25 de diciembre ¡Fiesta mundial! ¡Feliz cumpleaños, Reika Hashimoto! 25 December… It’s a world holiday! Happy Birthday, Reika Hashimoto! 12月25日 橋本麗香様へ最高の想いを言い贈ります・・・

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There is no doubt that Kaori Asada (Kyoto, 04.16.1973), best known as Bonnie Pink, is one of the best Japanese female singers in current scene. Her extraordinary voice and her music, which mixes a lot of rhythms I love (jazz, blues, rock, R&B) are definitively the best thing could happen if you need to cheer up.

This awesome singer and composer started her professional career when she was 22 years old. Since then, she has always evolved and become a better musician. Her pseudonym comes, according to some people, from a character of a Martin Amis novel. Otakus should know her for songs as It’s gonna rain! (1998) or Cotton Candy, but some others like me like other of her extraordinary melodies. She even has a very cool cover album (REMINISCENCE, 2005) including songs as Manic Monday, Touch Me (All Night Long) and Don’t Get Me Wrong.

Besides her big talent, she has been surrounded by important musicians, as Swedish Tore Johansson (producer of The Cardigans) or Mitchell Froom (producer of Elvis Costello, Cibo Matto and Suzanne Vega). She speaks English quite well (some of her original songs are in this language) and plays guitar and piano.

As she celebrates her 10th anniversary of musical career, I share with you New Dawn (2005, in one of my Spanish-language blog posts there’s another song). You can also enjoy the videos of So Wonderful (2005), another of my favourite songs, or the emotional Private Laughter (2004).

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A quite unique voice and a very peculiar looks. Two features which describe very well the Japanese singer, model and actress Mika Nakashima (1983.03.19, Kagoshima), one of the most successful J-Pop stars. Far away from the standarized, high-pitched, corny voices of most of them, specially the otaku favourites, Nakashima charms with her "intermediate", warm, melodious voice. Her songs, which my appear simplistic pop at first sight, have positive and sweet lyrics, even the cheerful ones (as the song you may hear at the end of this post).

Nakashima is a woman who was sure from her childhood she wanted to be a singer. So much she dared to refuse to go to senior high school. She was lucky, because her first demo allowed to become the main theme singer of a TV drama, something that guarantees a temporary but intense fame in Japan. Everything else came as a product of her huge talent and, of course, her charm.

Otakus should know her better for some soft songs (Find the way, Sakurairo Maukoro, and Yuki no Hana) and for her participation at a movie based on one of the most successful shōjo manga at the moment, acting and performing the main theme song.

So you can delight with her splendid voice, I’ll share with you One Survive (album version), one of those retro songs I really like. Have a nice weekend.