The head office of Kodansha

Kodansha Limited (株式会社講談社, Kabushiki-gaisha Kōdansha^?), the largest Japanese publisher, produces the manga magazines Nakayoshi, Afternoon, Evening, and Weekly Shonen Magazine, as well as more literary magazines such as Gunzō, Shūkan Gendai, and the Japanese dictionary Nihongo Daijiten. The company has its headquarters in Bunkyō, Tokyo.^[1] As of 2010^[update] the Noma family—relatives of the founder—continues to own Kodansha.

History[link]

Seiji Noma founded Kodansha in 1909 as a spinoff of the Dai-Nippon Yūbenkai (Greater Japan Oratorical Society) and produced the literary magazine Yūben as its first publication. The name Kodansha (taken from "Kōdan Club", a now defunct magazine published by the company) originated in 1911 when the publisher formally merged with the Dai-Nippon Yūbenkai. The company has used its current^[update] legal name since 1958. It uses the motto Omoshirokute tame ni naru ("To be interesting and beneficial").

Kodansha Limited owns the Otowa Group, which manages subsidiary companies such as King Records and Kobunsha, and publishes Nikkan Gendai, a daily tabloid. It also has close ties with The Walt Disney Company, and officially sponsors Tokyo Disneyland.

The largest publisher in Japan, Kodansha once^[when?] had an annual revenue of more than ¥200 billion. Revenues dropped due to the 2002 recession in Japan and an accompanying downturn in the publishing industry: the company posted a loss in the 2002 financial year for the first time since the end of the World War II. (The second-largest publisher, Shogakukan, has done relatively better. In the 2003 financial year, Kodansha had revenues of ¥167 billion, as compared to ¥150 billion for Shogakukan. Kodansha at its peak led Shogakukan by over ¥50 billion in revenue.)

Kodansha sponsors the prestigious Kodansha Manga Award, which has run in its current^[update] form since 1977 (and since 1960 under other names).

Kodansha's headquarters in Tokyo once housed Noma Dōjō, a kendo practice-hall established by Seiji Noma in 1925. The hall was demolished in November 2007, however, and replaced with a dōjō in a new building nearby.

The company announced that it was closing its English-language publishing house, Kodansha International, at the end of April 2011.^[2] Their American publishing house, Kodansha Comics USA, will still be open.

Relationships with other organizations[link]

The Kodansha company holds ownership in various broadcasters in Japan, and is believed^{[by whom?]} to hold around 20% of the TBS Group's stock.^{[citation needed]} It also holds shares in Nippon Cultural Broadcasting, along with Kobunsha. In the recent^[when?] takeover-war for Nippon Broadcasting System between Livedoor and Fuji TV, Kodansha supported Fuji TV by selling its stock to Fuji TV.

Kodansha has a somewhat complicated relationship with NHK, Japan's public broadcaster. Many of the manga and novels published by Kodansha have spawned anime adaptations. Animation such as Cardcaptor Sakura aired in NHK's Eisei Anime Gekijō time-slot, and Kodansha published a companion-magazine to the NHK children's show Okāsan to Issho. The two companies often clash editorially, however. The October 2000 issue of Gendai accused NHK of staging footage used in a news report in 1997 on dynamite fishing in Indonesia. NHK sued Kodansha in the Tokyo District Court, which ordered Kodansha to publish a retraction and to pay ¥4 million in damages. Kodansha appealed the decision, and reached a settlement where it had to issue only a partial retraction, and to pay no damages.^[3] Gendai's sister magazine Shūkan Gendai nonetheless published an article which probed further into the staged-footage controversy which has dogged NHK.

Honors[link]

• Japan Foundation: Japan Foundation Special Prize, 1994.^[4]

Publications[link]

• Gunzo, monthly literary magazine
• Mephisto, monthly literary magazine focusing on mystery and detective stories

See also[link]

	Tokyo portal
	Companies portal
	Books portal
	Anime and manga portal

• Edwin O. Reischauer Memorial House
• Kodansha Noma Memorial Museum
• Noma Award
• Tuttle Publishing

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Kodansha

• Kodansha Official Japanese website (Japanese)
• Kodansha Official English Website
• Kodansha USA Official Website
• Kodansha Comics USA Official Website

Eleanor and Owen Lattimore.

Owen Lattimore (July 29, 1900 – May 31, 1989) was an American author, educator, and influential scholar of Central Asia, especially Mongolia. In the 1930s, he was editor of Pacific Affairs, a journal published by the Institute of Pacific Relations, and then taught at Johns Hopkins University from 1938 to 1963. During World War II, he was an advisor to Chiang Kai-shek and the American government and contributed extensively to the public debate.^[1]

In the early post-war period of McCarthyism and the Red Scare, American wartime China Hands were accused of being agents of the Soviet Union or under the influence of Marxism. In 1950, Senator Joseph McCarthy accused Lattimore in particular of being "the top Russian espionage agent in the United States."^[1]

The accusations led to years of Congressional hearings that did not substantiate the charge that Lattimore had been one (and wartime intercepted Venona cables did not refer to him as one). The hearings documented Lattimore's sympathetic statements about Stalin and the Soviet Union, however. Although charges of perjury were dismissed, the controversy put an end to Lattimore's role as a consultant of the United States State Department and eventually to his career in American academic life.

From 1963 to 1975, Lattimore was the first professor of Chinese studies at the University of Leeds in England, where he taught Chinese History, richly flavoured with personal reminiscences. He died in 1989 in Providence, Rhode Island.^[1]

Lattimore's "lifetime intellectual project," notes one recent scholar, was to "develop a 'scientific' model of the way human societies form, evolve, grow, decline, mutate and interact with one another along 'frontiers.'" He eclectically absorbed and often abandoned influential theories of his day that dealt with the great themes of history.

These included the ecological determinism of Ellsworth Huntington; biological racism, though only to the extent of seeing characteristics which grew out of ecology; the economic geography and location theory; and some aspects of Marxist modes of production and stages of history, especially through the influence of Karl August Wittfogel.

The most important and lasting theorist, however, was Arnold J. Toynbee and his treatment of the great civilizations as organic wholes which were born, matured, grew old, and died.^[2] Lattimore's most influential book, The Inner Asian Frontiers of China (1940), used these theories to explain the history of East Asia not as the history of China and its influence, but as the interaction between two types of civilizations, settled farming and pastoral, each of which had its role.

Early life[link]

Although born in the US, Lattimore was raised in Tianjin, China, where his parents, David and Margaret Lattimore, were teachers of English at a Chinese university. (His brother was the classics translator Richmond Lattimore. One of his sisters was the children's author Eleanor Frances Lattimore.) After being schooled at home by his mother, he left China at the age of twelve and attended schools in Switzerland and St Bees School, England (1915–1919), but returned in 1919 when it turned out that he would not have enough funds for attending university.

He worked first for a newspaper and then for a British import/export related business. This gave him the opportunity to travel extensively in China and time to study Chinese with an old-fashioned Confucian scholar. His commercial travels also gave him a feel for the realities of life and the economy. A turning point was negotiating the passage of a trainload of wool through the lines of two battling warlords early in 1925, an experience which led him the next year to follow the caravans across Inner Mongolia to the end of the line in Xinjiang.^[3]

The managers of his firm, however, saw no advantage in subsidizing his travels but sent send him to spend a year in Beijing as government liaison. During the year he spent there before departing on his expedition, he met his wife, Eleanor Holgate. For their honeymoon they planned to travel from Beijing to India, he overland, she by rail across Siberia, a mammoth feat in the first half of the 20th century, but in the event the plans were disrupted and she had to travel alone by horse-drawn sled for four hundred miles in February to find him. She described her journey in Turkestan Reunion (1934), he in The Desert Road to Turkestan (1928) and High Tartary (1930). This trip laid the ground for his lifelong interest in all matters related to the Mongols and other peoples of the Silk Road.

Upon his return to America in 1928, he succeeded in receiving a fellowship from the Social Science Research Council for further travel in Manchuria, then for the academic year 1928/1929 as a student at Harvard University. He returned to China 1930-1933 with fellowships from the Harvard-Yenching Institute and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

In 1934, he became editor of Pacific Affairs, published by the Institute of Pacific Relations, which he edited from Beijing. Rather than have bland official statements, he made it his policy to make the journal a "forum of controversy." As he later recalled, he was "continually in hot water, especially with the Japan Council, which thought I was too anti-imperialist, and the Soviet Council, which thought that its own anti-imperialist line was the only permissible one...." As explained below, others later accused him of motives which were less scholarly than political. Lattimore sought articles from a wide range of perspectives and made the journal a forum for new ideas, especially from the social sciences and social philosophy. Scholars and writers of all persuasions were contributors, including Pearl S. Buck, some Chinese literary figures, and dedicated Marxists.

After sojourns in New York and London and a trip to the Soviet Union, the Lattimores returned to Beijing in 1937. Owen visited the Communist headquarters at Yan'an to act as translator for T. A. Bisson and Philip Jaffé, who were gathering material for Amerasia as an activist journal of political commentary. There he met Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai. He was impressed with their candor, but had a less favorable experience on his visit to the party school for national minorities. When he spoke to the Mongols in Mongolian, his Chinese hosts broke off the session.^[4]

World War II[link]

Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Lattimore US advisor to Chinese Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek. In 1944, Lattimore was placed in charge of the Pacific area for the Office of War Information. By this time, Lattimore's political activities and associations had been under scrutiny for the last two years by the FBI, which recommended for Lattimore to be put under "Custodial Detention in case of National Emergency".^[5] At President Roosevelt's request, he accompanied US Vice-President Henry A. Wallace on a mission to Siberia and to China and Mongolia in 1944 for the US Office of War Information.^[6] The trip had been arranged by Lauchlin Currie, who recommended to FDR for Lattimore to accompany Wallace.^[7]

During this visit, which overlapped the D-Day landings, Wallace and his delegates stayed 25 days in Siberia and were given a tour of the Soviet Union's Magadan concentration camp at Kolyma. In a travelogue for National Geographic, Lattimore described what little he saw as a combination of the Hudson's Bay Company and the TVA, remarking on how strong and well-fed the inmates were and ascribing to camp commandant Ivan Nikishov'a trained and sensitive interest in art and music and also a deep sense of civic responsibility'.^[8] In a letter written to the New Statesman in 1968, Lattimore justified himself by arguing his role had not been one to "snoop on his hosts."^[9]

During the 1940s, Lattimore came into increasing conflict with another member of the IPR's board, Alfred Kohlberg, a manufacturer with long experience in the China trade whose visit to China in 1943 convinced him that stories of Chiang Kai-shek's corruption were false. He accused Lattimore of being hostile to Chiang and too sympathetic towards the Communist Party of China. In 1944, relations between Kohlberg and Lattimore became so bad that Kohlberg left the IPR and founded a journal Plain Talk intended to rebut the claims made in Pacific Affairs By the late 1940s, Lattimore had become a particular target of Kohlberg and other members of the China Lobby. Kohlberg was later to became an advisor to Senator Joseph McCarthy, and it is possible that McCarthy first learned of Lattimore through Kohlberg.^[10]

Accused of espionage[link]

Meanwhile, accusations were made, which later became public. On 14 December 1948, Alexander Barmine, former chargé d'affaires at the Soviet Embassy in Athens, Greece, advised Federal Bureau of Investigation agents that Soviet GRU Director Janis Berzin had informed him prior to Barmine's 1937 defection that Lattimore was a Soviet agent, an allegation Barmine would repeat under oath before the Senate McCarran Committee in 1951.^[11][12][13]

Confrontation with Congressional Committees[link]

In March 1950, in executive session of the Tydings Committee, Joseph McCarthy accused Lattimore of being the top Soviet agent, either in the US, in the State Department, or both.^[14] The committee, chaired by Senator Millard Tydings, was investigating McCarthy's claims of widespread Soviet infiltration of the State Department. When the accusation was leaked to the press, McCarthy backed off from the charge that Lattimore was a spy but continued the attack in public session of the committee and in speeches.

Lattimore, he said, "in view of his position of tremendous power at the State Department" was the "'architect' of our Far Eastern policy" and asked whether Lattimore's "aims are American aims or whether they coincide with the aims of Soviet Russia." At the time, Lattimore was in Kabul, Afghanistan, on a cultural mission for the United Nations. Lattimore dismissed the charges against him as "moonshine" and hurried back to the United States to testify before the Tydings Committee.^[15]

McCarthy, who had no evidence of specific acts of espionage and only weak evidence that Lattimore was a concealed Communist, in April 1950 persuaded Louis F. Budenz, the now-anticommunist former editor of the Communist Party organ Daily Worker, to testify. Budenz had no first-hand knowledge of Lattimore's Communist allegiance and had never previously identified him as a Communist in his extensive FBI interviews. In addition, Budenz had in 1947 told a State Department investigator that he "did not recall any instances" that suggested that Lattimore was a Communist and had also told his editor at Collier's magazine in 1949 that Lattimore had never "acted as a Communist in any way."^[16]

Now, however, Budenz testified that Lattimore was a secret Communist but not a Soviet agent; he was a person of influence who often assisted Soviet foreign policy. Budenz said his party superiors had told him that Lattimore's "great value lay in the fact that he could bring the emphasis in support of Soviet policy in non-Soviet language."^[17] The majority report of the Tydings committee cleared Lattimore of all charges against him; the minority report accepted Budenz's charges.

In February 1952, Lattimore was called to testify before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee (SISS), headed by McCarthy's ally, Senator Pat McCarran. Before Lattimore was called as witness, investigators for the SISS had seized all of the records of the Institute of Pacific Relations (IPR).^{[citation needed]} The twelve days of testimony were marked by shouting matches, which pitted McCarran and McCarthy on one side against Lattimore on the other. Lattimore took three days to deliver his opening statement: the delays were caused by frequent interruptions as McCarran challenged Lattimore point by point. McCarran then used the records from the IPR. to ask questions that often taxed Lattimore's memory. Budenz again testified, but this time claimed that Lattimore was both a Communist and a Soviet agent.

The Subcommittee also summoned scholars. Nicholas Poppe, a Russian émigré and a scholar of Mongolia and Tibet, resisted the committee's invitation to label Lattimore a Communist but found some of his writings superficial and uncritical.^{[citation needed]} The most damaging testimony came from Karl August Wittfogel, supported by his colleague from the University of Washington, George Taylor. Wittfogel, a former Communist, said that at the time Lattimore edited the journal Pacific Affairs, Lattimore knew of his Communist background; even though they had not exchanged words on the matter, Lattimore had given Wittfogel a "knowing smile."

Lattimore acknowledged that Wittfogel's thought had been tremendously influential but said that if there had been a smile, it was a "non-Communist smile." Wittfogel and Taylor charged that Lattimore had done "great harm to the free world' in disregarding the need to defeat world Communism as a first priority. John Fairbank, in his memoirs, suggests that Wittfogel may have said this because he had been made to leave Germany for having views unacceptable to the powers that be, and he did not want to make the same mistake twice. They also asserted that the influence of Marxism on Lattimore was shown by his use of the word "feudal." Lattimore replied that he did not think that Marxists had a "patent" on that word.^[18]

In 1952, after 17 months of study and hearing, involving 66 witnesses and thousands of documents, the McCarran Committee issued its 226-page, unanimous final report. This report stated that "Owen Lattimore was, from some time beginning in the 1930s, a conscious articulate instrument of the Soviet conspiracy," and that on "at least five separate matters," Lattimore had not told the whole truth. One example: 'The evidence... shows conclusively that Lattimore knew Frederick V. Field to be a Communist; that he collaborated with Field after he possessed this knowledge; and that he did not tell the truth before the subcommittee about this association with Field....'^[19]

In 1952, Lattimore was indicted for perjury on seven counts. Six of the counts related to various discrepancies between Lattimore's testimony and the IPR records; the seventh accused Lattimore of seeking to deliberately deceive the SISS. Lattimore's defenders, such as his lawyer Abe Fortas, claimed that the discrepancies were caused by McCarran deliberately asking questions about arcane and obscure matters that took place in the 1930s.

Within three years, federal judge Luther Youngdahl dismissed the charges. Four of the charges were dismissed as insubstantial and not judicable; denying that he was sympathetic to communism was too vague to be fairly answered; and the other counts were matters of little concern, those for which a jury would be unlikely to convict on matters of political judgment.^[20] In his book Ordeal by Slander, Lattimore gives his own account of these events up until 1950.

Legacy[link]

The American Center for Mongolian Studies, together with the International Association of Mongolian Studies and the National University of Mongolia School of Foreign Service organized a conference entitled, "Owen Lattimore: The Past, Present, and Future of Inner Asian Studies" in Ulan Bator, Mongolia on August 20 and 21, 2008.^[21]

A Leeds student housing block is now named after him. While there, he also promoted the establishment of a Mongolian Studies Department. Lattimore had a lifelong dedication to establishing research centers to further the study of Mongolian history and culture. He is one of the few Westerners to have received recognition from the Mongolian state. The State Museum in Ulaanbaatar named a newly discovered dinosaur after him.

Theory[link]

In An Inner Asian Approach to the Historical Geography of China (1947), Lattimore explored the system through which humanity affects the environment and is changed by it, and concluded that civilization is molded by its own impact on the environment. He lists the following pattern:

1. A primitive society pursues some agricultural activities, but is aware that it has many limitations.
2. Growing and evolving, the society begins to change the environment. For example, depleting its game supply and wild crops, it begins to domesticate animals and plants. It deforests land to create room for these activities.
3. The environment changes, offering new opportunities. For example, it becomes grasslands.
4. Society changes in response, and reacts to the new opportunities as a new society. For example, the once-nomads build permanent settlements and shift from a hunter-gatherer mentality to a farming society culture.
5. The reciprocal process continues, offering new variations.

Publications[link]

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• David Buck, "Owen Lattimore," in John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes, ed., American National Biography (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999): 248-250.
• James Cotton, Asian Frontier Nationalism: Owen Lattimore and the American Policy Debate (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press International, 1989). ISBN 0-391-03651-3.
• M. Stanton Evans, Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe Mccarthy and His Fight against America's Enemies (New York: Crown Forum, 2007), esp Ch 29, "Owen Lattimore."
• Fried, Richard Nightmare In Red : the McCarthy Era in Perspective, New York ; Toronto : Oxford University Press, 1990 ISBN 0-19-504360-X.
• John T. Flynn, The Lattimore Story (New York,: Devin-Adair, 1953).
• Klingaman., William The Encyclopedia of the McCarthy Era, New York : Facts on File, 1996 ISBN 0-8160-3097-9.
• Newman, Robert P. Owen Lattimore And The "Loss" of China, Berkeley : University of California Press, 1992 ISBN 0-520-07388-6.
• Oshinsky, David A Conspiracy So Immense : the World of Joe McCarthy, New York : Free Press ; London : Collier Macmillan, 1983 ISBN 0-02-923490-5.
• Rowe, William T. "Owen, Lattimore, Asia, and Comparative History." Journal of Asian Studies 66, no. 3 (2007): 759-86.
• Schrecker, Ellen No Ivory Tower : McCarthyism and the Universities, New York : Oxford University Press, 1986 ISBN 0-19-503557-7.
• Schrecker, Ellen Many Are The Crimes : McCarthyism In America, Boston ; London : Little, Brown, 1998 ISBN 0-316-77470-7.

External links[link]

• FBI reports from the espionage investigation of Lattimore 5161 pages
• United States vs. Lattimore
• Newman, Robert P. (1992). Owen Lattimore and the "Loss" of China. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-07388-6. http://content.cdlib.org/xtf/view?docId=ft296nb15t&brand=eschol. 
• Interview of Owen Lattimore by Caroline Humphrey 21st May 1983 (film)
• Lattimore's July 17, 1949, article in the Daily Compass recommending abandonment of South Korea

Koda Kumi 倖田 來未
Koda Kumi at the 2005 Kami Kaze Convention
Background information
Birth name	神田 來未子 (Kōda Kumiko)
Also known as	Kuu(-chan)
Born	(1982-11-13) November 13, 1982 (age 29) Kyoto, Kyoto Prefecture, Japan
Genres	Pop, R&B, house, rock, urban, dance, electropop
Occupations	Singer-songwriter, actress, spokesperson, voice actress
Instruments	Vocals
Years active	2000–present
Labels	Rhythm Zone Orpheus Records (USA)
Associated acts	Clench & Blistah, Daisuke D.I. Imai, M-Flo, Omarion, Soulhead
Website	www.rhythmzone.net/koda

This article contains Japanese text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of kanji and kana.

Kumiko Kōda (神田 來未子, Kōda Kumiko^?, born November 13, 1982), better known by her stage name Koda Kumi (倖田 來未, Kōda Kumi^?), is a Japanese singer and songwriter from Kyoto, known for her urban and R&B songs. Having debuted in 2000 with the single "Take Back", Koda gained fame for her seventh single, "Real Emotion/1000 no Kotoba", the songs of which were used as themes for the video game Final Fantasy X-2.^[1][2] Her popularity grew with the release of her fourth studio album Secret (2005), her sixteenth single "Butterfly" (2005), and her first greatest hits album Best: First Things (2005), reaching the number-three, number-two and number-one spot respectively.^[3][4][5]

Though her early releases presented a conservative, quiet image, since as early as 2003 Koda has adopted a sexier and more provocative style.^[6] Because of this image, she has become a fashion leader among young women, setting trends such as the ero-kakkoii style.^[7] She has also won many fashion awards such as, the "Best Jeanist Award" and the title of "Nail Queen" yearly since 2006. Since the rise in her popularity, Koda has lent her face and songs to many advertisements. In 2006 and 2007, Oricon named Koda as the top selling artist of the year.^{[fn 1]} Jonathan Ross has called her the Christina Aguilera of Japan, while many also compare her career to that of Britney Spears. Koda has sold more than 12,000,000 records in Japan alone, making her the 18th best selling solo Japanese female artist of all-time.

On December 12, 2011, Kumi announced via her website that she is pregnant and engaged to Kenji03 from BACK-ON. On December 29, 2011, Kumi and Kenji03 married.

Life and music career[link]

Early life and music interest[link]

Koda was born into a family of musicians. Her grandfather was a Shakuhachi master and her mother was a Koto teacher;^[10] she is the older sister of Misono, current solo artist and former lead singer of Day After Tomorrow. Inspired by her mother, who performed in karaoke bars, Koda, from a young age, had aspirations of becoming a singer.^[10] Her school years were unhappy; she described her junior and high school years as "obscure times", as she was bullied due to her "fatness", "shortness", "ugliness", and other factors related to her appearance.^[11][12][13] During her second year of high school Koda auditioned in Avex’s "Dream Audition", where she came in second out of 120,000 participants. She was then signed onto the Avex sub-label Rhythm Zone.^[10] Koda's first semi-biographical book, Koda-shiki ("Koda-style") was officially described as "a story about a girl who was filled with inferiority complex pursuing her way".^[14]

2000–2004: Early career and image change[link]

Koda debuted on December 6, 2000, with the single "Take Back"; it was followed by "Trust Your Love", "Color of Soul" (both 2001), and "So into You" (2002). "Trust Your Love" and "Color of Soul" were both Top 30 singles; the former reached #18 on the chart and became Koda's first Top Twenty single.^[15][16] Using the stage name Koda, Koda recorded "Take Back" and "Trust Your Love" in English and released the singles in the United States under Orpheus Records. "Take Back" peaked at #18 on the Hot Dance Music/Maxi-Singles Sales chart;^[17] "Trust Your Love" had more success, reaching the top spot on the Hot Dance Music/Maxi-Singles Sales chart.^[18] The single also charted on the Hot Singles Sales chart and Hot Dance Club Play chart, at #19 and #35, respectively.^[19][20] After the September 11, 2001 attacks, Koda recorded the charity single "The Meaning of Peace" with Korean singer BoA as part of Avex's Song+Nation project to raise funds for charity.^[21][22] In March 2002, Koda released her debut album Affection under Rhythm Zone; it peaked at #12 on the Oricon album chart.^[23]

After the release of Affection, Koda released three singles. "Love Across the Ocean", "Maze" (both 2002), and "real Emotion/1000 no Kotoba" (2003). "Love Across the Ocean" and "Maze" peaked at #19 and #25 positions.^[24][25] Koda achieved minor success with "real Emotion/1000 no Kotoba", which peaked at #3 after three weeks on the charts.^[26] The songs were used as the opening and ending themes, respectively, of the video game Final Fantasy X-2; in addition, Koda motion-acted the dance moves of one of the characters and voiced the character Lenne in the Japanese version of the game.^[27] She released her second album, Grow into One in March 2003. It debuted at #11 on the charts,^[28] and peaked at #8 in the fourth week of its run.^[29]

From then on, Koda continued a string of Top Twenty singles with "Come with Me", "Gentle Words" (both 2003) and "Crazy 4 U" (2004).^[30][31][32] She then released her third album Feel My Mind (February 2004), which debuted at #7.^[33] Koda also covered the theme song of the anime series Cutie Honey originally by Yoko Maekawa for the 2004 live-action film and Re: Cutie Honey. The song, which shared the same name as the show, was included as a bonus track on the album and became the title track of her eleventh single "Love & Honey" (2004), after the album's release. At the end of the year Koda released two more singles, "Chase" and "Kiseki". Though Koda had always been known for her changing fashions in her music videos, the video of "Kiseki" marked the beginning of her incorporation of her sexy image into her music videos.^[34]

During her image change, Kumi stated her concern about what her parents would think. When they approved and supported her, she chose to keep the style that would become infamous with her name: "ero-kakkoi".

2005–2006: Growing popularity[link]

Koda's first release of 2005 was her fourteenth single, "Hands" (January 19). Less than a month later, she released her fourth album, Secret. Secret debuted at #3 and became her first album to debut in the Top Five.^[3] The album was certified double platinum by the RIAJ for selling 521,000 copies total.^[35] Koda then released her fifteenth single, "Hot Stuff", from the album. Shortly afterwards, Koda released her first live DVD, Secret: First Class Limited Live. In 2006, Oricon reported that Secret: First Class Limited Live had set a new record on the music DVD charts by remaining at the top of the Oricon DVD charts for seven weeks in total.^[36]

Koda then released her sixteenth single, "Butterfly". "Butterfly" debuted at #2 on the Oricon chart, her first single to do so.^[4] "Butterfly" was followed by "Flower" and "Promise/Star"; both peaked at #4 in the weekly chart.^[37][38] In September, Koda released her first greatest hits album, Best: First Things. The album debuted at #2 on the chart in its first week and rose to the top the following week, giving Koda her first number-one album.^[5][39] Best: First Things sold over a million copies and was certified million by the Recording Industry Association of Japan.^[40]

In December, Koda began the "12 Singles Project" in which for twelve consecutive weeks, she released one single per week (nine of which were labeled as limited editions).^[41][42] The first single of the 12 Singles Project, "You", debuted at the top of the chart, giving Koda her first number-one single.^[43] Koda then released "Birthday Eve", "D.D.D.", and "Shake It Up" before the end of the year. Koda released the remaining eight singles in the beginning of the new year. The first single was "Lies", followed by "Feel", "Candy", "No Regret", "Ima Sugu Hoshii", "Kamen", "Wind" and "Someday/Boys & Girls". On the same day as she released the last single from the project, she released digitally Koda Kumi Remix Album, which includes remixes of songs from project. "Feel", the fifth single from the project, debuted atop the charts.^[44] "You" remained in the Oricon Top Ten during the release of "Shake It Up" and "Lies", making Koda the first female artist to have three singles in the Top Ten of the Oricon Weekly Singles chart.^[45] Koda's fashion in this period, in which she wore skin-baring clothes, started the ero-kakkoii trend in Japan.^[46][47] "Get It On", the thirteenth and last single of the "12 Singles Project",^{[fn 2]} was Koda's first digital single; it was followed by her second greatest hits album, Best: Second Session.^[48] The album featured all twelve singles along with two new tracks and was released in three different formats: CD-only, CD+DVD, and CD+2DVD. Best: Second Session debuted at the top of the chart with 983,000 copies sold in its first week, making Koda the first female artist with the highest greatest hits album debut sales since Hikaru Utada's Utada Hikaru Single Collection Vol. 1.^[49] Like Best: First Things, Best: Second Session was certified million by the RIAJ.^[50]

After Best: Second Session, Koda released "Koi no Tsubomi". "Koi no Tsubomi" was released online one day before its physical release and sold one million downloads.^[51] The single reached #2 in its debut week with 140,000 copies sold.^[52] This was the highest debut week sales for a female artist in 2006, until Ayumi Hamasaki surpassed it with her single "Blue Bird". On July 26, 2006, Koda released her first photobook, Maroc; the book, photographed by Leslie Kee, was tied with her thirty-second single "4 Hot Wave", which was released on the same day.^[53] Koda reclaimed the title of highest debut week sales for a female artist in 2006 with "4 Hot Wave";^[54] which also ranked second behind the KinKi Kids.^[55] "4 Hot Wave" is Koda's nineteenth consecutive single to debut in the Top Ten since "Kiseki".^[41] Koda's next single, "Yume no Uta / Futari de..." (2006), was a musical first for Koda, as she took full creative control over the production of the single and music video; she wrote the lyrics, chose the outfits, and produced the concepts for the videos of both songs.^[56] Koda then recorded a cover of the Bubblegum Brothers' "Won't Be Long" with label-mates Exile. "Cherry Girl/Unmei" was the last single Koda released before releasing her fifth album Black Cherry in December. Black Cherry became the first female studio album to stay atop the charts for four weeks since Ayumi Hamasaki's album Duty.^[57] At the end of 2006, Oricon named her the best-selling artist of 2006 with ¥12,702,200,000 profit (approximately $136,465,304), and Yahoo! Japan declared her to be the most-searched female artist and tenth most searched term overall in 2006.^[8][58][59]

2007–2010: Decline in sales and controversy[link]

Koda performing at the Tokyo leg of Live Earth

On March 14, 2007, Koda released her thirty-fifth single ("But/Aishō"), another greatest hits album (Best: Bounce & Lovers), and a DVD of her second tour Live Tour 2006–2007: Second Session. Her second single of 2007, "Freaky", reached the top spot on the Oricon, giving Koda her fourth number-one single. Koda performed at the Japanese leg of Live Earth in Tokyo on July 7, 2007, and attended Ap Bank Fes '07, an conservationist-themed concert, hosted by Kazutoshi Sakurai of Mr. Children on July 15, 2007.^[60][61] At the end of 2007, Koda released two singles, "Ai no Uta" and "Last Angel", a collaboration with Korean boy band TVXQ better known as Tohoshinki in Japan. "Last Angel" was used as the theme song for the Japanese release for Resident Evil: Extinction.^[62] On December 1, she held her first performance at Tokyo Dome for her third nationwide and first arena tour. Koda became the seventh solo female singer to perform at Tokyo Dome with an estimated audience of 45,000 people.^[63] Having sold more than 7.3 billion yen worth of CDs and DVDs, Koda was again the best-selling artist of the year in Oricon's 2007 year-end rankings.^[9]

Koda released her thirty-ninth single "Anytime" on January 23, 2008; it was followed by her sixth studio album Kingdom, which was released in the same format as her previous album. With a little over 420,000 copies sold in its first week, Kingdom debuted atop the Oricon.^[64] On January 31, Koda hosted All Night Nippon; discussing her manager's recent marriage and plans on having children, Koda remarked that "When women turn 35, their amniotic fluid goes rotten, so I'd like them to have a child by 35".^[65] Because of the controversy instigated by the comment, Avex released an apology stating that as a consolation, all promotion of Kingdom would cease.^[66] Additionally, several of Koda's commercial endorsements were placed on hiatus. Koda herself made a public apology on Fuji TV.^{[65][67][68][69]} Despite the controversy, Kingdom remained on top for a second consecutive week.^[70] Two months after her controversial statement, Koda released Live Tour 2007: Black Cherry Tour Special Final in Tokyo Dome, her fourth live DVD. Her fourth nationwide tour Koda Kumi Live Tour 2008: Kingdom commenced on April 12, 2008.^[71]

Koda's fortieth single "Moon" was released on June 11, 2008. Like "Freaky", "Moon" contained four tracks. The single contained "Moon Crying", used as the theme for Asahi Television drama Puzzle, and a collaboration track with The Black Eyed Peas' Fergie^[72] Koda again attended Avex's annual summer concert A-Nation '08. She appeared at all eight shows in Japan and performed with other Avex artists such as Every Little Thing, Ai Otsuka, Namie Amuro, Ayumi Hamasaki, TVXQ, and Maki Goto.^[73] In October, Koda released her forty-first single, "Taboo". With around 66,000 copies sold in its first week, "Taboo" debuted at the number-one position and became Koda's fifth single to reach the top.^[74] Koda released her forty-second single "Stay with Me" on Christmas Eve, which debuted atop of the chart selling 58,000 copies.^[75] Koda's seventh studio album, Trick, was another number-one album for the singer, selling 253,000 in its first week.^[76] The album stayed at the number-one spot for a second week selling 56,000 copies.^[77] Although the album debuted at the number-one position, this was her lowest selling album since her fourth studio album, Secret.^{[fn 3]}

On March 25, Koda released two albums, Out Works & Collaboration Best and Koda Kumi Driving Hit's [sic]. The former is a compilation of collaborations with other artists and the latter is a remix album.^[79] Out Works & Collaboration Best and Koda Kumi Driving Hit's debuted at #7 and #6 respectively.^[80][81] Koda's forty-third single, "It's All Love!", was released on March 31, 2009.^[82] The single, a collaboration with her younger sister Misono,^[83] debuted atop the Oricon, making the sisters the first siblings to have a single top the chart in its initial week.^[84] The second song from the single, "Faraway", was used as the theme song for the manga-based movie Subaru.^[82] On July 8, 2009, Koda released her forty-fourth single, "3 Splash".^[85] The single debuted at #2 on the charts making it Koda's thirty-third Top 10 single.^[86] Following the release of "3 Splash" was her forty-fifth single, "Alive/Physical Thing", which took the number-one spot on the single charts.^[87]

2010–2011: Celebration of the 10th Anniversary[link]

On January 20, 2010, Koda released a new single titled, "Can We Go Back", which is a cover of a bonus track on Kelly Clarkson's 2009 album All I Ever Wanted.^[88] On February 3, 2010, Koda released a new best album, Best: Third Universe, and her eighth studio album, Universe, which are packaged together under the name of Best: Third Universe/Universe.^[89] On July 7, 2010, she released her 47th single, "Gossip Candy", which peaked at number 4 on the Oricon chart. On September 22, 2010, she released her 48th single "Suki de, Suki de, Suki de./Anata Dake ga", two ballads and a rerecorded version of "Walk". The DVD release of her tour "Koda Kumi Live Tour Universe" was released on October 6, 2010. A week later Koda released her first cover-album Eternity: Love & Songs, on which she covers songs from the 70s, 80s and 90s. Koda didn't release a number-one single in 2010, her first time since 2004 not to do so. On December 5, 2010, Koda held a concert celebrating her 10th Anniversary named "FANTASIA", where she performed a selection of songs from all over her career. The concert was filmed for DVD release and held at Tokyo Dome.

2011–present: 50th single, 10th album, marriage and pregnancy[link]

On February 2, 2011, her 49th single "Pop Diva" was released and on February 23, 2011, Koda released "Eternity -Love & Songs- at Billboard Live" an audio DVD of her performance at Billboard Live Tokyo in October 2010, where she performed many songs from her Eternity: Love & Songs cover album. She released her ninth studio album named Dejavu on March 2, 2011. Koda is planning to release Koda Kumi Driving Hit's 3 in March. Koda Kumi is featured in the Far East Movement song Make It Bump, which was only released on the Japanese edition of their album "Free Wired". On May 18, 2011, Koda released the DVD of her "FANTASIA" concert entitled "KODA KUMI 10th Anniversary ～FANTASIA～in TOKYO DOME".^[90] Alongside DVD, the concert was also released in Blu-Ray format. Her previous concerts were also re-released in Blu-Ray format.^[91] Koda's 50th single was released August 17, 2011. The single is titled "4 Times" and includes 4 songs as well as 4 music videos to accompany them (Such as her previous 2006 summer single, "4 Hot Wave"). Since it is Koda's 50th single, it was released in 2 different special limited edition commemorative versions. One comes with 50 Koda Kumi 50th Anniversary post cards and the other with a special digital camera. Immediately after the release of "4 Times", it was posted on her official website that her 51st single, "Ai Wo Tomenaide" was to be released September 21, 2011. The song charted at number 4 on the Oricon charts. November 29, Koda Kumi became the only Japanese star to perform at Mnet Asian Music Awards. During the press conference before the MAMAs began, she said how she was still friends with the members of TVXQ and Minzy from the Korean girl group 2NE1. On November 30, 2011, her 52nd single, "Love Me Back", was released, debuting at number 5 on the Oricon charts. On December 7, 2011, Koda's tenth album album was announced for release on January 25, 2012. The album is entitled 'Japonesque' and comes in 4 different types; CD, CD+DVD, the DVD containing music videos, a limited edition featuring a B4-size, 32 page booklet and a CD+2DVD edition which would features additional live content alongside the music videos. ^[92]

Musical style[link]

Koda's musical style is mainly Japanese Urban and R&B; however, it was only after Koda signed to Rhythm Zone that Japanese Urban and R&B became her main musical styles.^[10] But throughout her career her musical style has spanned additional styles such as rock, hip-hop, electropop and dance.^{[10][93][94][95][96]}

Themes[link]

Koda has even explored the themes of sexuality and taboos in her lyrics. While listening to the music of "But", the first thing that came to Koda's mind was homosexuality.^[97][98] Regarding the theme of homosexuality, Koda said in an interview: "I'm the type of person who thinks that [in a relationship] it doesn't matter what sex the other person is. No matter who they are, it doesn't change the 'I love this person' feeling, does it?"^{[fn 4]} The video for "Taboo" portrayed homosexuality and other "taboo" subjects to deliver Koda's message of "there really is no such thing as a taboo".^[99] She also said of "Taboo"'s themes, "Instead of trying stuff out and experiencing it, we put up a 'No' sign, we never try to break the taboos" and "Sometimes we shouldn't retreat into safety, we should have courage to do things. Those are the feelings kin the song."^[100] Such themes are also present in her music videos: she has incorporated her "sexy" image into her videos since "Kiseki" through sexually charged dances and skin-baring outfits. The video of "Ima Sugu Hoshii" featured two males in sexual positions, and the video of "Juicy", which also featured sexual posturing, was censored in Taiwan.^[101][102]

Lyrics and composition[link]

	"Yume no Uta" (夢のうた) noicon The first A-side that represents the element of sadness. "Futari de..." (ふたりで…) noicon The second A-side that represents the element of happiness.
Problems listening to these files? See media help.

Since the start of her career Koda has been writing the lyrics to her songs.^{[fn 5]} On her second studio album, Grow into One, Koda wasn't as much involved with the writing of the lyrics, as only four songs were written by her. Koda's control over the writing of the lyrics grew with her thirty-third single "Yume no Uta / Futari de... ". The single was originally intended to be a single song about "happy love", however Koda felt the melody had represented both the elements of happiness and sadness. She wrote the lyrics for both songs to represent the sadness and the happiness. In doing so Koda ended up creating two songs with the same melody. She remarked, "It was a first time experiment for me, but I was able to convey how happiness and sadness are two sides of the same coin."^{[56][fn 6]} Koda lists Janet Jackson, Christina Aguilera, and Beyoncé Knowles as her inspirations; she has also stated that when she produces, she "is like a different person"; thus, she refers to herself in the third person and "looks at [herself] objectively".^[103]

Koda was not as involved concerning the composition of her songs. "Milk Tea" (ミルクティー, Miruku Tii^?), from Black Cherry, marked the first time she composed a song.^[104] Her involvement in the composition stage grew during the production of her seventh studio album Trick.^{[fn 5]}

Image[link]

Awards[link]

Koda won her first award at the 47th Japan Record Awards for Butterfly on January 1, 2006,^[105] and was awarded "Triple Crown" at the Japan Gold Disc Awards on March 10, 2006, for pocketing three awards: "Pop Artist of the Year", "Pop Album of the Year", and "Music Video of the Year".^[106] She continued to win more awards for this song; on May 27, 2006, the MTV VMAJ's awarded Koda with "Best Female Video" and "Best Video of the Year" for "Butterfly", and "buzzASIA from Japan" for "Trust You", a track from her album Secret.^[107] Later in 2006, her song "Yume no Uta" from her 33rd single, "Yume no Uta / Futari de...", garnered Koda more awards. She was a Grand Prix winner at the 39th Japan Usen Grand Prize.^[108]

On May 26, 2007, Koda won three awards from MTV Video Music Awards Japan for the second year in a row. "Yume No Uta" was nominated in three categories and won "Best Female Video and "Best Video of the Year". Koda herself won a special award known as "Best Stylish Artist Award".^[109] At the 2007 Best Hit Kayōsai Koda's "Ai no Uta" earned her the Grand Prix in the pop category, also winning one of the golden awards for the 49th Nihon Record Taishō.^[110][111]

Koda, while having success on Oricon charts with physical CD sales, maintains success on online music sales as well. It is reported that twenty-two of her music videos chart the top 100 most downloaded videos, with four of her videos dominating the top five, and having "Koi no Tsubomi" top the Overall Downloads Chart, which thirteen of her other songs chart.^[112][113] She has sold more than 12 million records in Japan.

Koda Kumi won the "Hottest Asian Artist" at the MAMA (Mnet Asian Music Award) 2011.

Fashion[link]

Koda has been known for her "sexy" image. In 2003, she started a cleavage-baring trend when she appeared in advertisements wearing a metallic bra.^[114] Her 2004 work with the anime movie Cutie Honey continued this image,^[115] and in 2005, she began the "ero-kakkoi" or "ero-kawaii" trend in Japan and was partially responsible for making the wearing of lingerie in public more acceptable in Japan.^[7][116] Koda's image has inspired other artists: Korean singer Ayumi Lee and American Japanese expatriate model-singer Leah Dizon, both known for their use of sexuality in the image, are inspired in part by Koda.^[117] Singaporean newspaper The New Paper suggested that her sexy image was responsible for her sales—she outsold "reigning J-pop queen" Ayumi Hamasaki in 2006 and 2007.^[118][119] In 2006, Koda began winning awards for being a new trendsetter in Japan, including the "Best Jeanist Award" on September 4, 2006,^[120] and the title of "Nail Queen" for her nail art on November 21, 2006, by Japan Nail Expo.^[121][122]

In 2006, when the popularity of Japanese singers was declining in Singapore due to the rising popularity of the Korean wave, Koda's sexy image garnered her popularity in the region and renewed interest in J-pop.^[123] James Kang, marketing director for Warner Music in Asia, noted that Koda's sexy image is popular not only with men but also with women, even "Japanese aunties", because she uses her image to "make a feminist statement [...] She's constantly telling women to believe in themselves and do what they want to do".^[117] In 2007, it was proposed that the term "ero-kakkoii" be added to the Japanese Encyclopedia of Contemporary Words.^[124]

Personal life[link]

In August 2007, it was rumored that Koda was dating SMAP leader Masahiro Nakai.^[125] The media questioned the artists' agencies on the matter, neither agency had confirmed or denied the rumors.^[126][127] In September, during a variety show that Nakai was a semi-regular on, socialite Dewi Sukarno was discussing her ideal boyfriend mentioned that Nakai and Koda were dating.^[128] It was also rumored that the two would get married before Koda's 25th birthday.^[128] In the December issue of Josei Seven, it was "confirmed" that the two were dating.^[129]

The couple has been dubbed as the "national couple", a nickname last used in the early 1960s when actor Akira Kobayashi married enka singer Hibari Misora.^[128] However, some have denied that the relationship is real, claiming that Johnny Kitagawa orchestrated the relationship in order to move SMAP to the Avex label; websites have claimed that Koda is just a cover up for Nakai's real girlfriend.^[128]

However on December 12, 2011 these rumours were finally proven false, as it was announced through Koda Kumi's official site that she is engaged to Kenji03 from BACK-ON ^[130] Kumi then announced on December 16 that she was 8 weeks pregnant.^[131] This was discovered after returning from the Mnet Asian Music Awards in Singapore. The two married on December 29, 2011.

Discography[link]

Filmography[link]

Footnotes[link]

References[link]