Symphony In August [Movie]
Ai, came to Tokyo alone to be a singer at the age of 16. It was also her mother’s dream. However, the life in Tokyo was strictly harsh. She couldn’t make her debut, and what was worse, she was fired by the agency to launch her.
Every time she almost failed, but she began her activity as a street musician in Shibuya to cleave the path to be a singer. But nobody stopped nor listened to her performance at first. Nevertheless, she decided that she never gave up till “1,000 times street performances.”
One spring day in 2002, Ai sang at an underground shopping center in Shibuya to keep out of the rain. Young president and some college students of student business seminar who happened to walk there were moved by her songs. This was their fatal encounter.
Ai’s single-minded posture touched the heart of young president and the students. They offered to support her activity. They didn’t spare an effort to get more audience even though they had no knowledge of the music industry. They distributed the flyers, appealed to listen to her and even produced and sold the indie CDs.
By such a steady support, she could change her style of performance to singing to her own keyboard accompaniment from singing alone with a radio cassette tape-recorder. Gradually a lot of passersby got to listen, and fixed fans came out little by little, Ai became to be called “an Angel on the Street.”
Ai wished to hold a concert at big music hall some day.
Meanwhile, Ai’s mother in Fukuoka overworked to continue sending money for her in Tokyo only dreaming Ai to be a singer. But she finally broke down because of overworking.
Ai Kawashima is an actual singer-songwriter who is very popular among young people in Japan. Director and scenario writer Akio Nishizawa completed impressive animation based on her autobiography “Saigo no Kotoba”(“The Last Words”).
