Ai Kawashima

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Kawashima dreamed of becoming a singer from a young age. Her father vanished before she was born, and she was raised by her mother. She first began learning to play the piano at the age of 3. Kawashima's mother died when she was just 3 years old. She was taken to an orphanage and eventually adopted by the Kawashima family, owners of a construction company. Her adoptive father died when she was 10, and her adoptive mother died when she was 16. Every year since her adoptive mother's death, she has held a concert on August 20th in her memory. Now she is singing not only for her mother, but also for people who listen to her songs, wishing for world peace. Kawashima has also helped to establish schools in poor countries, 3 schools have already been built, her goal is to build 100 schools.

Before she became famous, she set herself the goal of performing 1000 times on the street, finally accomplishing this after she became well known. Her voice has been likened to that of an angel. At first, there were only a few people listening to her busking, but gradually she attracted many fans. She initially dreamt of becoming an enka singer. She performed on stage at Carnegie Hall in New York at around the age of 10. In 1999, she released "Juu-roku Koi Gokoro / Anata ni Kataomoi" - however, due to poor sales, she abandoned enka a few months later and took charge of her own composition.

At some point, she and "Nao" formed the duo I WiSH and had a decent level of success, but the band was dissolved in 2005 so that Kawashima and Nao could concentrate on solo projects.

Some of Kawashima's songs have been used as theme songs for anime and video games. Zetsubou to Kibou (絶望と希?) is the theme song of Shining Force Neo; "Compass" was is the theme song of the eighth One Piece movie Episode of Alabasta: The Desert Princess and the Pirates, and "Kimi no Koe" is the ending theme song of The Place Promised in Our Early Days. One of her newest songs, "Door Crawl", is the theme song of Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo's Dungeon.

--Wikipedia