Hitomi

A former fashion model turned singer, hitomi has been riding high in the Japanese pop charts since debuting in 1995. While hitomi's success has not been as all-conquering as that of her contemporaries Hikaru Utada and Ayumi Hamasaki -- she's yet to score a mega-hit on the scale of either of those two divas -- she has nevertheless been a consistent hitmaker, selling more than 8.5 million singles and albums combined. That she's done so for more than a decade, a period longer than that of the average shelf life of a J-pop idol, is a result of a perennially youthful image (Hitomi ...