Ritsuko Okazaki

Okazaki made her debut as a singer-songwriter in 1993. During the nineties, she continued singing and also wrote songs for seiyūs. From 2000, she became more involved with anime and composed several songs for Wedding Peach, Fruits Basket and Love Hina. She formed the duo, Melocure in 2002 with singer-songwriter Megumi Hinata. In the following two years, the duo released several singles and an album, Melodic Hard Cure. Okazaki also produced songs during these years for artists such as Megumi Hayashibara, Mayumi Iizuka, and Yui Horie. Her work consists mainly of ballads and can be categorised within the spectrum of Japanese music as most closely related to J-Pop. According to her fans, the lyrics of Okazaki's songs are characterized by poetic imagery, depth of emotion, gentle optimism and simplicity.