Hitomi Shimatani (????? Shimatani Hitomi), born September 4, 1980, is a Japanese pop singer and actress on the avex trax label. At the age of 17, when she was still in high school, Shimatani decided to pursue a singing career, and went to a casting at the Japan Audition 1997, hosted by the music label avex trax. She heard that they were looking for young girls with exceptional singing talent. Shimatani was chosen from about 200,000 other girls who were casted, and she got a contract with avex. Shimatani wanted to finish her studies, and Avex agreed with her, as long as she took singing classes at the same time, and they made a deal. After finishing school in 1999, and feeling ready to take her first step as a young singer, Shimatani released her first single called “?saka no onna” (????, woman from ?saka), an enka. Although the single received great reviews and even won some awards, it didn’t sell too well, and AVEX decided that “?saka no onna” was to be her one and only enka single. She started to record more songs and in 2000 she released her second single, titled “Kaih?ku” (???, free-zone), a song very different from her first single, with a higher pop-feel. The massive success didn’t come until the release of her third single, “Papillon” (????, papiyon, butterfly), a Japanese version of Janet Jackson’s song “Doesn’t Really Matter”. The single, despite only going top 20 in Japan, was a huge success - her second-best selling single, and raised Hitomi Shimatani to fame, being compared since then with the top artists from the avex trax label. Her greatest hit so far was her 2002 cover version of the Japanese 1960s pop classic, “Amairono Kamino Otome” (???????? the girl with the flaxen hair), originally recorded by Village Singers. The song was also the number one requested karaoke song in Japan the same year, spending months at number one in the karaoke chart. Since then, she has released 7 studio albums, a winter-themed mini album, a special concept album, a compilation album, and 25 singles. Shimatani often have exotic titles for her songs. Tunes like “Perseus” (?????, Peruseusu), “Falco” (????, Faruko) or Spanish-flavoured titles such “La Fiesta” are some of those songs. Shimatani has also been recognised by Japanese cartoon (anime) and video-game fans around the globe as particularly many of her singles from the later part of her career has been featured in various cartoons and video-games: “Yume Biyori” (Doraemon), “Angelus” (Inuyasha), “Garnet Moon” & “Inori” (Another Century’s Episode), “Falco” (The Law of Ueki), “Destiny” (Black Jack). Her songs are also often used as sports or news themes.