Hitomi Ishikawa

(born September 20, 1959, Nishi-ku, Nagoya, Aichi prefecture, Japan) is a Japanese singer and voice actress. Her legal name is Hitomi Yamada since marrying fellow-musician , but she uses her maiden name of Ishikawa professionally. Her nickname is Hi-chan.

Early life

When she was born, she had numerous wrinkles, a low nose, and small eyes, so her parents named her Hitomi (which uses the kanji for beauty) with the prayer that her facial features would become more pronounced. When she was two years old, she moved to Ama District near to Nagoya.

Hitomi was a tomboy in her childhood. In her sixth year at Masanori Elementary School, she was passionate about softball. Apart from sports, she started playing the piano around kindergarten, and when she was an elementary school student, she became interested in music after singing along to the record "Kuroneko no Tango" at home.

On March 19, 1972, when Hitomi was in sixth grade, she appeared on a TV program for the first time, singing Minami Saori’s "Shiokaze no Melody" on the CBC TV singing contest "Donguri Ongakukai" and winning second place. At Miwa Junior High School, she was a member of the soft tennis club and played as a forward in doubles. Even back then, she had big, cute eyes and was popular with the male students.

From 1979 to 1982, she was a voice actress in the NHK puppet show "Prin Prin Monogatari", providing the voice of the lead character, Princess Prin Prin, and co-hosted the music program "Let's Go Young" on the same network with Yosuke Tagawa.

In 1981, Hitomi reached the four-year "time limit" that she had promised her parents. She had not had any hit songs up until then, and she had intended to quit singing, saying, "I don't want to continue with my career half-done." Hitomi's future husband, Yamada Naoki, supported her as a staff member, treating her the same as before she became ill, and providing her with emotional support.

After resuming activities after a hiatus

After being released from the hospital, Hitomi's contract with Watanabe Productions was terminated and she left the entertainment industry. However, she returned to work in 1988. At the time, there were severe prejudices against Hepatitis B sufferers in Japan, and while, in her own case, she had become a carrier of Hepatitis B through mother-to-child transmission, she suffered hardships due to misunderstandings and prejudice about the disease. The most painful thing for her was that after she made her illness public, people would refuse to shake her hand in the street, and she was told by her swimming class attendees to "quit classes because the disease will spread if we swim in the same pool".

Recent activities

At the end of 2015, she began performing live at the Amuse Cafe Theater in Asakusa, mainly performing original songs from their idol days.

In 2018, the 40th anniversary of her debut, she released her ninth original album, "Watashi no Mainichi", her first in 35 years since "Private" in 1983. She held a live concert to celebrate the album release in July, a 40th anniversary concert in October, and additional shows in Tokyo and Nagoya in February 2019.

In April 2021, she held her first live broadcast, and in May, she released her first DVD, "Ishikawa Hitomi LIVE: My Everyday Life."

In March 2022, she released her first Blu-ray work, "Ishikawa Hitomi Concert 2021," which features a concert with an audience at TOKYO FM Hall.

On the August 23, 2023, at broadcast of the TV Asahi program "Tetsuko's Room", she revealed that she has been battling Sjögren syndrome, a designated intractable disease, for the past 11 years. She also suffers from some other serious illnesses. She wrote some song texts for this album.