Trivia

Famous Japanese singer. Her most hit songs were "Ringo Oiwake" (lit. "Apple trees at intersection"; 1952), "Yawara" (Softness; 1964), "Kanashii Sake" (Lonesome with sake; 1966), "Makkana Taiyo" (Bright red sun; 1967) and "Kawa no nagare no yoni" (Like a river run; 1989). The most successful of them was judo-related "Yawara" (almost two million sells) that became an unofficial anthem of the Japanese judo team at the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo (the first that introduced judo as an olympic sport).

She received a Medal of Honor for her contributions to music and for improving the welfare of the public, and was the first woman to receive the People's Honour Award which was conferred posthumously for giving the public hope and encouragement after World War II.

In April 1987, on the way to a performance in Fukuoka, Misora suddenly collapsed. Rushed to hospital, she was diagnosed with avascular necrosis brought on by chronic hepatitis. She was confined to a hospital in Fukuoka, and eventually showed signs of recovery in August. She commenced recording a new song in October, and in April 1988 performed at her final concert at the Tokyo Dome. Her triumph was short-lived. Misora died on June 24, 1989 from pneumonia at the age of 52, at a hospital in Tokyo. Her death was widely mourned throughout Japan.

After she died consumer demand for her recordings grew significantly and by 2001 she had sold more than 80 million records.

A memorial concert for Misora was held at the Tokyo Dome on November 11, 2012. It featured numerous musicians such as Ai, Koda Kumi, Ken Hirai, Kiyoshi Hikawa, Exile, AKB48 and Nobuyasu Okabayashi amongst others, paying tribute by singing her most famous songs.

On January 13, 1957, Misora was attacked with hydrochloric acid, and injured in Asakusa International Theater. The criminal was an overly enthusiastic fan of hers. Fortunately, the wound did not scar her face.

Beginning in 1990, television and radio stations annually play her song "Kawa no Nagare no Yo ni" on her birthdate to show respect. In a national poll by NHK ( Nippon Hoso Kyokai, official English name: Japan Broadcasting Corporationin) 1997, the song was voted the greatest Japanese song of all time by more than 10 million people.

Each year there is a special on Japanese television and radio featuring her songs.

In 1994, the Hibari Misora Museum opened in Arashiyama, Kyoto. This multistorey building traced the history of Misora's life and career in multi-media exhibits, and displayed various memorabilia. It attracted more than 5 million visitors, until its closedown on November 30, 2006, as to allow a scheduled reconstruction of the building. The main exhibits were moved into the Showa period section of the Edo-Tokyo Museum, until reconstruction was complete. The new Hibari Misora Theater opened on April 26, 2008, and included a CD for sale of a previously unreleased song.

Didn't have biological children. In 1978, she adopted her 7-year-old nephew, Kazuya Kato.

Her father, Masukichi Kato , was a fishmonger, and her mother Kimie Katô, a housewife.

A bronze statue of her debut was built as a memorial in Yokohama in 2002, and attracts around 300,000 visitors each year.

She recorded her first single Kappa Boogie-Woogiefor Columbia Records in 1949. It became a commercial hit, selling more than 450,000 copies. She subsequently recorded "Kanashiki kuchibue", which was featured on a radio program and was a national hit.

In 1945 she debuted at a concert hall in Yokohama, at the age of eight. At the same time, she changed her last name, Kato, to Misora (lit. "beautiful sky"), at the suggestion of her mother. A year later, she appeared on a NHK broadcast, and impressed the Japanese composer Masao Koga with her singing ability. He considered her to be a prodigy with the courage, understanding, and emotional maturity of an adult. In the following two years, she became an accomplished singer and was touring notable concert halls to sold-out crowds.

As an actress, she starred in around 160 movies from 1949 until 1971, and won numerous awards. Her performance in Tokyo Kid (1950), in which she played a street orphan, made her symbolic of both the hardship and the national optimism of post-World War II Japan.

Misora recorded 1,200 songs, and sold 68 million records.

Her recording career began in 1949 at the age of eleven, when she changed her stage name to Hibari Misora, which means "lark in the beautiful sky," and starred in the film Nodojiman-kyô jidai. The film gained her nationwide recognition.

Misora displayed musical talent from an early age after singing for her father at a World War II send-off party in 1943. He invested a small fortune taken from the family's savings to begin a musical career for his daughter.

In 1973 Tetsuya Kato, Misora's brother, was prosecuted for gang-related activity. Although NHK did not acknowledge any connection, Misora was excluded from Kohaku Uta Gassen for the first time in 18 years. Offended, she refused to appear on NHK for years afterwards.

Her swan-song "Kawa no Nagare no Yo ni" is often performed by numerous artists and orchestras as a tribute to her, including notable renditions by The Three Tenors (Spanish/Italian), Teresa Teng (Taiwanese), and Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlan (Mexican).

Her male contemporary was Michiya Mihashi and although he was more popular as a singer, Misora's movie career made her more popular with the general public.

After Hibari's death in 1989, a TBS television drama special aired in the same year by the name of "The Hibari Misora Story", where Misora was portrayed by Kayoko Kishimoto.

A monument depicting Hibari's portrait with an inscribed poem was erected in her memory near Sugi no Osugi in Otoyo, Kochi. In 1947 Hibari Misora, at the age of 10 years, was involved in a traffic accident in Otoyo, Kochi. While recovering from injuries she stayed in the town and reportedly visited Sugi no Osugi and wished to become a famous singer. She returned to Tokyo where her recording career began in 1949.

Hibari Misora's ancestry has been a matter of dispute. In Korean society, there are assertions that she was of ethnic Korean ancestry, and that she and her family held Korean passports. This claim spread around widely.In 1989, author Rou Takenaka and journalist Tsukasa Yoshida investigated Misora's background, confirming that she was not Korean, but Japanese.