{"id":687034,"date":"2025-08-25T12:30:27","date_gmt":"2025-08-25T09:30:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/ado-is-japans-biggest-star-that-youll-never-actually-see\/"},"modified":"2025-08-25T12:30:27","modified_gmt":"2025-08-25T09:30:27","slug":"ado-is-japans-biggest-star-that-youll-never-actually-see","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/ado-is-japans-biggest-star-that-youll-never-actually-see\/","title":{"rendered":"Ado Is Japan\u2019s Biggest Star (That You\u2019ll Never Actually See)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\tIt only takes seconds of an Ado performance to grasp the hold the Japanese singer has over her adoring fans in the crowd. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe 22-year-old singer \u2013 who actually refers to herself as an \u201cUtaite,\u201d a Japanese word for a typically amateur singer who uses an avatar to post song covers online \u2013 shot to the top of music charts in her home country when she was just a teenager. She\u2019s performed at Japan\u2019s National Stadium, which holds over 60,000 fans. Despite Ado\u2019s overwhelming fame, even her biggest fan wouldn\u2019t be able to pick her out of a crowd.<\/p>\n

\n\tAdo, keeping in line with the cultural norm for Utaite singers, has never revealed her identity, instead using an anime<\/a> character-like avatar online. In person, during one of her heart-pounding and thrilling concerts, the singer performs in the \u201cAdo box\u201d \u2013 a shadowed metal box on stage that allows her to perform live without being seen. Photos and videos are not allowed at her shows, making the atmosphere all about living in the moment.<\/p>\n

\n\tWrapp<\/a>ing up her biggest world tour to date, Hibana, Sunday, Ado\u2019s global profile only continues to grow. Below, the singer speaks with THR about why she doesn\u2019t want to reveal her identity, how she felt before heading out on her first overseas tour, and bringing Japanese music and culture to the world.<\/p>\n

\n\tCan you share a bit about your decision not to reveal your identity and why it\u2019s important to you as an artist?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tIn Japan, I\u2019m known as\u2026 well, I call myself an Utaite rather than an artist. There\u2019s this culture in Japan that started from the internet \u2013 there\u2019s a video sharing platform called Niconico where Vocaloid (a voice synthesizer software) songs are covered by Utaite as well. The people post videos, but not under their real names. They come up with a new nickname for themselves. They come up with a new sort of anime character design as an icon for themselves.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs a young child, I was very much drawn by the Vocaloid genre and the people as well. I had an inferiority complex in terms of how I looked, so when I found the culture, I realized that this was finally something that I could do. This is how my so-called mysterious career sort of evolved. I started with posting on the internet and that has led to where I I\u2019m now.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou started quite young. Do you feel that not showing your identity and being able to perform in a \u201cmysterious\u201d way, as you put it, has been different for you as a woman? In the entertainment industry, particularly younger women, are often forced into a box.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s actually something I\u2019ve never thought about, really. But now that you\u2019ve mentioned it, it does ring true. In the Utaite world, there are male and female singers, but it\u2019s not really about hiding gender. So, I\u2019ve never really thought about it in those terms, but when you think of artists or your singers in general<\/a>, it\u2019s a lot about the visual aspect.<\/p>\n

\n\tThere\u2019s the visual aspect and then the song. Then they sing and do live performances, go on tv, that\u2019s the usual route that people take. But I never really had to think about that because I come from the utaite background. My voice isn\u2019t exactly what you\u2019d call feminine \u2013 it\u2019s very low and sometimes I\u2019d be shouting. My voice has that punkish quality to it as well when I\u2019m singing. Maybe there\u2019s not so much of that feminine side that people really think of as feminine in general to my voice. It\u2019s not about being masculine or feminine. My voice goes beyond that because you\u2019ve taken away the visual aspect of it as well.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat was your thought process going into your world tour last year? Were there any concerns? What did you think when you saw your extremely dedicated fanbase here?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tBefore the first tour last year, I was thinking, what is going to happen? There was a part of me that was looking forward to it, but there\u2019s also another part of me that was quite anxious because I hadn\u2019t a clue as to how it was going to shake out. Actually, I had never been abroad before up until then, so all I knew about countries abroad was what I saw on TV or the internet. I couldn\u2019t wrap my head around me going overseas, and beyond that, to actually perform not just in the countries in Asia close to Japan but [also] going all the way over to North America and Europe. That I had fans, there was something that I couldn\u2019t quite believe. I was also thinking about the response, how the audience would respond as well. I thought perhaps, depending on the country, I might get booed at or people might get bored and leave. I had to really gear up and decide that come what may, [I had] that kind of mentality.<\/p>\n

\n\tMy first show abroad was in Bangkok, Thailand. The show started, and I was waiting side stage for my time to go on. Then I heard the crowd roar, and I was just ecstatic. Actually, the cheering was louder and more powerful than in Japan, and I thought, \u201cOh my goodness, there are so many people that were waiting for me.\u201d I realized I had nothing to be worried about and realized that all I needed to do was just concentrate on what was before me. From there, all my anxieties disappeared. It resulted in a very fun tour for me. Looking back on it now, my fears were actually something really tiny.<\/p>\n

\n\tThere\u2019s been an influx of Japanese artists breaking into the U.S. market over this last<\/strong> year. It\u2019s fair to say you\u2019re one of the artists leading the charge in this globalization \u2013 your latest tour is one of the biggest world tours a Japanese act has ever undergone. Do you feel pressure from this, or is it something that brings you pride?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tWhen I look back at my first tour, it was more about being excited about seeing many places abroad, that type of feeling. I wish I had more pride as a Japanese artist, but it was more about that, so I wasn\u2019t really thinking about leading the J-music scene abroad. I was still stuck on not being able to believe I was going abroad. Looking back on it now, I wish I had more pride as a professional. I\u2019m ashamed to say that I didn\u2019t back then. Having come back from that tour, I did a show at the Japan National Stadium. After that, I began to think about more of where I stand as a Japanese artist on the global scene musically. I felt a sense of pride emerge as well. As well as pressure, too. Pride, I\u2019m saying in a good way. [This] has led to the new tour. This time around, my tour has grown in scale. I\u2019m thinking more about how I can bring more of the Japanese music, more of the Japanese culture to the audience. I\u2019m thinking about how I can get them to know more about that. I\u2019m thinking more and more about my standing as a Japanese artist abroad,<\/p>\n

\n\tIs there anything you\u2019d like to add about your new world tour or anything else?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tI am touring the world with my music, hoping to spread Japanese music and Japanese culture. Beyond that, I\u2019m just hoping for the happiness of everybody that comes to my shows, whether they be Japanese or not. Yes, I am, as a Japanese artist, bringing my music and my culture to the world, but that\u2019s not my goal. It is more about people enjoying my music and as a result, they feel happy. I do hope that they become more interested in Japanese music and Japanese culture through my music, but in the end, I\u2019m wishing for everybody\u2019s happiness.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It only takes seconds of an Ado performance to grasp the hold the Japanese singer has over her adoring fans in the crowd. The 22-year-old singer \u2013 who actually refers to herself as an \u201cUtaite,\u201d a Japanese word for a typically amateur singer who uses an avatar to post song covers online \u2013 shot to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":687035,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/20250806_VK-ED_VT_9758-e1756089733676.jpg?w=1440&h=810&crop=1","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[124783,120243,39579],"class_list":["post-687034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-social-mediaa","tag-international","tag-j-pop","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=687034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687034\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/687035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=687034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=687034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=687034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}