KANO MIYU’s LOVE FM debut: Fukuoka memories, Trot Girls Japan and Seoul’s 1999

Tenjin and Kego Park, TikTok and auditions, sis and solo work, and Seoul’s 1999: thirty minutes bringing her present into focus

On January 11, 2026, KANO MIYU used the first episode of her LOVE FM programme Kanou no Kanou SAY!! to discuss her musical life, Fukuoka memories, her career after the auditions and upcoming work in Korea. The solo show was scheduled for the second Sunday of each month from January through March. Its opening instalment covered the title, childhood places, a TikTok turning point, sis (SIS/T), the previous year’s first solo concert, and announcements for Seoul.

It resembled an introductory radio greeting but went further than a list of current activities. She retraced in her own words where she began and how she arrived here. The broadcast clearly connected local stages, family memory, digital platforms, auditions, group work, solo shows and overseas performances.

It was strikingly free of exaggerated success-story language. She admitted uncertainty about whether talking alone on radio in this way was all right. That nervous honesty made it feel alive rather than merely polished. An unfamiliar format preserved a person’s voice, time and growth at their starting point.

From a birthday event to a radio title

She began by explaining the name. Kanou SAY had also been a birthday-event title. Among various options, what stayed with her was the sound of “Kanou’s possibilities”. It combines her name with SAY, the act of speaking, while echoing the Japanese word kanousei, meaning possibility.

Later, she explained how to carry the spelling into social-media posts, specifying the SAY in the title. It therefore connects the artist’s name with speaking rather than merely repeat an abstract idea of possibility. The wordplay functions as a memorable identity for the show.

For her first solo radio programme, the name mattered. Episodes return monthly, but the title is what listeners remember first. It suggests a space accumulating her words, thoughts, tastes and memories, beyond playing music and delivering updates.

Born in Mie, raised in Fukuoka: between Omuta and the city

Although known as being from Fukuoka, she said she was born in Mie Prefecture and raised in Fukuoka from age four. Her remembered daily centre was Omuta, with regular journeys into central Fukuoka during childhood. The account was conversational rather than neatly prepared, which made it vivid. Home emerged from travel between places rather than a single place-name.

Weekends in Fukuoka and trips into the city for lessons and activities offer a clue to her present. Perhaps the movement from local area to centre and city to city was already familiar before her current Japan–Korea travel. The rhythm between Omuta and Fukuoka anticipated another rhythm across borders.

She said she began guitar around ten and continued as a singer-songwriter. At high school she also experienced roughly three years of radio, although not as a solo host. In Fukuoka, a former manager had once required a new song every month. These details show an artist with long-established live experience and writing habits, not someone suddenly created by a recent audition.

Tenjin, Kego Park and memories with her mother

Tenjin was one of the most memorable subjects. After noting that her voice was now being broadcast in Fukuoka, where LOVE FM is based, she recalled shopping with her mother after lessons, a taiyaki shop near Kego Park and the atmosphere of the shopping streets.

The account went beyond local chat. Tenjin is a place layered with growing-up feelings before it is a famous entertainment district: roads walked with her mother, shops after lessons and the emotions attached to them. She said thinking of Tenjin naturally brought her mother to mind. Fukuoka remains where past and present overlap, rather than simply an origin on a biography.

She lingered on memories from around the Great East Japan Earthquake. At eleven or twelve, she performed in Kego Park as part of charity and fundraising activities. New to guitar, she was so nervous that singing properly felt difficult, but still vividly remembered performing a Hannah Montana song she loved. Cold weather, an unfamiliar instrument, a trembling voice and a child standing outdoors to help others: those memories added weight to her return to the same city with a radio programme under her own name.

This was not merely attractive nostalgia. It showed how places shaped her and what local stages and public spaces mean within her sensibility. Fukuoka emerged as an emotional and professional origin, not just another work location.

Trot Girls Japan in 2023: the point her name travelled further

She identified the 2023 Korea–Japan co-produced audition programme Trot Girls Japan as the start of wider national recognition. She admitted that hosting radio still felt surprising, and described the challenges and training of the audition as shaping her present self.

She did not treat it as a mere credit. She wondered what she would be doing without it, recalling uncertainty over her future and place in society. Not attending university had also increased others’ concern about her career. The programme became a practical turning point, beyond a chance for exposure.

She recalled her parents’ worries too. Even during the audition, the future was not guaranteed, and she kept wondering what to do next. Retrospective success stories can seem linear; lived experience is not. She seized an opportunity without a fully visible direction, and it gradually opened doors.

TikTok and Over Drive: a digital turning point

During the pandemic, someone suggested TikTok. She found social media difficult and was not especially enthusiastic, so began reluctantly. Yet she uploaded songs she wanted to sing with guitar, and the accumulating videos created an unexpected current.

Her guitar cover of JUDY AND MARY’s “Over Drive” drew a response and her first sense of something going modestly viral. That attention led to an approach from Trot Girls Japan and eventually her participation.

Her route thus included both traditional live work and digital platforms. Long accustomed to local stages, she nevertheless found her current turning point online. Stage and algorithm, guitar and short video, accumulated practice and unexpected exposure worked together. It is an example of how complex artistic development can be now.

A major-label debut with sis: a solo artist entering a group

After the audition, she also became a member of sis (SIS/T). She discussed this at length. Having worked solo since ten, she initially found group membership unfamiliar. She had once imagined trying it as a child, but also worried about getting along and possible complications in relationships.

Events moved quickly. After the audition she naturally joined sis, and a major-label debut was underway almost before she registered it. She had not expected it to happen so soon. A feeling that it would be nice if it happened, and unavoidable if it did not, gave way to the realisation that she had actually debuted.

What followed mattered more. She does not see sis as an identity competing with her solo work. Solo activity pursues her own sensibility, such as wanting to be both cool and cute. The group has another role rooted in Trot Girls Japan: linking trot, Japanese popular song, Showa-era songs and city pop, while retaining responsibility to remember the audition’s beginnings.

She considered them different layers of activity. Both are hers, but with different colours and emotional expression. The distinction seemed to be what made continuing both possible.

Kuroi Shinzou and more than fifty originals: accumulated creative time

Her first selection was the latest song, “Kuroi Shinzou”. Beyond promotion, putting current writing near the beginning of a retrospective introduction suggested that she had lived through this history and remained a creator of new music.

She said she had more than fifty original songs. This suggests a singer-songwriter accumulating her own material over a long period, rather than working through one or two striking singles. Writing, performing, recording and releasing again had formed a repeated process.

A first solo concert at twenty-five

Looking back on the previous year, she spoke especially strongly about her first standalone solo concert. In summer 2025, she felt she had finally reached that point, while candidly admitting a thought that it might be a little late.

Seeing the venue changed her perspective. More people than expected had come to see her, prompting a feeling that she might be capable of more. A solo concert can reveal the reality of an audience and provide grounds for pushing a career forward, beyond the performance itself.

Afterward, she wanted to work harder. More than gratitude, she felt a stronger engine engage: confirmation that the long effort had not been wasted, alongside the possibility of going further.

Ai no Battery: two sides within one broadcast

She also introduced sis’s major-label debut song, “Ai no Battery”. Following her own “Kuroi Shinzou” with a group signature was symbolic. Even on a personal radio show, she did not reduce her story to solo work. The group appeared essential to explaining her present.

Creator, performer, group member, audition graduate and artist moving between Japan and Korea existed in one name. Keeping those layers together gave the first episode depth.

From Fukuoka, but seeking restaurant advice

A particularly everyday segment asked Fukuoka listeners for places to eat and visit. She said she surprisingly knew little about local restaurants: her mother often cooked, so the family did not eat out much. She laughed that she was the person most troubled by being asked where to eat in Fukuoka.

Small as it sounds, that admission set the broadcast’s temperature. Regional radio connects listeners and a city. Rather than pretend to know everything, she asked to be taught, standing alongside the audience as someone wanting to rediscover Fukuoka.

With more recent visits, she requested cafés, newly opened restaurants and recommended spots. She expected concerts and filming to bring her back during 2026 and wanted good food on those trips. It suggested exchanging useful information and building a relationship rather than one-way self-promotion.

Liking Korea, and announcing Seoul’s 1999

Discussing things she liked, she mentioned Korea. Working in both countries, she said visiting Korea was especially enjoyable now and named samgyeopsal, grilled pork belly, as what she most wanted to eat. The light everyday talk made her actual working geography more tangible.

She then announced the Seoul dates: a solo 1999 show in Hongdae on January 17 and a fan meeting in the same building on January 18. She explained the birth-year title and compared Hongdae’s youthful character to Shibuya or Harajuku. Fukuoka’s proximity to Korea might make attending possible for listeners too, she added.

The natural promotion of a Korean concert on regional Japanese radio directly showed a career already extending beyond a city or country.

Re:Road and a drama announcement at the close

A later selection was her original “Re:Road”. Alongside “Kuroi Shinzou,” it recalled her current creative work within a flow spanning early history, career and Seoul plans.

At the close, she added one more piece of news: Chika Idol no Houteishiki, the short drama with Tetsuya Komuro as general producer, had been available on DMM since December 23, and she appeared as a guitar-playing character. Even in the final moments, the account kept expanding across songs, concerts, group work, radio and drama.

A first episode beginning to document the present

The January 11, 2026 premiere of LOVE FM’s Kanou no Kanou SAY!! left an impression beyond launching a programme. Title wordplay, Mie and Fukuoka, Omuta and Tenjin, Kego Park charity performances, TikTok and “Over Drive,” auditions, sis’s debut, her first solo show, local recommendations and Seoul plans connected within one flow.

Above all, it did not present her as a finished result. She remained someone learning, nervous and reaching toward a region, her fans and the next stage. A living person appeared before a polished image, making the account easier to trust.

More than an update, it recorded where her time began and where it had arrived. The episode suggested that radio could become an archive accumulating an artist’s present, beyond serving as a promotional outlet.

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Sources and further reading

• LOVE FM — new programme and broadcast schedule announcement