Do You Know of the Top Japanese Artist Who is Connected with “One Piece,” “InuYasha,” and “Pokémon”?

In July 2011, the 14th theme song to the anime One Piece, “Fight Together,” depicted the themes of “rising up from struggles” and the “bonds of friendship” and sent out cheerfulness to children across Japan who were depressed due to the Tohoku earthquake. Among those readers who have heard this song, do you remember the powerful and raw voice of the one who sung it?

The singer’s name is Namie Amuro. Since her singing debut in 1992, she has become an artist who is constantly at the forefront of Japan’s music scene. In 2010, she was the first Asian female artist to perform at the World Music Awards. In addition, her official Facebook has over 550,000 likes, and she is exceptionally well known overseas. Her Asia arena tour that traveled through Taiwan and Singapore called “Namie Amuro Asia Tour 2013” recently ended as a resounding success. In 2012, this representative artist of Japan celebrated the 20th anniversary since her debut. Even after all this time, there is no telling when her momentum will slow down.

Amuro’s work is also deeply connected to anime. Other than the aforementioned One Piece song, some of her other anime-related work includes the ending theme for Pokémon: The Movie 2000, “toi et moi”; the ending theme to season seven of InuYasha, “Come”; and the theme song to the third InuYasha movie, “Four Seasons.” These songs accumulated tremendous popularity and left footprints on the world of anime that can still be seen today. However, her relationship to pop culture extends even past this.

Next time, we will introduce her wide range of activities.

Namie Amuro’s Official Facebook Page:
http://www.facebook.com/NamieAmuroOfficial (English & Japanese)

This is a TokyoOtakuMode original article.