T2 26 JANUARY2005

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yen yearsago, stunning Japan by doing sowhen pregnant at the age of 21.Whenher mother was brutally killed byAmuro's uncle, it seemed unlikelythat the starlet would surface again.

Instead, she has undertaken thebiggest Asian tour by a Japanese sing-er and her latest album reached No 2in the charts. She. is even optimisticabout a European tour. But Amuro's -turnaround breaks Japanese socialpatterns that go beyond music. She isa single working mother. She hasendured a messy divorce with hercelebrity husband and a family tra-gedy. She has repeatedly defied hermusic company bosses. Disturbinglyto the industry, her return to famehas been done without the mediablitzing that J-Pop supremos havealways assumed essential.

In her first interview with a non-Japanese paper, Amuro says: "Evenmy closest friend said I was finished,but I think I may be a little differentfrom the others. My popularityplunged three years ago and I didn'ttry to court publicity. It was a realchallenge forcing myself to be consis-tent in not playing up to my fans."

There is an atmosphere of melan-choly about Amuro. When she hadher first tattoo, it spawned a giant fadacross Japan. Her latest piece of bodyart is a sombre memorial to her moth-er on her upper left arm. It all jarswith the idoru tradition. Japanese star-lets have always made their names bybeing irrepressibly genki - meaningenergetic and vivacious. They aredesigned to be dumb, pretty and low-risk guests on TV shows. In the 1990s,Amuro played the role to perfection;

'Ihated singing. Everyword reminded me ofmy mother and thegrief almost broke me'

aiia;- at the wheel, Emiko wasknocked down by a car while strol-ling with her husband near theirhome. Kenji then reversed over herthree times, leapt out of the vehiclean~ swung at her repeatedly with anaxe. Emiko's husband, Tatsunobu,tried to defend his wife against hisbrother and was himself injured se-verely in the frenzy. Kenji then leaptinto his car, drQve a few miles downthe road and killed himself by drink-ing a bottle of insecticide.

Amuro collapsed on hearing thenews, and now finds it nearly impos-sible to refer to the matter or even vis-it her home town.

The main TV networks speculatedthat Kenji's murderous rage arosefrom advice that Emiko and Tatsuno~bu had given him to end a three-yearrelationship. The more lurid tabloidshinted at a torrid affair betweenEmiko and Kenji, big cash loans be-tween the two, arguments overAniuro's fortune and even mafia linksto Emiko's old job as a bar hostess.

Just one year before the killing,Emiko had published a bestsellingbook of her own,describingrepeatedbeatings by Amuro's natural fatherand the punishing series of jobs shehad held down to put her childrenthrough school before remarrying.

This violent upheaval in Amuro'slife gave her a chance to think, andthat let her undermine the J-Pop re-gime. "I knew what I wanted to do.When I was snowed under with thework of an idol, I didn't have time to .think. I never had the chance to con-sider what or how I wanted to be."

At the age of 12Amuro was sing-ing to shoppers for her local super- .market's .promotional drive. A TVstation later paid her to dress in afurry rabbit suit on a children's show.She was spotted by Masayuki Maki-no, a music promoter who wouldbecome her great mentor. He putAmuro . in a teen group calledSupermonkeys. While with this bandshe was noticed by Tetsuya Komuro- who made Avex Japan's mostpowerful idol factory and was su-preme in the 1990s. He penned onehit for her in 1995,Body FeelsExit,and Amuro at 17was suddenly biggerthan Madonna in Japan. Her con-certs sold out within ten minutes oftickets going on Bale.

What followed defined the entireidol concept Her tanned skin, com-mon on Okinawa;suddenly became amust-have look for teenage girlsacross Japan and self-tanning lotionsales exploded. Every detail of herclothes, her make-up, and her acces-

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'There was no time tothink. I had no choicein decisions. I was notdoing What I wanted'

sories were copied by hundreds ofthousands of girls, who began callingthemselves the "Amuraa".

"It was a shock to see teenageAmuraas. The phenomenon was outof my control. I don't think I did any-thing special to make myself charis-matic for these girls. I think I was amirror for what they wanted to looklike and how they wanted to feel."

She is realistic about what wasgoing on behind the scenes and, evenin the boardroom of Avex's Tokyooffices, she describes the company asa "machine". "People around mecalled me an idol, so that's what Iwas," Amuro says, describing a two-year frenzy during which she ap-peared on a different TV show almostevery night "I enjoyed the opportuni-ties, but there was no time to think. Ihad no choice in the decision to makemyself available. I was not alwaysdoing things I wanted to do."

At the peak of her fame with morethan 20 million album sales, she sangthe theme tune to the Pokemonmovies and starred in a corny high-school film about cheating in exams.It was her reaching that idol apexthat made her marriage to Sam, adancer from the boyband TRF, all themore shocking to the Japanese.Marriage is still widely viewed as a

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woman's moment to bow out of what-ever she's been doing.

More humiliatingly, while stillunder the control of her J-Pop.bosses,Amuro and Sam, by now with a babyson, were induced to appear in a gov-ernment TV campaign urging youngJapanese to settle down and have chil-dren. She laughs when it is pointedout that the Japanese birthrate hasfallen since her campaign.

Her divorce from Sam four yearslater has left Amuro again testing thelimits of the Japanese system, thistime as a single parent. Particularlyoutrageous, she says, was the criti-cism by Japanese papers that equa-ted her comeback with the abandon-ment of her child. "During my grief, Irealised there was nothing I could dofor my mother, but I did have a child.I began to think more like a mothermyself, and to become positive in mywork again," she says. "I wish I couldbalance life as an artist and a mother,but sometimes when I am doing liveconcerts, I have to ask people to helpme in my other role."

Despite her return to fame, Amurolives quietly. She does not have a boy-friend, rarely goes out in the eveningsand seldom meets her fans.

Amuro signalled her comeback bywinning a huge singing show live onTV. In front of one of Japan's biggestTV audiences, she wept when sherealised how much the public wantedher back. "You never know whetherthe fans will be waiting for you. All inall, I'm happy, but we're groping inthe dark."