Biography
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Born
6 March 1981 (age 43)
1) Mizuki Watanabe (渡辺 みづき Watanabe Mizuki?, born March 6, 1981 in Kitami, Hokkaidō, Japan), better known simply as Miz, is a Japanese pop/rock singer. Though most of her music is released in Japan, she does her work primarily from Gotland, Sweden, mainly doing promotional videos, photo shoots, and recording there.
At a very young age, Miz expressed a great interest and talent in music. She always wanted to become one of the singers on the radio, but living in such a rural area as Hokkaidō, there were very few opportunities for her. One of Miz's biggest hobbies during her high school years was going to a local beauty salon. And since she was a regular customer, she became very good friends with the salon manager.
At this time there was held a talent competition, with advertising posters put up in over 20,000 beauty salons all over Japan. The salon owner suggested that Miz enter the contest, which she won ahead of hundreds of other competitors.
After graduating high school, she moved to Tokyo. Soon afterward, she was signed under Universal Victor and, under her real name, released I WILL, her debut single. Following that, she also released another single called Ambition, but she wasn't asked to release anything else after that. Both singles are now out of print in most Japanese CD stores.
After the release of Ambition, her career stalled. She kept taking singing lessons at a studio, and eventually made a demo tape with the help of a writer. Soon, she was introduced to a producer named Tord Bäckström, who was looking for someone to perform a song written by a Swedish writer. In 2003, Miz travelled to Sweden, and her debut single, Waiting, debuted in the charts at #8. Her album, Story Untold, emerged on the scene on September 22, 2004 and contains 10 all-English songs.
By that time, she had also released some other music. Her Japanese re-debut single New Day came out that same year, debuting at #20 on Oricon charts. To promote her first Japanese album, Say It's Forever, Miz was invited to a Channel V-hosted concert in Taiwan along with other local and foreign artists, where she performed 3 songs, "New Day"", Waiting for", and "Say It's Forever". Also, she attended a show AIUEO to gain more publicity in her short visit, the host was apparently her friend before she made her major debut in Japan. She became one of the most popular Japanese artists in Taiwan that year.
After releasing her second album Mizrock in February 2006, Miz disappeared for a long while. In May 2007, however, her official website was updated with news of a new release coming in July. Other websites such as ORICON and Tower Records confirmed this news, listing a mini-album titled Good bye, yesterday to be released under the name "Mizrock." It is also with this album that Miz moved from Victor Interactive to Nayutawave Records.
In June 2007, "Good bye, yesterday" from her Good bye, yesterday album was used as the second ending song for the popular anime, Romeo X Juliet.
October 2007 she released a new single, "Best Friend" and in February 2008 she will release another single titled, "Thank You".
On May 3, 2010, Miz updated her blog with a link to information regarding her new single, Faraway. Faraway marks Miz's return to the name "Miz" after four years. Faraway was released on May 26, 2010.
2) Acoustic folk duo MIZ are Shukei Tamaki & Seijun Kato from Mono No Aware.
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