Do you know 安室奈美恵 (Amuro Namie)?
She is a Japanese pop singer.
I remember when she debuted in the early 1990’s at the age of about 14…now she’s already about 31! Time flies!
She’s from Okinawa and she originally debuted in a band called “Super Monkey“. They weren’t so popular though, and she went solo.
The rest of the Super Monkey band remained together and changed their name to “MAX“.
The band MAX was moderately successful…but 安室奈美恵 (Amuro Namie) became extremely popular in Japan in the 1990s.
Many Japanese girls copied her style of clothes and hair. Many people think that 安室奈美恵 (Amuro Namie) started the style that became popular in the mid-1990s in Japan of having bleached hair.
At the height of her popularity, 安室奈美恵 (Amuro Namie) got married to a member of the Japanese pop band TRF and they had a son together.
But their marriage didn’t last long and they were divorced.
And then, news was reported that her mother was violently murdered in Okinawa by her step-father’s brother…who then killed himself.
I’m not particularly a fan of 安室奈美恵 (Amuro Namie). I don’t listen to that type of music.
But I remember her being on television here in Japan all of the time in the early to mid 1990s. And I remember how many young Japanese girls copied her style back then too.
And I remember when the news of her mother’s news was on TV too. (Her mother was half-Italian, by the way).
Then I forgot all about her when her popularity diminished.
But recently, she’s making a bit of a come-back.
She’s started showing up on the music shows on TV a few years ago. And she has a few fairly new tattoos that she shows off alot.
One tattoo is a bar-code with the date-of-birth on it.
Another is the name of her son, Haruto.
And the one above her son’s name is a “R.I.P.” tattoo dedicated to her late mother.
And now, 安室奈美恵 (Amuro Namie) is the current campaign model for both Coca-Cola Japan‘s “Zero” cola.
Her campaign ad for Coca-Cola Zero says “Wild Health”.
(Click here to read my other blog post about Coke (and Pepsi) in Japan.)
And she’s also the current campaign model for McDonalds Japan‘s “Quarter Pounder” burger ads.
(Click here to read my earlier post about the Quarter Pounder in Japan.)
The Quarter Pounder in Japan had been using the colors black and red in their ads…but for some reason they’ve changed the color to what their calling 「バラ色」 (“Rose color”)…(it’s actually pink, though).
And if you buy a Quarter Pounder set meal in Japan now, you can get a pink (sorry, “Rose color”) pin with one of a choice of strange designs…and you’ll also get a scratch-card that gives you a chance to win a pink T-shirt with the same choices of designs.
Personally, I would never wear a pink T-shirt…especially one from a fast-food restaurant. The designs offered are like this one:
If you don’t understand Japanese, a T-shirt that says “Don’t Read Air” must seem strange. But it’s obviously meant to be a literal English translation of 空気が読めない (“Can’t read between the lines”).
A better literal translation would be “Can’t read the air”. But what it means is “Can’t read between the lines”…which is important in Japanese culture.
Tokyo Five 
Recent Comments