Miz - Biography

Biography

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. Mizrock entered the nation-wide beauty contest "'99 Princess Audition", and was the grand winner out of the 3,200 entrants.

After graduating high school, she moved to Tokyo. Soon afterward, she was signed under Universal Victor and, under her real name, released I WILL(TX TV show Renai Slot Kuru Kuru V's ending theme song), her debut single. Five months she released a second single called Ambition(PlayStation game Kouklo Theatro's theme song), though neither single charted in the top 100 singles, but she wasn't asked to release anything else after that. Both singles are now out of print in most Japanese CD stores. Mizrock wrote the lyrics to all four of the songs featured on these singles. Nothing would be heard from her until August 2001 when a song of hers, "Aoi Kioku" was used as the image song in the PC game Hello, world. This song would not surface until October the following year, when it was released on the soundtrack for the game.

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. Five months later, Miz's second single, "New Day". The single debuted at #20, and is currently her biggest single. 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. Five months later, Miz's second single, "Waiting for".Later in the month in Japan, Miz's debut album Say It's Forever was released. Much like her debut, the album reached #20 in Japan (however went to #1 for two weeks in Taiwan)). Half of the album featured Miz's own lyrics. 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. Shortly after in November, Miz released a separate, English language in Sweden called Story Untold (however it did not chart in the top 60 albums). A special version was released featuring the entire Say It's Forever album on a bonus disc. To start off 2005, Miz released her third album in a row, DREAMS, in Japan. The album featured the bulk of Miz's Swedish release album, however had a few omissions and new songs. In August Miz released two items: a photobook called "An Ordinary Day" featuring Miz in Sweden and the "In The Sky" single (the game Square Enix's Grandia III theme song). "In The Sky" was the Japanese version of a song from Story Untold called "Amazing" (interestingly, for the English language release of the game a separate English version was recorded with different lyrics). Two new singles were quickly released in the following months: a Japanese version of "Backseat Baby" from her Swedish album in late 2005 and a completely new song, "Bittersweet", in 2006. These were followed by her second album, Mizrock.

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.

A new single by Miz, titled Just Try, is scheduled to be released on July 24, 2011.

She is best known for her role as Sailor Venus in 1998 - 1999 in the "SeraMyu". She played also in: "Boys Over Flowers", "Hana Yori Dango Returns" and "Hana Yori Dango Final".