Minako Honda

 ( 1967 Births ) 

While Kudo was enrolled at Tokyo Seitoku University Junior & Senior High School in 1983, she would visit Harajuku because the record label Bondo Kikaku was recruiting a new member for the group called Shojotai. Bondo Kikaku had also participated in the show Star Tanjō!. While still working with Bondo Kikaku in 1984, she heard a demo of Meiko Nakahara's song "Kimitachi Kiwi Papaya Mango da ne", which had just become a hit, this lead Kudo to believe Bondo Kikaku's President, Keiji Takasugi was taking the company in the wrong direction, and would make her decide to become a solo artist.

In 1984, Kudo performed at the Nagasaki Kayo Festival, which was a television contest to where teenagers and young adults competed to become new Japanese Idols by winning what was called the grand prix. On the show, Honda was highly evaluated by judges who noted her powerful voice and overwhelming singing ability which led her to win the Grand Prix part of the competition.

Following her success in the Nagasaki Kayo Festival, Kudo would make her debut under the name Minako Honda with the song "Satsui no Vacane", this lead her to receive a Japan Record Award for the best new artist of that year.

Looking to follow up on the success of "Satsui no Vacane", Honda would release "1986 nen no Marilyn", in which a controversy would arise from her performances, in which Honda would shake her hips suggestively while wearing a navel costume, at the time this was not common for idols and was thought to be offensive.

In 1988, she made an attempt to revive her dwindling career by forming an all girl rock group called "Minako with Wild Cats", the group however would disband a year later due to lack of any hit songs.

In 1990 a turning point came for her career. Honda had auditioned for a part in the Tokyo production of Broadway play Miss Saigon, she won out over 15,000 other candidates for the part of Kim. While still starring in the role as Kim in Miss Saigon in the 1990s, Honda visited Vietnam. There she visited the famous Củ Chi tunnels just outside Ho Chi Minh City. She was found by Vietnamese authorities having photographs taken of her in the Củ Chi tunnels draped only in a Vietnamese flag. She was fined and expelled from Vietnam shortly after.

• Note: All releases after 2005 are posthumous.

• Passenger (October 25, 1988)
• Hunter x Hunter (1999, Ending no. 1 – Kaze no Uta)

• Miss Saigon (1992–1993) – Kim
• Fiddler on the Roof (1994–1998) – Hodel
• The King and I (1996–2002) – Tuptim
• Les Misérables (1997–2001) – Éponine
• Himeyuri (2002–2004) – Kimi
• Twelfth Night (2003) – A Cat
• Claudia (2004) – Claudia

• Minako Honda's official page
• Web page by Columbia record
• Web page by Universal (EMI) Music Japan
• Live for Life web page
• Minako Honda discography
• Nippop – Minako Honda Profile
• Japan will miss its Miss Saigon MSN-Mainichi Daily News