Hitoto Yo, born September 20, 1976 in Taiwan, is a Japanese pop singer-songwriter. Hitoto is best known for her extremely popular debut single "Morai Naki". She is Taiwanese through her father and Japanese through her mother.
Hitoto Yo lived in Taipei until her kindergarten years, then moved to Japan after her father's death, caused by lung cancer. Hitoto (一青) is not actually her last name, but is her mother's maiden name which she took when she moved back to Japan. However, when Hitoto was 16 her mother died, leaving her sister Tae to take care of her.
After her high-school years, Hitoto enrolled in the prestigious Keiou University, where she majored in Environmental Studies and joined an a cappella group called K.O.E.. She was a backup singer for a while until she met Kitayama Yoichi of The Gospellers, who convinced her to compose music.
Before her Japanese debut, Hitoto sang the video game Dynasty Warriors' Chinese theme song, "Sheng Lu ~Circuit~". This song later appears on her "Edo Polka / Yume Nakaba" single as "Seiro~MAZE" (the kanji is the same for both titles).
Hitoto debuted with the single "Morai Naki", reaching #4 on the Oricon weekly charts and charting for an amazing 68 weeks in the top 200 singles. The single became the #13 single of 2003, and was awarded the Best Hit Artist, with the Debut Artist of the Year award at the Nihon Record Taishou. Since then, Hitoto has recieved sustained popularity, such as with her recent single "Kazaguruma", which was used as the theme song to the movie Semishigure.
In late 2006 Hitoto released her first 'best of' collection, entitled BESTYO. The album, featuring a new song of hers, "Tentou Mushi", was a smash hit. It reached #2 on the Oricon weekly charts and sold over 700,000 copies: making it Hitoto's best selling album.
In November it was announced that Hitoto would be releasing a new single called "Fuyumeku" in January, which was composed by Kobayashi Takeshi. However, later the single was cancelled. The song was even performed at Hitoto's BESTYO Free CONCERTYO open air concert, however when the concert was aired on Yahoo! Douga (Yahoo! Japan's free streaming site) and when a special edition of BESTYO called BESTYO+CONCERTYO featuring the concert on DVD was released Fuyumeku was not present on eiter.
In the January edition of FRIDAY gossip magazine, followed by several other publications, that Hitoto Yo was committing adultery with Kobayashi Takeshi. Kobayashi had been married with his bandmate akko from My Little Lover since 1996, and in May announced their divorce. At the same time Kobayashi announced his intentions to marry Hitoto.

(Source: Generasia) Edit Biography