Maki Ohguro

Before becoming one of Japan’s top-selling artists of the ’90s, pop singer Maki Ohguro served as a backup vocalist for such groups as B’z, Deen, and Zard. ∙ Thanks to the breakout single “DA • KA • RA”—originally written as a jingle for a noodle commercial starring actor Edward Furlong—Ohguro won Japan Record Awards’ New Artist Award in 1992. ∙ “あなただけ見つめてる,” from 1994’s 永遠の夢に向かって—the first of her five No. 1 albums—was the closing theme for the anime version of the manga series Slam Dunk. ∙ The chart-topping “熱くなれ,” from Power of Dreams, became one of her signature songs after it played throughout the Japanese broadcast of the 1996 Summer Olympics. ∙ Ohguro’s 2010 comeback single, “Anything Goes!,” was her first Top 10 hit in more than a decade, after it was used as the theme song for the sci-fi drama Kamen Rider OOO.