Shizuko Kasagi? Hibari Misora?　Who really are Japan’s “original idols”? A look at idols before Saori Minami

Some consider Chiyoko Shimakura to be the first idol singer in terms of the worldview of her songs. From the viewpoint of fans’ ardent support, the Shojo Revue, which became popular before World War II, was also an idol group. There are various theories as to where the “starting point” and the “original” singer, including Saori Minami, should be positioned, but today, Ashiwaiko is often regarded as the “original idol”. Incidentally, Asumasaiko is the “original idol” of Mulan.

Incidentally, Asumasaiko’s career at Moulin Rouge coincided with the time when Shizuko Kasasaki, the model for the heroine in the NHK TV series “Boogie Woogie,” met Ryoichi Hattori at the Shochiku Gakugeki Club (later OSK Nippon Opera Company) and was called the “Queen of Swing” by her many fans.

Shizuko Kasagi, Hibari Misora, and Chiyoko Shimakura…… singers who gained popularity in the postwar era.

After the war, Shizuko Kasagi had a big hit with “Tokyo Boogie Woogie” in 1948 and was called the “Queen of Boogie.

Hibari Misora appeared on the scene, and Chiemi Eri and Izumi Yukimura, who performed with Hibari, were called the “Three Daughters” and appeared in the movie “Janken Musume” (1955), which was popular among a wide range of people (these “Three Daughters” and the “Gosanke” of Yukio Hashi, Kazuo Funaki and Teruhiko Saigo were later called the “Hana no Chu (The “Three Musketeers” and the “Three Families” of Sachio Hashi, Kazuo Funaki, and Teruhiko Saigo were the forerunners of the “Hana no Naka 3 Trio,” “New Gosanke,” “Tanokin Trio,” “Kadokawa Sanjin Musume,” and “3M,” which became popular as three-person groups.)

) Chiyoko Shimakura, who debuted as a singer at the age of 16 and was gaining popularity as an idol, was accused of planning to kill a 16-year-old unemployed boy when she was 19 years old and “Tokyo, yo, oomosan” became a hit.

Here is a list of representative works by young female singers and actresses who were active in the immediate postwar period. This will give us some idea of the position of each of them.

In the 1960s, Sayuri Yoshinaga starred in the movie “The Town with the Cupola” (1962), which was a big hit, and at the age of 17, the youngest actress ever to win the Blue Ribbon Award for Best Actress, and the duet song with Yukio Hashi, “Dattekimete Yume wo Mune” became a big hit in the same year, making her a star. In the same year, her duet song “Dokodemo Yume” with Yukio Hashi became a big hit and made her a star. In recent idol circles, fans of Momoiro are called “mononofu” and fans of BiSH are called “janitors.

In the era of Waitako Asumo and even before that, “idol-like entities” were born in each era. For example, Mie Nakao andThe Peanuts, who gained popularity in the 1960s, sang covers of American pop songs, which was an imitation of the Western concept of an “idol. It was after Saori Minami that the Japanese “idol” was transformed into the “idol” that continues to the present day.