This Japanese singer, songwriter and actress, is better known to her fans as just hitomi (not to be confused with Hitomi from Dead or Alive).
Born in Tochigi, Japan, hitomi's family relocated to Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture when she was a child. And as a child there she filled her time with baseball, soccer, basketball and reading manga. At 16, she was spotted by a modeling agency and hitomi signed modelling contract and began appearing in magazines. Avex Trax music producer Tetsuya Komuro (who was recently arrested for fraud) saw her at 17 and signed her to a contract. He put her through vocal training and also came up with the idea of using the all lower case "hitomi" as her stage name. She released two singles that flopped, but the third time was the charm as her song "Candy Girl" got a Top 20 spot on the Japanese Oricon music chart after being featured in a Kodak commercial.
Product tie ins have played an important part in her career. The aforementioned "Candy Girl" being used by Kodak, and probably one of her biggest tie ins, her song "I am" being used as an opening song for the wildly popular anime "InuYasha". Also, "kimi no tonari" was used for the video game Persona 2: Innocent Sin and "IS IT YOU?" was used for the theme song of the popular Japanese TV show "dekichatta kekkon".
Going back to her modeling roots, hitomi has been featured in many Japanese ad campains for example Trussardi and Gillette.
Then a bout with ovarian cancer kept her out of the spotlight for about two years, until May 2004, when hitomi released a new studio album, TRAVELER. The album was very succeful, leading to a huge tour in which almost every show was sold out.
hitomi co-starred in the Japanese film Nightmare Detective (2007) as police officer Keiko Kirishima. Her performance was praised by critics. This lead to her appearing on stage in a play called Waiting For The Sun.
On her July 11, 2008 blog, hitomi revealed she had remarried on June 30 and was pregnant. This was confirmed at her appearance at Ajinomoto Stadium on August 30, 2008. On December 23, 2008, hitomi gave birth to a baby girl.
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