Yuna Itō

Yuna Ito

Yuna Itō ( Japanese 伊藤 由 奈 Itō Yuna ; born September 20, 1983 in Los Angeles ) is an American pop singer and actress who was successful in Japan .

Life

Yuna Ito was born in Los Angeles to a Japanese father and a Korean mother. However, she grew up in Hawaii in Oahu , where she lived until she graduated from school at 18. Only then did she travel to Japan for the first time.

Ito had her breakthrough in Japan in 2005. She played the role of Reira Serizawa, the singer in a rock band , in the film Nana for the manga series of the same name. There she sang the song Endless Story , which was released as a single under "Reira Starring Yuna Ito". The record sold over 450,000 times ( double platinum ) in Japan and reached number 2 on the Oricon charts. It was voted the best love song of 2005 by 20,000 Oricon-style readers.

After the success, she hosted her own radio show called Journey for half a year on the Tokyo local broadcaster InterFM , before her second single Faith / Pureyes was released. Faith was used in the credits of the Japanese television drama Unfair and Pureyes was used in a television commercial for "Bioclen Zero". The single peaked at number 6. The following release, Precious , was the theme song for Limit of Love: Umizaru . The single sold over 200,000 times (platinum) and came in at number 3.

The next two single releases in summer and autumn were under the motto Hot and Cold . The "Hot" single contained the title Stuck on You and a cover version of These Boots Are Made for Walkin ' , which was used in a Daihatsu commercial. The song Losin ' from the second single ran in Japan in the credits of the second season of Lost . Both singles were limited to 70,000 copies and buyers of both singles also received an invitation to Ito's first tour. Nevertheless, the singles only reached number 19 and 20 in the single charts and each sold less than 16,000 pieces.

That same year, Ito played again the singer Reira Serizawa in the film sequel Nana 2 . This time the film single Truth was released three days before the premiere of the film and became the fourth top 10 single. In early 2007, the debut album Heart was released on the newly founded label Studioseven Recordings with all previous singles. It came to number 1 on the album charts and was awarded double platinum.

In 2007 Ito brought three singles on the market, which were able to build on the previous successes and landed between number 5 and number 15. I'm Here was released in March of that year, followed in June by Mahaloha with singer Micro from Japanese indie band Def Tech . Urban Mermaid was released in October. Before the release of their second album, Ito recorded the song A World to Believe In with Celine Dion , which was originally a solo song by Dion. It was recorded in both Dion's album Taking Chances and Ito's album Wish and was also released as a single. The single reached number 8, the album Wish number 3 in the Japanese charts.

At the end of 2008, two more singles followed, but they were not very successful. It was not until March 2009 that Trust You followed her eighth top 10 hit, which became known as the music for the second season of Kidō Senshi Gundam 00 .

Discography

Albums

publication	title	Oricon	Sales *	annotation
January 24, 2007	Heart	1 (50 weeks)	530,000	1st studio album
February 20, 2008	Wish	3 (19 weeks)	103,000	2nd studio album
May 27, 2009	Dream	7 (8 weeks)	36,000	3rd studio album
0December 8, 2010	Love: Singles Best 2005-2010	8 (11 weeks)	50,000	1st compilation
"-" means no chart entry, no information or no publication. * Charts and sales for Japan only .

Singles

publication	title	Oricon	Sales *	annotation
0September 7, 2005	Endless story	2 (53 weeks)	472,000	1. Single as Reira Starring Yuna Ito
0March 1, 2006	Faith / Pureyes	6 (15 weeks)	56,000	2nd single
0May 3, 2006	Precious	3 (31 weeks)	218,000	3. Single
0August 9, 2006	Stuck on you	20 (5 weeks)	16,000	4. Single
0September 6, 2006	Losin '	19 (4 weeks)	10,000	5. Single
0December 6, 2006	Truth	10 (10 weeks)	47,000	6. Single as Reira Starring Yuna Ito
March 14, 2007	I'm here	15 (9 weeks)	37,000	7. Single
June 27, 2007	Mahaloha	5 (8 weeks)	43,000	8. Single
October 24, 2007	Urban Mermaid	10 (8 weeks)	24,000	9. Single
January 16, 2008	Anata ga Iru Kagiri: A World to Believe in あ な た が い る 限 り ~ A WORLD TO BELIEVE IN ~	8 (8 weeks)	24,000	10. Single with Celine Dion
0September 3, 2008	Miss you	20 (5 weeks)	9,000	11. Single
November 26, 2008	Koi wa Groovyx2 恋 は groovy × 2	44 (4 weeks)	5,000	12. Single
0March 4, 2009	Trust you	5 (9 weeks)	46,000	13. Single
November 11, 2009	Let it go	36 (3 weeks)	4,000	14. Single
0November 3, 2010	Mamotte Agetai 守 っ て あ げ た い	41 (3 weeks)	3,000	15. Single
"-" means no chart entry, no information or no publication. * Charts and sales for Japan only.

Awards

• Best New Artist (Best Hit Kayousai 2005, November 21, 2005)
• Best New Artist (Japan Kabel Awards 2005, December 17, 2005)
• Special Award for Nana (47th Japan Album Awards, December 31, 2005)
• Best New Artist (Japan Gold Disc Awards 2006, March 9, 2006)
• Gold Artist Award (Best Hit Kayousai 2006, November 20, 2006)

swell

• Chart discography Japan (Oricon, Japanese)

1. ↑ Starting at the top ( Memento of the original from May 3, 2011) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Metropolis, May 4, 2007 

Web links

• official homepage (Japanese)
• Yuna Ito at Allmusic (English)