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Amuro Namie (Okinawa Prefecture, 1977- )
 A
quarter Italian on her mother's side, Amuro Namie had the kind of exotic look and a reasonably decent voice
that made her a potential star. But driving ambition - her first performance was in a supermarket at the age
of twelve - and teaming up with the right people also played a big part. Her success started something of a
wave of starlets from Okinawa, including the hugely popular girl groups Max and Speed.
Amuro Namie's heyday was in the early 1990s but her nature - she is a determined and ambitious survivor -
ensured that she lasted well past her "Sell By" date. A native of the southern island of Okinawa, she joined the
Okinawa Actors School in her early teens. At the age of 15, together with four other girls, she was part of a
group called Super Monkeys (perhaps because of Amuro's simian features!) with the Toshiba EMI label.
A move to Tokyo helped them build a solid fan base with their Eurobeat sound and stardom seemed to be on the
horizon. After some moderate success with their first few singles, it was clear who the real star was. The
group was renamed "Namie Amuro with Super Monkeys".
But it was only when Amuro went solo and switched to the Avex Trax label and the remaining four girls
formed Max, that all five enjoyed real success. The 5'2" Amuro got a regular gig on the popular children's TV
show PonkiKids. The fledgling Avex label went all out to make her a star and soon Amuro had become the
biggest pop idol of her time. School girls copied her every move and fashion whim and called themselves
"Amurah", and she was at least partly responsible for the whole "ganguro" (cancer black) tanning boom.
A large part of Amuro's success was due to her being under the wing of Avex producer
Komuro Tetsuya, a hugely influential figure in 90s J-Pop. With his guidance
and influence, Amuro became the biggest music star of the latter half of the decade. Her hits have tended to
follow a familiar Komuro pattern in that they use ridiculous or meaningless English in their titles. "Can You
Celebrate" and "Chase the Chance" are bad enough but the worst has to be "Body Feels Exit".
In 1997, the three-months pregnant Amuro married Sam (Maruyama Masaharu), a dancer with Avex group TRF
in the showbiz wedding of the year. The next spring, their baby son Haruto was born in a hospital run by Sam's
father. Amuro took a break from the music business but, still being in her early twenties, motherhood couldn't
match the appeal of superstardom. Shortly after resuming her career, she was stunned by the death of her mother.
But she bounced back from that shock, too. With similar but not always parallel careers, Amuro and Sam
eventually found themselves announcing their divorce in 2002. Rumors abounded of Amuro's disinterest in
child-rearing and her overwhelming desire to get back to the top. Others may have usurped that position but
Amuro won't be going away any time soon.
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