Hitomi Shimatani by wikipedia
Birth name 島谷 瞳 (Shimatani Hitomi)
Born September 4, 1980 (age 26)
Origin Kure, Hiroshima, Japan
Genre(s) J-Pop
Years active 1999–Present
Label(s) Avex Trax
Website Official Website
[edit] Biography
[edit] Early life
Hitomi Shimatani's childhood dream, like many others, was to become a famous singer. At the age of seventeen, when she was still in high school, Shimatani decided to pursue this goal and attended "The Japan Audition 1997" hosted by the music label avex trax. Hitomi was chosen out of around two-hundred thousand other girls who participated and received a recording contract with avex. However, before starting her music career, she wished to finish high school -- to which avex agreed, but with the stipulation that Shimatani attend vocal lessons at the same time. She agreed.
[edit] As an Enka singer
After having finished school and feeling ready to her first step as a young singer, in 1999 Hitomi released her first single called "Ōsaka no onna" (大阪の女, Oosaka Girl?), an enka song. Although the single received much critical acclaim and even won some awards, it sold rather poorly, causing either Shimatani, avex, or both to decide that "Ōsaka no onna" was to be both the beginning and the end of Shimatani's enka career. She started to record more songs and in 2000 she released her second single, "Kaihōku" (解放区, freezone?), which was drastically different, stylistically, than her previous with its extremely pop leanings.
[edit] As a pop singer
The cover of Shimatani's first album, "PAPILLON"However, mainstream success didn't come until the release of Shimatani's third single, entitled "papillon" (パピヨン~papillon~, lit. "papiyon~butterfly~"?), a Japanese version of Janet Jackson's song "Doesn't Really Matter". The single became a hit, eventually selling over 200,000 copies, and valuted Shimatani into the spotlight. Since then, Shimatani has often been compared with the top artists on avex trax. Since then she has released five studio albums, one "best-of" compilation, a special concept album entitled "crossover", a winter mini-album, and twenty-three singles.
Shimatani often uses "exotic-sounding" titles for her songs, including such tracks as "Perseus" (ペルセウス, Peruseusu?) (which references the famous Greek myth), "Falco" (ファルコ, Faruko?) (Italian for "hawk"), "bella flor" and "La Fiesta" (in Spanish, "beautiful flower" and "the celebration", respectively). She has also been recognized by anime and videogame fans around the globe for songs like ANGELUS -Anjerasu-, which was used as an opening theme for the Inuyasha anime series,Falco (Faruko) the 1st opening of "The Law of Ueki" or Ueki no Housoku and "Garnet Moon", the main theme from the Playstation 2 video-game "Another Century's Episode".
Although dance-pop/techno-pop and Latin-styled music were a staple of much of Shimatani's earlier career, she has recently been working extensively in a sound which many have termed "crossover" (named so after the album on which it first made an appearance) -- a blend of traditional pop sensibilities with heavy orchestral and classical-music infusion.
The title of her next single - to be released on 21 February 2007 - has been confirmed as Dragonfly, with the b-side being bye-bye. On 7 March 2007, Shimatani will be releasing her 6th studio album entitled, PRIMA ROSA
Subject: Hitomi Shimatani 
Wed Feb 21, 2007 10:22 am
