Early Life
Her parents encouraged Onitsuka to listen to Western music and by the time she was ten, she wrote her first poems, receiving praise from her parents, friends and teachers, who called them 'earnest efforts'. Secretly, however, she knew that just writing 'earnestly' wasn’t enough. From that time onward, she tried to write every day, and by the time she was in junior high school, she began to gain more confidence.
Having been influenced by Alanis Morissette in junior high school days, it was the encounter with Jewel’s music and presence during the high school years that strongly compelled Onitsuka to become a singer-songwriter. With some 70 original compositions and several other auditions under her belt, Onitsuka entered the 1998 Virgin Tokyo Artists Audition, going on to winning Grand Prize. Then only 17, Onitsuka started her career as a professional and moved to Tokyo in spring 1999 after graduating from high school.
Read more about this topic: Chihiro Onitsuka
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