Masami Okui | |
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Background information | |
Native name | 奥井 雅美 |
Born |
Itami, Hyōgo, Japan |
March 13, 1968
Genres | |
Occupation(s) | |
Instruments |
guitar |
Years active | 1993–present |
Labels | |
Associated acts | |
Website | makusonia |
Masami Okui (奥井 雅美 Okui Masami?, born March 13, 1968) is a Japanese pop singer and songwriter from Itami, Hyōgo. She began her professional musical career at age 21 as a concert backup singer. From almost the very beginning of her career, Masami has sung themes for anime television and movies. She is especially well known for her songs from Revolutionary Girl Utena, Tales of Eternia The Animation, Slayers, Sorcerer Hunters, Di Gi Charat, Magic User's Club, Jungle de Ikou, Akihabara Dennou Gumi, Ray the Animation, He Is My Master and Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters. She has performed material for more than 50 singles and 20 albums to date (including her work with JAM Project and Chihiro Yonekura). Okui hosts @Tunes, an anime music news program, on the Japanese anime television network Animax.
Okui began her music career as a concert backup singer for Yuki Saito in November 1989. Her first solo single "Dare Yori mo Zutto" was released in 1993, and was used as a theme song for the anime OAV The Girl from Phantasia. She sang with voice actress Megumi Hayashibara for the anime television series Slayers in 1995. In 2003, she teamed up with fellow artist Chihiro Yonekura to form the group r.o.r/s, an acronym for "Reflections of Renaissance/Sounds". She also became a member of the supergroup JAM Project, which released the single "Little Wing" that served as the opening theme song for the anime television series Scrapped Princess. She left Starchild Records and produced her own record label called "evolution", which lasted from 2003. In 2011, she ended her evolution label, left Geneon Universal Entertainment, and signed with Lantis.