Maki Ohguro

Maki Ohguro is a Japanese pop singer-songwriter from Sapporo, Hokkaido, born on December 31, 1969. Active since 1989, she built her career in J-pop with a melodic, emotional style and a strong connection to anime and anison. She has been associated with B-Gram Records and EMI Music Japan, and her work helped make her one of the recognizable voices of 1990s Japanese pop. She entered the music industry in 1989 after passing the 3rd Annual BAD audition. Early in her career, she provided backup chorus work for BEING studio artists including B'z, ZARD, and DEEN. In 1992, she received a contract from Being Inc.'s company president after nearly leaving for America because she felt she was not yet the singer she wanted to be. Her second single, "DA・KA・RA," sold 1.1 million copies and won the Japan Record Grand Prix Newcomer Award of the Year. Because she rarely appeared in public, she was often described as a phantom singer, a reputation that also surrounded Izumi Sakai of ZARD and added to the mystique around her music. Among her best-known anime-related songs is "Anata Dake Mitsumeteru," the ending theme for Slam Dunk. The song reached No. 2 in January 1994, was certified as a Million record, and sold 1,087,160 copies, making it one of the most recognizable anime ending themes of its era. In 2010, Maki Ohguro took a six-year hiatus due to illness, and in 2016 she announced the resumption of her music activities under Being Inc. During her 35th anniversary year in 2026, she also appeared in Meiji's "Melody of meiji" project and performed "Meiji Chocolate no Theme," extending her long-running presence in Japanese pop and anime-linked music.