acronyms in Japanese. For example, NHK is spelled enu-eichi-kei, (エヌエイチケイ). The following pronunciations are based on English letter names; otherwise, for example, A would likely be called ā (アー) in Japanese.

• A; Ē or ei (エー or エイ)
• B; Bī (ビー, alternative pronunciation bē, ベー)
• C; Shī (シー, sometimes pronounced sī, スィー)
• D; Dī (ディー, alternative pronunciation dē, デー)
• E; Ī (イー)
• F; Efu (エフ)
• G; Jī (ジー)
• H; Eichi or Etchi (エイチ or エッチ)
• I; Ai (アイ)
• J; Jē or Jei (ジェー or ジェイ)
• K; Kē or Kei (ケー or ケイ)
• L; Eru (エル)
• M; Emu (エム, alternative pronunciation en(em), エン)
• N; Enu (エヌ, sometimes pronounced en, エン)
• O; Ō (オー)
• P; Pī (ピー, alternative pronunciation pē, ペー)
• Q; Kyū (キュー)
• R; Āru (アール)
• S; Esu (エス)
• T; Tī (ティー, though sometimes pronounced chī, チー, and alternatively pronounced tē, テー)
• U; Yū (ユー)
• V; Vi (ヴィ, though often pronounced bui, ブイ)
• W; Daburyū (ダブリュー)
• X; Ekkusu (エックス)
• Y; Wai (ワイ)
• Z; Zetto, zeddo, or zī (ゼット, ゼッド, or ズィー, though sometimes pronounced jī, ジー)

See also[link]

• Cyrillization of Japanese
• List of ISO romanizations
• Japanese writing system
• Transcription into Japanese

References[link]

External links[link]

• Rōmaji sōdan shitsu contains an extremely extensive and accurate collection of materials relating to rōmaji, including standards documents and HTML versions of Hepburn's original dictionaries. (Japanese)
• The rōmaji conundrum by Andrew Horvat contains a discussion of the problems caused by the variety of confusing romanization systems in use in Japan today.
• RōmajiDesu A tool to convert Rōmaji to Hiragana or Katakana.

Mika Nakashima (中島 美嘉, Nakashima Mika^?, born February 19, 1983 in Hioki, Kagoshima) is a Japanese singer, and actress . She has achieved five number-one albums in Japan and also embarked on an acting career, most notably in the live-action movie Nana, based on the manga of the same name.^[1]

Biography[link]

Early life and debut[link]

Born and raised in Kyushu, Mika was the youngest of three children. She grew up in the small town of Hioki, Kagoshima, where she has said there was "nothing there, only enka." She began listening to enka singer Eiko Segawa and studied classical Japanese dance, but as she loved dressing-up and make-up, she hoped to work in fashion magazines since she was too short to become a model.^[1]

Nakashima decided not to attend high school after completing junior high and began working. At the age of 15 she moved to the city of Fukuoka where she room-shared with two others.^[1]

At the age of 17, she attended an audition not knowing what it was for.^[1] She was chosen from 3,000 girls to be the actress of the fall 2001 Fuji TV drama Kizudarake no Love Song (傷だらけのラブソング, Tainted Love Song^?), in which she played the heroine Mirai Shimazaki,^[1] and also sang the theme song, "Stars."

In November 2001, "Stars" became her debut on Sony Music Associated Records, which would go on to become her best-selling single.

Her second single "Crescent Moon", an 80s themed song, was limited to 100,000 copies. It sold out the first day of its release. In March 2002 she released her third single, "One Survive," and her first video collection, "Film Lotus". This was followed in May by her 4th single, "Helpless Rain", and in August, by her 5th single "Will", which went on to rack up sales of over 140,000. Both were top ten hits and sold around 100,000 copies, proving Nakashima's rising star appeal.^[2]

"True", "Love", and "Music"[link]

Nakashima's first album, True, released in August 2002, was a number 1 hit on the Oricon charts. The album boasted a mature mixture of jazz and adult contemporary pop. In 3 weeks, True sold a million copies, and has sold nearly 1,174,000 copies to date. Then, as a commemoration of one year since her debut, Nakashima released a Premium EP: Resistance, which hit the charts' number 1 spot for two weeks in a row. On December 18, a documentary video, Kiseki: The Document of a Star, was released. In 2002, the singer received the "New Artist of the Year" award at the Japan Gold Disc Awards and "Best New Artist of the Year" at the All Japan Request Awards 2002. She also won the "New Artist of the Year" award from the 44th Japan Record Awards.

Nakashima's second album, Love, which was released in November 2003, sold nearly 1.45 million copies, surpassing that of her debut. The Japan Composers Association awarded Love the Best Album Award. After releasing a second mini-album, Oborozukiyo: Inori, in September 2004, Nakashima topped the Oricon Album Chart again with Music in March 2005, as well as with her first greatest hits album Best in December of that year. Best is the third album by Nakashima to have sold a million copies or more, but like her second album, Best also outsold True in sales - by nearly 30,000 copies.

Debut on the silver screen[link]

In 2005, Nakashima co-starred alongside Aoi Miyazaki in the live-action movie Nana, based on the manga of the same name, which was released September 10, 2005. She also sang one of the theme songs for the movie, which was released as a single under the name "Nana starring Mika Nakashima". The single, titled "Glamorous Sky," was written by the manga's author, Ai Yazawa, and composed by L'Arc-en-Ciel vocalist Hyde. It was Nakashima's only number 1 single on the Oricon Singles Charts. It sold over 423,000 copies in 2005, making it the best-selling female single of the year and the tenth highest selling in the world. The single continued selling well into the next year and sold 444,067 copies, which was about 25,000 copies less than her Nana co-star, Yuna Ito's "Endless Story". The single would be featured in Konami's guitar/drum simulation game GuitarFreaks and Drummania V3, as well as Nintendo's Moero! Nekketsu Rhythm Damashii Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan 2.

Nakashima was nominated at the MTV Video Music Awards Japan as "Best BuzzAsia from Japan" for "Amazing Grace '05", and the "Glamorous Sky" video was nominated as "Best Female Video" and "Best Video from a Film". She won the "Best Video from a Film" award.

Due to the success of Nana, a sequel was released in December, 2006. It included two new songs by Nakashima, again under the name Nana starring Mika Nakashima. The theme song to Nana 2 movie was "Hitoiro" (One Color), which has also been written by Yazawa, while the music is composed by Glay's leader, Takuro, also the author of the coupling song, "Eyes for the Moon". Besides the single, Mika released the album The End, featuring all her songs under the name Nana starring Mika Nakashima.

On December 18, 2006 Nakashima and Yui Ichikawa came to New York City for the International Premiere of 'Nana 2' at the IFC Center. In 2010 she made her US film debut with a small role in the Sony Pictures film Resident Evil: Afterlife, based on the videogame series Resident Evil.

Memphis & Yes era[link]

Following the release of the Nana movie, Nakashima visited Memphis, Tennessee, and started another project beginning with the heavily gospel-influenced "Cry No More", the ending theme of the anime Blood+.

She also contributed to the New Orleans charity tribute when she teamed up with American musicians Cyril Neville of the Neville Brothers and jazz pianist/musician Alan Toussaint. They released the single All Hands Together and as a result of her efforts, she was rewarded with an honorary citizenship of Memphis, Tennessee and a key to the city.^[1]

A month later Mika released another single "My Sugar Cat," which dropped out of the Top 50 a week after its release.

On February 21, 2007 Nakashima's 21st single, "Mienai Hoshi" was released. The single is the theme song for the Japanese drama Haken no Hinkaku (ハケンの品格, lit. Haken's Dignity^?), which aired starting January 10, 2007. The b-side track "I Love You" is a cover of the Ozaki Yutaka ballad. Promotional videos were made for both songs.

On March 14, 2007, Nakashima's 5th studio album, Yes, was released in Japan. The title "Yes" continues Nakashima's trend of having one-word album titles, such as "Love" and "True", excluding the Nana album "The End". Her 22nd single, Sunao na Mama, was released on the same day.

Voice era[link]

Following the release of Yes, Nakashima embarked on her first tour since 2005, Mika Nakashima's Concert Tour 2007 "Yes My Joy", which ended in late July and was subsequently released on DVD on November 7, 2007. Nakashima's 23rd single "Life" as well as "Film Lotus VI", her sixth compilation of music videos, were released in August 2007. "Life" was the theme song for the drama adaptation of the shoujo manga series of the same name by Keiko Suenobu.

Nakashima's 24th single, "Eien no Uta", appeared in October 2007, and was the theme to the movie Southbound. Promotional videos were made for both Eien no Uta and its B-side, a cover of Cole Porter's "You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To".

Her 25th single, "Sakura: Hanagasumi", was released in March 2008. It reached number 12 on the Oricon chart.

"I Don't Know", Nakashima's 26th single, was her first sung entirely an English. A collaboration with owarai group Morisanchū (森三中^?) it was released under the name MICA 3 CHU (Mikasanchuu) and Nakashima claimed it was her way to "vent my complaints and enjoy doing something really silly. The music of the song was too short to put so many words in Japanese so it was better in English, if I feel like doing it again, there will be more."^[1]

Nakashima's next single, "Orion", was released on November 12, 2008. It was used as an insert song for the TBS drama "Ryusei no Kizuna", in which Nakashima herself appeared in a minor role.^[3][4]

Nakashima's fifth studio album, Voice, was released on November 26, 2008. Voice, which leaned closer to a mainstream yet mature form of adult contemporary pop than her previous albums, was the first album by Nakashima to top the Oricon Album Chart since Best in 2005, and sold over 155,000 copies in its first week of release and over 340,000 copies in total.

Star era[link]

After releasing a new album called No More Rules on March 5, 2009, Nakashima embarked on her fifth tour. This Japan-based tour was called the "Trust Our Voice Tour 2009", which started on April 10, 2009 and concluded in Tokyo at the end of July 2009. She introduced her then-new single, "Over Load", released on May 13, 2009, during the tour.

"Life" ranked number 7 in JASRAC Award 2009: 10 best interactive song.^[5] "Life" was also used in the TV series Life (ライフ^?). The story is based on major school problems such as bullying, rape, abuse, etc. Nakashima's 29th single, "Candy Girl", was released on September 30, 2009, as a collaboration with the fashion brand SLY. Her 30th single, "Nagareboshi", was released on November 4, 2009.

The DVD of Nakashima's "Trust Our Voice Tour 2009", titled "Mika Nakashima Concert Tour 2009 Trust Our Voice", was released in Japan as her first 2-DVD concert release on December 2, 2009.^[6]

Nakashima's 31st single, "Always", was released on January 20, 2010, and was the theme song for the Japanese movie Sayonara Itsuka (サヨナライツカ^?). She also starred in the Japanese supernatural monster film Death Kappa,^[7] which was directed by Tomoo Haraguchi.^[8]

Nakashima's 32nd single, "Ichiban Kirei na Watashi wo" (The Most Beautiful Me; 一番綺麗な私を) appeared on August 25, 2010 as the tie-in song to the TBS drama series, Unubore Deka (Conceited Detective, うぬぼれ刑事).^[9] The drama focused on a story about a male detective that has the illusion of being the "ladies man". He is a romantic but conceited, he tries to convince female criminals, into either marrying him or being arrested. Mika Nakashima plays a role in the show as well. The name of her character in the television series is known as Rie Hagurashi.

On October 22, 2010, she announced she would be pulling out of her first performance at the Nippon Budokan commemorating her 10 year career and that she would be taking a break from singing while recovering from having patulous Eustachian tubes in both her ears. Nakashima's sixth studio album, Star, was released on October 27, 2010^[10]

Trivia[link]

Nakashima has many tattoos, considered taboo in Japanese society, including one of a star on her wrist. She has said "I have resolved to live as a star. I have something linked with the stars because I have so many songs about them." She has also stated that she loves skin imperfections and decorations because "they are beautiful and I can imagine stories of people... hard feelings and pain... from them."^[1]

Nakashima is a frequent visitor to the US for voice-training classes, and rented an apartment near Wall Street, New York in 2009.^[1]

Cover versions[link]

"Yuki no Hana" was one of the most popular karaoke songs in Japan in 2004. It has also been officially covered by numerous artists including Joi Chua, Park Hyo Shin, Seo Young Eun, Han Xue, Vincy Chan, Eric Martin (Mr. Big's vocalist), Hayley Westenra, Hideaki Tokunaga and Gackt. Park Hyo Shin's version was an insert song for the popular Korean drama I'm Sorry, I Love You.

"Find the Way" was covered by Korean singer Bada, who was a member of K-Pop girl group S.E.S..

Other popular covers have been done for "Stars" and "Sakurairo Mau Koro".

Discography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Mika Nakashima Official Website (Japanese)
• Mika Nakashima at Allmusic
• Mika Nakashima at the Internet Movie Database

Mayumi Itsuwa (五輪 真弓, Itsuwa Mayumi^?) (born January 24, 1951) is a Japanese vocalist, composer, lyricist, and keyboardist who made her debut in 1972.

Her first studio album entitled Shoujo was recorded in Los Angeles, produced by GRAMMY Award winner John Fischbach, with distinguished musicians such as David Campbell, Carole King and Charles Larkey who was King's husband at that time. Owing to her introspective compositions, Itsuwa was often nicknamed "Japanese Carole King", along with other Japanese singer-songwriters like Yumi Matsutoya (who had worked under her birth name "Yumi Arai" during the mid 1970s) and Minako Yoshida.

Itsuwa gained moderate success on the Japanese albums chart in her early career, and received massive popularity and acclaim through a single "Koibito yo" released in 1980. A song topped the Japan's Oricon chart for three consecutive weeks, and won the 22nd Japan Record Award for "Gold Prize" in a same year.^[1][2] It was covered by the country's legendary singers including Hibari Misora and Noriko Awaya in later years, and became a signature song for Itsuwa.

After "Koibito yo" became a hit, Itsuwa gained popularity also in non-Japanese Asian countries during the 1980s.

In Indonesia, "Kokoro No Tomo" and "Amayadori" become the most popular songs ever released by her. In 2006, Mayumi Itsuwa and Delon Thamrin recorded an Indonesian and Japanese version of the song. This was later included on the 2006 compilation album "Duet Love Songs". Many of her songs would fall into the musical genre of "torch songs" because they often describe the lingering memory of past loves.

Discography[link]

Albums[link]

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

References[link]