The Quebec, Canada native anime singer HIMEKA, became familiar with Japanese animation as a small child by watching the French version of programs on TV.
When she was 11 years old, she began to learn English properly as she wanted to understand Disney cartoons broadcast in English, but at the age of 15, she was deeply impressed by the Japanese animation series “Sailor Moon”.
Taking an interest in Japan, she began to watch other anime videos in its original Japanese language and also started learning and reading the characters, their pronounciation and their meaning by looking up the lyrics of various anime songs from the dictionary.
It was natural then for HIMEKA to have dreamed to be an “anison” (animation song) singer in Japan, and in March 2008, she came to Japan on a working-holiday visa.
HIMEKA then entered “The Second All Japan Anison Gran Prix”, an annual competition that gathers aspiring singers from all over Japan, after stumbling upon it on the internet, and ended up first out of 3,186 competitors. It was said that the judges were overwhelmed by her singing and way of expressing the Japanese lyrics.
On May 27, 2009, HIMEKA made her debut from Sony Music Japan International with her single “Asueno no Kizuna”, opening theme for TV anime series “Valkyria Chronicles”.
This sensational debut was widely covered not just in the anime world, but in various major Medias including national newspapers, as well as key commercial TV stations across Japan.
HIMEKA’s “Japanese Dream” story also spread out to her home country in Canada (National Post, Montreal Gazette).