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Mariya Takeuchi

Japanese singer-songwriter

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionApr 26, 2026
Entity authorityQ1143704
Source-derived summary

Mariya Takeuchi (竹内 まりや, Takeuchi Mariya; born 20 March 1955) is a Japanese singer-songwriter and record producer. Regarded as the "Queen of City Pop", Takeuchi is one of the best-selling music artists in Japan with over 16 million records sold. Internationally, her 1985 song "Plastic Love" became a sleeper hit and the catalyst of the 21st century revival of city pop.

Takeuchi was born in Taisha, Hikawa district, now the city of Izumo, Shimane, and attended Keio University. She signed with RCA in 1978, releasing five albums under the label which appeared on the Oricon Charts, including her chart-topping third effort Love Songs (1980). She terminated her contract with RCA in 1981 and announced a temporary hiatus. In 1982, she married singer and songwriter Tatsuro Yamashita. She signed with Moon Records in 1984, and internationally released her sixth studio album Variety that same year to commercial success. She has since released seven more studio albums and one live album. All of her works have continued to appear on the Oricon Charts, and since 2001, each one of her albums have topped it.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Mariya Takeuchi” is japanese singer-songwriter. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Mariya, Takeuchi and Japanese, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1955, 1985, 1978, 1980—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1955-03-20. For this dossier, Mariya, Takeuchi and Japanese is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “japanese singer-songwriter” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1143704. VIAF identifies the subject as 256139568. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1955, 1985, 1978 and 1980.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Mariya Takeuchi”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Mariya Takeuchi primary sources, Mariya Takeuchi archive and Mariya research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Mariya Takeuchi”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Mariya Takeuchi” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.