Aki Yashiro

Artist

Aki Yashiro is one of Japan's leading female enka singers, born in Kumamoto Prefecture. Armed with a husky, richly emotional voice, she is a grand singer whose career stretches from the Showa era, having delivered numerous standards such as 'Funauta' and 'Ame no Bojo', and she is loved as an artist deeply versed in jazz and blues as well. In anime, she performed 'Onore Michi', the ending theme of the school comedy 'Gokusen' (Nippon TV anime version), based on the original work by Kozueko Morimoto. As if tracing the way of life of Yankumi, who was born into a yakuza family, she powerfully sang, in enka phrasing, the resolve to follow one's own path, lending the show a distinctive gravity and afterglow.