Chara

I first heard Chara on Japanese radio while living in Japan. Her sound is very different than the cookie-cutter sound of most other female Japanese pop singers. Instantly recognizable, her voice is breathy and often childlike. Her music too stands out; sometimes dreamy and sometimes jazzy, her sound is difficult to categorize.

Chara Links

Official Chara website - Includes a helpful English-language section and a comprehensive discography of Chara's albums and singles.

Universal Music Japan Chara site - Site from the label that released Chara's album Union in February 2007. Includes a partial discography. In Japanese.

Discogs.com listing for Chara - Unfortunately, this discography is missing numerous releases.

Sony Japan page on Chara - Includes a link to a page on the best-of CD Sugar Hunter: The Best Love Songs of Chara, released on Sony Japan in September 2007. In Japanese.

Sony Japan - English-language Chara site (archived) - Archive.org's record of the now-defunct site launched by Sony Japan in fall 2000. Includes an English-language discography.

Sony Japan - Japanese-language Chara site (archived) - Archive.org's record of the now-defunct site. Includes an album discography (through Nov. 2000), a singles discography (through Oct. 2001), and an album/singles/video discography.

Happy Toy Chara - Put together by a Japanese fan. The profile section at the site's old location provides an interesting history of Chara's career and is entirely in English (albeit slightly off-kilter English).

Chara + Yuki - This page on the Sony Japan site promoted Chara's November 1999 single "Ai no hi mittsu orenji" ("Love's Fire Three Oranges," a title that makes no sense in Japanese either), a collaboration with Yuki of the Japanese rock group Judy and Mary. The site has RealAudio, AIFF, and WAV samples of the song. Though the text is almost entirely in Japanese, the pictures are worth taking a look at to get a sense of Chara's ever-changing style.

Towa Tei (Variety Is the Spice of Life page) - Though Chara herself has produced most of her recent work, she occasionally works with other producers. Towa Tei (known as DJ Towa Towa in his days with Deee-Lite) produced the song "Atashi wa koko yo" from Chara's Strange Fruits (1999), as well as "Yasashii kimochi" from Junior Sweet (1997). While in Japan Chara is substantially better known than Towa Tei, American fans of Shibuya-kei may have encountered her for the first time in her appearance on Towa Tei's fall 1999 single "Let Me Know," a track that also appears on his album Last Century Modern, released in the U.S. in May 2000.

Tadanobu Asano - official English-language site - English-language website for Chara's husband, the noted Japanese actor Tadanobu Asano. (See also his IMDb listing.)

Related Links

Sony Japan - This link goes to a gateway page with links to English- and Japanese-language pages for Sony Japan.

Variety Is the Spice of Life - Japan-related links - A comprehensive selection of links for Japanese artists, record labels, places to buy Japanese music, music press, general press, and more.