FEATURE · 아티스트 스토리

KANO MIYU’s Growth: From Fukuoka to Korea, a Singer-Songwriter’s Path

Published 2026-08-19 · Updated 2026-10-23 · CROSSWAVE EDITION

The story’s course · Contents

KANO MIYU’s growth reconstructed from Frag Lab’s special interviews and recent activities

When people speak of KANO MIYU today, many first imagine an artist working between Japan and Korea. The joint audition project Trot Girls Japan brought a new turning point, and she now continues her own musical world through both group and solo activities.

Understanding her present requires looking much further back. Behind the performer are the moment she first held a guitar, her early time singing original songs on small stages, and a long journey of not abandoning music through repeated challenges and setbacks. Today’s KANO MIYU did not emerge overnight: she is the result of protecting her music over many years.

Born in Mie Prefecture, she moved with her family to Omuta, Fukuoka Prefecture, at around four. Spending most of her childhood there, she first connected with music and began nurturing her singer-songwriter dream. She still describes herself as being from Fukuoka because most of her formative years took place there.

Interestingly, from the outset she aspired specifically to be a singer-songwriter rather than simply a singer. She wanted to express her experiences and feelings in melodies and lyrics rather than be satisfied singing others’ work. Learning guitar around ten sparked an interest in composition that eventually led to dozens of original songs.

Her path was not always smooth. After moving to Tokyo she tried auditions large and small, and the pandemic brought a period when performance and writing stopped. Nevertheless, she picked up her guitar again and resumed singing her own stories. Those accumulated steps created the artist she is now.

Drawing on Frag Lab’s three-part special interview, published interviews and official profiles, this article retraces how she became today’s singer-songwriter. Rather than simply listing career entries, it follows one person’s music and life to understand her present.

Chapter 1. From Mie to Fukuoka: first encounters with music

Born in Mie, she moved with her family to Omuta around four. Most of her upbringing took place in Fukuoka, and she naturally introduces herself as being from there. Fukuoka remains the starting point whenever she discusses her musical life.

As a child she enjoyed music like other children, but the decisive inspiration was the American television series Hannah Montana. Its protagonist’s parallel lives as an ordinary student and an onstage singer made a strong impression. She began teaching herself singing and dancing and naturally dreamed of becoming a singer.

Her interest went beyond singing well. She began dreaming of someone who sang her own stories onstage: a singer-songwriter. Expressing her emotions directly in melody and words seemed much more appealing than performing songs made by others.

A turning point came around ten. She first took up an acoustic guitar and began creating originals while learning to play. Though young, she recorded melodies as they occurred, wrote short lyrics and completed songs one by one. Now a songwriter with more than fifty originals, she began with these small early exercises.

Composition began not as a special goal but as natural play. Learning guitar made her want to invent melodies; melodies made her want to add words. The finished songs resembled a diary recording her emotions more than works intended to show others.

This habit has not fundamentally changed. Recent songs such as “Kuroi Shinzou” and “Re:Road,” delicately tracing emotional movement, extend that childhood approach. Her expression has matured, but the wish to sing her own stories remains.

KANO MIYU, from Fukuoka to Korea: the path of a singer-songwriter who never gave up singing

Chapter 2. At eleven, the stage becomes a playground

About a year after first holding a guitar, she began moving beyond the practice room to the stage.

At eleven, she was already performing around Fukuoka city. An elementary-school student carrying a guitar and singing originals in public was uncommon. For her, however, the stage was less frightening than a place to present her own music with the greatest honesty.

She did not aim at large halls from the beginning. She experienced small live stages and local shows, repeatedly singing and directly sensing people’s reactions. Those experiences fed further songwriting. Writing, performing and writing again naturally became a routine.

Even young, her concern was closer to making better songs than finding ways to enjoy the stage. Telling her story mattered more than perfectly reproducing someone else’s song. Originals naturally occupied more of her performances as experience grew.

For a singer-songwriter, the stage is not merely where songs are presented. Music made at a desk first meets people there. Reactions inspire the next song, and feelings from the stage become other lyrics. Repeating this since childhood, she gradually built her musical world.

A singer-songwriter nurtured by Fukuoka

Fukuoka is among Japan’s cities with a lively performance culture. Alongside large venues, live houses and local music festivals provide relatively well-developed stages where newcomers can gain experience.

She grew within that environment. Beyond lessons, repeated encounters with real audiences taught her stagecraft. Performing became ordinary from an early age rather than exceptional, naturally continuing into her present work across Korea and Japan.

This was also when local music professionals gradually learned her name. More than her youth, her ability to deliver originals with one guitar attracted attention. She began being remembered as an artist with music of her own rather than merely a student who sang well.

The experience left by MUSIC CITY TENJIN

One indispensable stage in her development was MUSIC CITY TENJIN, a representative Fukuoka music festival.

Appearing regularly from her second year of junior high, she developed into one of the region’s young singer-songwriters. Known as one of Fukuoka’s largest festivals, it brings together professionals and amateurs, major and independent musicians. Repeated appearances meant more than simply increasing performance totals.

Audiences diversified with the stage’s size. From passersby stopping unexpectedly to music professionals, she gained chances to present originals to many kinds of people. It was valuable direct evidence of how well her music reached others.

She was not simply repeating shows but physically learning how a singer-songwriter constructs a performance. Could a voice and guitar hold an audience? Which songs lingered? What should she talk about onstage? She gradually learned these things naturally.

More important than the stage was continuing to sing

Looking back, her teens were filled with steady experience rather than glittering success. This preceded national audition programs and her present cross-border work. While peers spent time in school, she was already visiting venues, carrying a guitar onstage and accumulating her music.

These experiences recur in later interviews. Music was not a sudden opportunity but part of life sustained since early childhood. Perhaps that is why she did not easily let go when difficulties came later.

Her subsequent move to Tokyo followed the same line. Less a pursuit of greater success than a wish to continue on broader stages, it made the experience built in Fukuoka a starting point for new challenges.

Chapter 3. Slowly becoming known in Fukuoka

Her activity range naturally expanded with performance experience.

Continuing since elementary school, she gradually became known in Fukuoka’s music community during junior high. In particular, consecutive MUSIC CITY TENJIN appearances from her second year kept bringing her to audiences. Despite her youth, singing originals with one guitar left a strong impression.

MUSIC CITY TENJIN is more than a local festival. One of Kyushu’s largest music events, it uses locations across Fukuoka for major and independent artists, professionals and newcomers alike. Regular appearances signaled not merely more shows but growing recognition within the regional scene.

In several interviews, however, she says wanting better songs outweighed wanting fame. Singing publicly was a process rather than an endpoint. Stage emotions became lyrics, and each show led to thoughts about writing the next song. For her, the stage was where music grew, not simply where a finished result was displayed.

A singer-songwriter dream that remained firm even in childhood

Young singers often begin with singing well and gradually seek their own music. She was somewhat different.

Since learning guitar around ten, she consistently composed. Rather than merely treating it as a hobby, she considered making her own stage songs natural. Originals accumulated until she became a songwriter with more than fifty.

That habit remains central to explaining her music. It accounts for the many songs grounded in her experiences and emotions, such as “TERMINAL” and “Re:Road.” Before singing, she considered what she wanted to say.

Consequently, a narrative flow arrives before dazzling technique. A structure resembling a short drama within one song can be seen as the result of her childhood creative method.

2014: the first major turning point

Her first turning point during these steady performances came in 2014.

She won the grand prix at ROAD TO MCT, one of Fukuoka’s representative new-talent projects, attracting local attention. Still in junior high, she found more than a prize in the award. Her music received an objective assessment for the first time, giving her confidence to continue the singer-songwriter path.

Above all, the image of a young songwriter singing with a guitar gradually became known in Fukuoka. Professionals took more interest and new stage opportunities appeared.

This was far from national recognition. But what mattered to her was not fame: it was moving forward step by step.

Her first voice on radio

Radio also helped spread her name. In high school she became a monthly regular on FM FUKUOKA’s Hyper Night Program GOW!!, meeting listeners consistently. Unlike a singing stage, it allowed stories about writing, school and show preparation, revealing her natural personality as well as the musician.

Interestingly, even now, after hosting her own LOVE FM program and guesting on many stations, her presenting style has not changed greatly. Her calm, everyday way of recounting experience rather than embellishing it appears to have developed gradually then.

Radio was another way of meeting people. Where music expressed her onstage, the microphone began conveying her thoughts and values little by little.

Toward a wider world

Fukuoka was not merely preparation. It was where she first learned guitar, wrote her first original and took the stage. MUSIC CITY TENJIN and countless live shows developed her as a songwriter; radio taught her how to deliver her voice.

Over time, however, one thought kept growing.

“I want more people to hear my music.”

Fukuoka had nurtured her, but the dream of wider stages naturally prompted the next challenge. Its destination was Tokyo, the center of Japan’s music industry.

Chapter 4. Tokyo: a first step toward a larger stage

Her Fukuoka years were more than a period of growing up. She began writing when she first held a guitar, and by eleven was presenting originals on local live stages. In junior high she regularly appeared at MUSIC CITY TENJIN and regional radio programs, slowly becoming known. While peers traveled between school and extra lessons, carrying her guitar to venues became normal life.

Fukuoka taught her music and turned the dream into reality. Repeatedly sensing audience reactions and writing another song afterward strengthened her identity as someone who makes songs. Despite her age, she physically learned not only stagecraft but audience interaction and how to communicate her music.

New questions nevertheless grew. Fukuoka had developed her, but she increasingly wanted to test herself in a wider world. Even as local recognition grew, reaching more people required a larger stage. Tokyo naturally became the next goal.

At eighteen she made the difficult decision to move. Leaving familiar Fukuoka meant more than changing address: family, friends, long-standing stages and people who recognized her would be farther away for a time. She chose the challenge, believing it was a step she would eventually have to take to continue music.

Tokyo was entirely different. Venues lined the streets and countless live houses presented newcomers daily. Musicians seeking famous labels and independent songwriters competed for the same stages. Being a young guitarist performing originals had attracted notice in Fukuoka, but in Tokyo it was no special advantage: talented people were already innumerable.

Everything began again. Few people knew her at venues, and most spectators were strangers. She had to deliver songs and stories in a short slot and make one appearance memorable. Fukuoka’s experience was a valuable asset but insufficient alone. Each performance required proving why people should listen.

That process developed her further. Where experience had been the Fukuoka goal, finding her own color became Tokyo’s central task. She continually considered which songs best represented her, which words moved people and how she wanted to be remembered. She sought to be more than a technically good singer: an artist communicating her story through music.

Tokyo was a succession of intense lessons rather than glittering success. Some days meant singing for a handful in a small live house; many auditions failed to meet expectations. She accepted the process as part of her musical life, taking up the guitar after shows, writing and preparing. That repetition became a foundation for not easily giving up when the unexpected pandemic arrived.

What auditions taught her

Working in Tokyo, she experienced varied auditions and stages. Many see auditions as gates to a debut; for her they were more process than result. Passing or failing was a momentary outcome, not a criterion for whether to continue music.

She has said in several interviews that regular time onstage mattered more than one special success. Writing after shows, seeking new stages and preparing auditions repeated. The accumulated experiences did more than lengthen a résumé: they strengthened her as a songwriter.

She gradually realized that making a good song and making one remain in people’s hearts were different tasks. Polish alone was insufficient; communicating experience and feeling mattered too. She increasingly focused on stories rather than technique and devoted more time to lyrics drawn from life.

Not every challenge brought the desired result. Desired stages proved unavailable and effort often failed to produce equivalent achievement. But failure was not the end. Writing and performing mattered more than one outcome. Her childhood live experience was the greatest strength for enduring that time.

In retrospect, Tokyo was intense learning rather than brilliant success. Those experiences enabled her not to abandon music completely when the pandemic brought an unforeseen trial.

Chapter 5. Stages stop: finding music again

After leaving Fukuoka, she gradually established a place in Tokyo. Live-house stages, new encounters and experience clarified her musical identity. Though not widely known, she was sure of advancing at her own pace. An unexpected social transformation suddenly interrupted that flow.

The COVID-19 pandemic that shook the world from 2020 deeply affected music. Concerts were canceled, and live houses closed or reduced operations. Stages were no longer a given for artists accustomed to singing publicly. She was no exception: disappearing schedules sharply reduced direct encounters and changed her creative process.

The largest change concerned writing. Reflecting on the pandemic in a recent radio broadcast, she said she could not write any songs for a while. This was exceptional for someone composing consistently since ten. Holding the guitar brought no new melody, and she did not know what to sing. It was not only fewer performances: self-expression through music itself temporarily stopped.

She described it as a time of battling herself. She did not know the right answer and repeatedly wondered whether music could continue. The world stood still and even meeting people became difficult. Experience becomes songs for a songwriter, but generating new stories was hard in a stopped world. The cycle of audience responses becoming lyrics broke, and writing naturally halted too.

She had not completely given up. It was also a period of reconsidering why she wrote. Did she want music without stages, and songs without chances to share them? She continually asked herself. Answers were difficult, but one thing clarified over time: she was not writing because stages were absent; she was waiting for stages because she wanted to write.

Writing begins again

After a long silence, the guitar moved first.

She resumed the stalled creative process and gradually wrote new melodies. The long gap made it difficult initially, but finishing a song helped restore her lost sense.

In a later radio broadcast she recalled “Re:Road” as the first original she completed from beginning to end after the pandemic period. Resuming itself mattered greatly, and the song encouraged her to work hard again as a singer-songwriter.

After “Re:Road,” creative momentum slowly returned. Long-blocked feelings became lyrics; longing for stages and thoughts of people became new songs. On radio she said writing again made her realize she was indeed someone who wanted to make songs. Writing was no longer obligation but a process of reconfirming why to continue.

The experience strongly affected subsequent works. Emotional textures deepened, naturally incorporating relationships, time and courage to begin again beyond simple romance. The pandemic was among her hardest times but paradoxically also an occasion to rediscover herself as a songwriter.

Chapter 6. Back onstage: the life-changing Trot Girls Japan

As the pandemic’s suspended time passed, she looked toward stages again. She finished a song after a long interval and recovered creative feeling. But singing again did not immediately restore everything. Performance culture needed time to recover, and she reconsidered how to continue. The wish was clear; how to meet people remained unresolved.

Then came an unexpected opportunity: the joint audition program Trot Girls Japan. Rather than applying normally, she was contacted directly by program staff who saw her singing on TikTok. After the pandemic she had resumed posting, including kayokyoku and trot-related songs loved since childhood through her parents’ influence. She later recalled that starting TikTok reminded her there were people who liked her voice. That confidence led to another challenge.

She had not originally dreamed of being a trot singer. Her goal was always songwriting and singing originals with a guitar, a path pursued for years. Yet she did not fear another genre. She wanted to test possibilities through unfamiliar music and, above all, enjoy music again. Growing on a new stage mattered more than preserving an existing image.

The audition brought a turning point. Viewers noticed her steady singing, expression and sensitivity developed through years onstage. In particular, the preliminary performance of JUDY AND MARY’s “Over Drive” attracted millions of TikTok views and considerable attention. Including related videos, views exceeded ten million, taking a name previously known mainly around local live stages to a much broader online public.

The biggest change, however, was neither views nor attention. She recovered the pleasure of singing publicly. A musical life paused during the pandemic moved again, and she gained confidence that continuing to sing was all right. Having once drifted from music, she rediscovered that singing onstage made her happiest.

Trot Girls Japan opened another door. Afterward she joined Korean-produced follow-up projects Hanil Gawangjeon, Hanil Top Ten Show and others as a Japanese representative, extending her activities to Korea. A Japanese audition led across borders to new stages. The girl who carried a guitar in Fukuoka had become an artist moving between countries.

Chapter 7. Songs continuing across borders

The program meant more than an audition. A songwriter who had long protected her music encountered entirely different stages and audiences. Follow-up projects brought continuing Korean opportunities, expanding her life in unexpected directions.

The selected Japanese representatives appeared in Korean-produced Hanil Gawangjeon, Hanil Top Ten Show and other programs, meeting Korean viewers. For a songwriter active in Japan, broadcasting systems and stages were entirely new. Language and consumption differed; simultaneously reaching many viewers was another kind of stage for someone based in live houses.

She began accepting the environment step by step rather than simply finding it unfamiliar. Never one to confine herself to a genre, she had encountered diverse music and absorbed experiences into her work. Korea continued that pattern: not merely expansion abroad, but another opportunity to meet more people through music.

Korean activities also substantially influenced her musical outlook. Between performances and broadcasts she experienced Japanese and Korean coexisting naturally onstage and again felt music connecting people beyond language. Her later original written with both countries in mind, “TERMINAL”, is related to those experiences. Using a place of meetings and partings, it naturally incorporates her cross-border time. It can be read less as a song about travel itself than about relationships linking different people and places.

A new team and another challenge

Korean work brought another change. With members encountered through Trot Girls Japan, she also joined the women’s group sis. Four artists from different backgrounds came together, suggesting a direction connecting Korean and Japanese musical cultures through trot. From debut song “Ai no Battery,” varied activities introduced a new period of balancing group and solo work.

Even after the group began, she retained her songwriting identity. She said in interviews she still remembered her first song, “Akiramenaide,” and that writing from experience remained unchanged. Turning difficulties into lyrics and placing hard-to-express emotions in songs has remained her defining trait since childhood.

The group introduced her to more people but also helped her reconfirm her artistic identity. Learning the pleasure of shared performance clarified the wish to sing her own stories again someday. She therefore continued writing separately and never stopped releasing new music under her own name.

Changes left by Korean activities

Korea was an important turning point offering new stages. Where Japanese work had centered on live houses and local shows, Korean broadcasting and large concerts brought more audiences. Different environments broadened her stage perspective, while encounters influenced her musical views.

Korea is not her entire musical life. She still regularly plays new stages, balancing solo and group work mainly in Japan. But Trot Girls Japan and Korea were clearly among the largest turning points. New experience joined years of songwriting, and her stage expanded beyond Japan.

Above all, those experiences revealed possibilities. Few could have predicted that music begun in Fukuoka would reach Korea through Tokyo. Rather than fear unfamiliar environments, she accepted them step by step and broadened her sphere. Her center remains the singer-songwriter identity of making songs and singing onstage.

KANO MIYU singing at the 2026 Hanno Music Festival in Saitama

KANO MIYU onstage at Kitakyushu’s 2026 Showa Summer Festival

Chapter 8. What “TERMINAL” says about KANO MIYU today

Which song should a newcomer hear first? Answers vary, but if choosing one work that best explains her present, “TERMINAL” is difficult to omit.

Rather than capturing attention through lavish arrangements or forceful performance, it quietly tells a story. A terminal, where people meet and part, frames encounters, separation, waiting and new beginnings with restraint. Initially it may sound like travel, but following the lyrics reveals relationships and time rather than simple movement.

It also naturally connects with her current work. Based in Japan but traveling to Korea and playing different cities, her life passes through airports, stations and countless terminals. Feelings from that routine became a song that seems a record of present life rather than merely a creative work.

Introducing it on LOVE FM’s Kanou SAY, she explained she wrote it thinking of everyone in Japan and Korea. The brief remark conveyed both her naturally expanded territory and a wish to address all supporters, not just one side. Frequently selected in concerts, it has become one of her representative originals.

What remains unchanged: writing her own stories

Long-time listeners share an observation. Arrangements and atmosphere have changed, but making songs from personal experience remains much as it was at the beginning.

When she first learned guitar and composed around ten, she put feelings into lyrics. During Fukuoka street performances, Tokyo’s new stages and the pandemic stoppage, music remained a method of recording her story.

Expression matured over time. Where childhood feelings came directly, she now leaves space for listeners to recall their experiences. Even love songs increasingly contain distance, waiting and hard-to-say feelings rather than simple excitement.

That development relates to years of growth. Numerous stages and encounters gradually changed her music, without changing the original identity. She remained a songwriter translating experience into music, with people always at the center.

The next story still to be written

Today she works as a solo artist and a member of sis, taking varied stages mainly in Japan. Alongside live shows, events and broadcasts, she consistently writes and performs. The musical life begun in Fukuoka now extends nationwide.

What she will release next is unknown. She may try another genre or issue originals reflecting her story. But looking back makes one thing clear: whatever the activity format or stage, she has always lived as someone who makes songs.

A girl born in Mie and raised in Fukuoka began with one guitar, experienced a wider world in Tokyo and found another turning point through an audition. Meeting many people and sometimes stopping, she nevertheless resumed writing and continued her own path.

The story is unfinished. Her time so far is less a conclusion than another starting point in an ongoing musical life. That naturally invites anticipation of her next stage and song.

Epilogue. A story still unfinished

Looking back, no single extraordinary instant changed everything.

Born in Mie and moving to Fukuoka around four, she learned guitar at ten and performed originals at eleven. She played around Fukuoka in junior high and went to Tokyo at eighteen for a wider world. Countless shows and auditions followed; unexpected pandemic years temporarily halted writing. But she eventually picked up the guitar and wrote again.

Those accumulated years met the opportunity of Trot Girls Japan and naturally led to work across both countries. Many remember a turning point; from another angle it was less a wholly new beginning than a long musical life encountering another stage. Writing and performing since childhood remains fundamentally unchanged.

Sincerity rather than spectacle runs through her music: relationships, meetings and partings, anxiety and hope, and the wish to move forward again. Songs based on her experiences accumulated into a musical world. If “Re:Road” was a resolve to walk again, “TERMINAL” expressed feelings linking people and places. Her music has always honestly contained her present time.

She continues live stages and regional events across Japan, group sis activities and solo concerts. Formats change, but directly meeting audiences, singing and sharing stories remains the essence. What matters in explaining her may be less the country of her activities than the fact that she remains a singer-songwriter singing her own stories.

This record is not intended to turn a life into a completed success story. It looks back on a journey still continuing. Future songs and stages bringing new encounters remain unknown. But she has always recorded her life through music, and that approach is unlikely to change greatly.

The girl singing with one guitar on Fukuoka’s small stages now tells her stories on wider stages. That story is still in progress.