Akihiro Miwa

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Akihiro Miwa (美輪 明宏 Miwa Akihiro; born May 15, 1935) is a Japanese drag queen and chanson-style nightclub singer and actor. He writes most of his own music and essays, and has written over 20 books.

Miwa was born in Nagasaki as Maruyama Akihiro to a family which ran a small cafe. After seeing the movie Boy Soprano at the age of 11, he claims to have had a dream in which he was standing on stage in a concert hall, singing. It was this which inspired his interest in music. He then attended the National Music University of Japan at the age of 15.

He started his career as a professional cabaret singer in Ginza at the age of 17 when moving out to Tokyo in 1952. He started working in various nightclubs singing his favourite song of the French chanson such as Édith Piaf, Yvette Guilbert and Marie Dubas, eventually getting a job at a specific club at which he worked continually for 40 years. His claim to fame came rather early in 1957, with a smash-hit called "Meke-Meke" which included a string of profanities not used in media at the time. He was also renouned for his effeminate beauty, making him a hit with the media.

Along the way he ran into various movie producers and actors like actor Ishihara Yujiro and of course, his life-long love, Mishima Yukio. The relationship started in the cabaret when Mishima allegedly said to Miwa, "Maruyama, you only have one flaw. That you could never fall in love with me."

Miwa has written many books as well, and is known for his outspoken stances when on social issues and war. This can be attributed to his having experienced the worst of it; he was in Nagasaki when it was destroyed by an atomic bomb, but he escaped relatively unhurt. He is highly critical of the government at all his concerts.

Although Miwa is best known as a cabaret singer, he also performs in a number of movies. The first was Teruyama Shuji's Aomori-ken no Shimushi Otoko in 1967. He performs in Mishima Yukio's Black Lizard, and also composed Black Lizard's theme song. In 2005, he appeared in Takeshis' of Kitano Takeshi. The most recent and internationally known works are Miyazaki Hayao's anime films Princess Mononoke and Howl's Moving Castle.