Ringo Sheena

Yumiko Shiina (椎名 裕美子), known by her stage name Ringo Sheena (椎名 林檎), is a Japanese singer, songwriter and musician.

She is also the founder and lead vocalist of the band Tokyo Jihen.

She describes herself as "a Shinjuku-style writer-performer (新宿系自作自演屋)".

Sheena released her first official single "Kōfukuron" in May 1998, when she was 19 years old.

She subsequently made singles "Kabukichō no Joō" and "Koko de Kiss Shite", the latter becoming her first hit.

This was followed by the release of her first album, Muzai Moratorium, in February 1999.

The album was a major hit.

"Gips" was due to be the next single, but when Sheena had to cancel recording due to illness, "Honnō" was released as the fourth single instead.

Sheena chose a hospital as the setting for the music video for "Honnō".

The fifth and sixth singles, "Gips" and "Tsumi to Batsu", were released at the same time to prevent overlap with the release of her second album, Shōso Strip, in March 2000.

Sheena had initially indicated that she would retire as "Sheena Ringo" when she had released three albums.

At the time the second album was released, she was among the top three Japanese female artists, along with Hikaru Utada and Ayumi Hamasaki, in terms of popularity and annual income.

However, she was uncomfortable with being regarded as an icon, and wanted her career to branch out more from the mainstream.

When she began to produce her third album under the tentative title "Fushigi, Waizatsu, Ekisentorikku (不思議・猥雑・エキセントリック)" she intended to make it her last solo album.

She released the single "Mayonaka wa Junketsu" in March 2001, with the intention of including it on a third album.

The music video was created in a retro-anime style that depicted Ringo as a sort of mid-'60s spy movie heroine.

In 2002, she released a two-disc multilingual cover album Utaite Myōri: Sono Ichi.

Since she felt that a cover album did not count as a bona fide album, she began to work on her third original album.

She was ranked number 36 in a list of Japan's top 100 musicians compiled by HMV in 2003.

Sheena was born with an esophageal atresia in which the esophagus narrows as it approaches the stomach.

Treatment of this involved several operations, at least one of which required her right shoulder blade to be cut open.

These surgeries left Sheena with large scars on her shoulder blades, said to give the impression that an angel's wings had been removed.

In 2003, she released her third album, titled Kalk Samen Kuri no Hana.

Towards the conclusion of her solo career, she released her final solo single, "Ringo no Uta" ("Apple Song"), which was adopted by the national children's song TV program Minna no Uta.

This song had a summation of her career, and the music video included references to all of her previous videos.

In 2004, Sheena undertook the role of music director for the stage play KKP (Kentaro Kobayashi Produce) No. 004 Lens, which is based on the story of her short film Tanpen Kinema Hyaku-Iro Megane.

On May 31, 2004, Sheena formed a band called Tokyo Jihen (東京事変).

The original lineup of Tokyo Jihen was Ringo Sheena (vocals, guitar, melodica), Mikio Hirama (ヒラマミキオ) (guitar, backing vocals); Seiji Kameda (亀田誠治) (bass guitar); H Zett M (stylized as H ZETT M), also known as Masayuki Hiizumi (ヒイズミマサユ機), (keyboard/piano); and Toshiki Hata (刄田綴色) (drums).

The band was first introduced in Sheena's Sugoroku Ecstasy tour and is also featured on Sheena's Electric Mole DVD.

Hiizumi and Hirama left Tokyo Jihen in July 2005, and the band selected two new members: Ryosuke Nagaoka (長岡亮介), also known as Ukigumo (浮雲), on guitar and backing vocals, and Keitarō Izawa (伊澤啓太郎), also known as Ichiyo Izawa (伊澤一葉), on keyboards in September 2005.

The band released its second album featuring the new lineup in January 2006 and played two concerts, at the Osaka-Jo Hall in Osaka and the Budokan in Tokyo, in February 2006.

In late 2006, Ringo announced that she would resume work as a solo artist as the Music Director for the 2007 film Sakuran.

A song featuring her and Soil, "Karisome Otome (Death Jazz version)" was released on iTunes Japan exclusively on November 11, 2006.

It went to the top of the charts and remained there for days.

The album Heisei Fūzoku (2007) is the soundtrack from this film.

Violinist Neko Saitō and the band Soil & "Pimp" Sessions appear on the album.

In June 2007, Sheena was asked to compose music for the kabuki Sannin Kichisa by Kanzaburo Nakamura, for which she composed the ending theme "Tamatebako" (玉手箱, "Casket").

In September 2008, Sheena provided Japanese boy band Tokio with two songs for their singles.

In February 2009, Sheena had written music for Japanese rock duo Puffy AmiYumi.

The duo's member Ami was introduced to Sheena by Hikaru Utada.