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Hitomi Shimatani 島谷ひとみ
Birth name	島谷瞳 (Shimatani, Hitomi)
Born	September 4, 1980 (1980-09-04) (age 27)
Origin	Kure, Hiroshima, Japan
Genre(s)	J-Pop, Dance
Years active	1999–Present
Label(s)	Avex Trax
Website	Official Website

Hitomi Shimatani (島谷ひとみ, Shimatani Hitomi^?, born September 4, 1980 in Kure, Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan), is a female J-pop singer signed to the Avex Trax label.

Shimatani started her career as an Enka singer with the release of her debut single "Ōsaka no Onna" (大阪の女, Woman from Ōsaka^?) in 1999, but later decided to get into the dance/pop style for her music. Shimatani's music has also appeared in video games and also anime series.

Contents 1 Biography 1.1 Early life 1.2 As an Enka singer 1.3 As a pop singer 1.4 As an Actress 2 Discography 3 Trivia 4 External links

Hitomi Shimatani's childhood dream, like many others, was to become a famous singer. At the age of seventeen, when she was still in high school, Shimatani decided to pursue this goal and attended "The Japan Audition 1997" hosted by the music label avex trax. Hitomi was chosen out of around 200,000 other girls who participated and received a recording contract with avex. However, before starting her music career, she wished to finish high school -- to which avex agreed, but with the stipulation that Shimatani attend vocal lessons at the same time. She agreed. She also liked playing tennis when she was young.

After having finished school and feeling ready to her first step as a young singer, in 1999 Hitomi released her first single called "Ōsaka no onna" (大阪の女, Woman Of Osaka^?), an enka song. Although the single received much critical acclaim and even won some awards, it sold rather poorly, causing either Shimatani, avex, or both to decide that "Ōsaka no onna" was to be both the beginning and the end of Shimatani's enka career. She started to record more songs and in 2000 she released her second single, "Kaihōku" (解放区, liberated district^?), which was drastically different, stylistically, than her previous with its extremely pop leanings.

Mainstream success didn't come until the release of Shimatani's third single, entitled "papillon" (パピヨン~papillon~, lit. "papiyon~butterfly~"^?), a Japanese version of Janet Jackson's song "Doesn't Really Matter". The single became a hit, eventually selling over 200,000 copies, and vaulted Shimatani into the spotlight. Since then, Shimatani has often been compared with the top artists on avex trax. Since then she has released five studio albums, one "best-of" compilation, a special concept album entitled "crossover", a winter mini-album, and twenty-three singles.

Shimatani often uses "exotic-sounding" titles for her songs, including such tracks as "Perseus" (ペルセウス, Peruseusu^?) (which references the famous Greek myth), "Falco" (ファルコ, Faruko^?) (Italian for "hawk"), "bella flor" and "La Fiesta" (in Spanish, "beautiful flower" and "the celebration", respectively). She has also been recognized by anime and video game fans around the globe for songs like ANGELUS -Anjerasu-, which was used as an opening theme for the Inuyasha anime series,Falco (Faruko) the 1st opening of "The Law of Ueki" or Ueki no Housoku, Taiyou No Hana Destiny for the anime series BlackJack 21, and "Garnet Moon", the main theme from the Playstation 2 video-game "Another Century's Episode". 『深紅』 ("Shinku") and 『愛の詩』 ("Poem of Love") are expected to appear in "Another Century's Episode 3 THE FINAL".

Although dance-pop/techno-pop and Latin-styled music were a staple of much of Shimatani's earlier career, she has recently been working extensively in a sound which many have termed "crossover" (named so after the album on which it first made an appearance) -- a blend of traditional pop sensibilities with heavy orchestral and classical-music infusion.

On March 7, 2007, Shimatani released her 6th studio album, Prima Rosa.

On December 5, 2007, Shimatani released her first cover album, Otoko Uta ~cover song collection~.

Shimatani had a part in the Prince of Tennis Live-Action Film as the character of Sumire Ryuzaki. She plays a young and optimistic girl who is Nanjiro Echizen's classmate. She was also in the 11-episode drama "Boku Dake No Madonna" (She is my only Madonna-And I Love Her). Though she wasn't actually in the movie, she did a cover of Vanessa Hudgens' song 'When There Was Me And You', titled 'Anata no ita toki', from the hit DCOM High School Musical.

In 2007, she was chosen to play the lead role of Anne Shirley during the touring performance of Anne of Green Gables (ミュージカル「赤毛のアン」) in Japan.

• She is basically left-handed, but she is right-handed when she writes and when she uses chopsticks.
• At the time of lesson in Tokyo before the debut, she gets to know with Ryoko Kuninaka by having been sharing a room, and it is relation to be able to call with a close friend now.
• She is close to Yukie Nakama. And in Music Station, she said that they went to Los Angeles , but stayed double-bed room. Yukie Nakama made reservations.
• She seems to be interested in another person well and call the parents' house (mother) every day. She talks on the telephone well to ask a friend the present condition.
• She don't like summer roll to smell of the Shield bug.

• Hitomi Shimatani Official Website
• Eye-Land Official Fan Club Website
• CrossOver Fans Website