Shoko Nakagawa

With Katsuhiko Nakagawa—her father and a rock and pop idol bearing stylistic similarities to David Bowie—already active in entertainment, Shoko Nakagawa built an entertainment lifestyle brand at a relatively young age. Although his own career stayed rooted in music, she first pursued assorted pop culture paths outside of singing, trying her hand at illustration, fashion, voice acting, and general celebrity appearances. After voicing characters in multiple popular animated series and contributing the related theme songs for their merchandise tie-ins, Nakagawa issued her initial singles under her own name in 2006 with the trance-laden Brilliant Dream, which registered moderate success on the Oricon charts and opened the door to further recording work. A mini-album collecting favorite anime theme songs appeared in 2007, aimed at her core audience, and 2008 brought her first full-length album, Big Bang!!!, which entered and peaked at number five on the Oricon charts.