Believe it or not, I first started out with nothing but the deepest disdain for Hekiru. It was in early 1997 when I learned about Hekiru through Magic Knight Rayearth, in which she plays the main character Shidou Hikaru. Now, at the time, I had no interest in seiyuu, and Hikaru was the Magic Knight I liked least. But my friend liked Hikaru, and he had a little book that listed seiyuu and their major roles. That's probably when I learned her name. She hadn't done anything big aside from Rayearth, really. I was more interested in Kasahara Hiroko (Fuu's seiyuu) because she had a lovely voice and had sung songs from Patlabor and the opening to Romeo no Aoi Sora and such. I think the book had pictures of the seiyuu, but I don't remember her making much of an impression on me. My friend had also bought the Rayearth Best Song Book (which is excellent by the way), and I do remember joking that the reason Hikaru did not have her own image song was because Hekiru couldn't sing worth jack. To which my friend vehemently protested, "Yes she can!" At that time I was still studying at the University of Michigan, but then I graduated and went home for the summer. I was completely in love with Rayearth so I bought Rayearth Song Book and Song Book 2. And promptly decided that Shiina Hekiru was one hell of an awful singer. I still stand by my opinion that Hekiru's singing in those CDs is the worst I've ever heard, and that includes 80's idol singers. No control, voice cracking left and right, and way off key. It was just ugly. My brother and I spent the rest of the summer ripping on Hekiru's singing. I felt no respect for Hekiru at all... I don't know how I knew she was popular in Japan, but I simply attributed her success to marketing, because she sure didn't display the talent for it! We regarded her rather impressive list of CD releases with more than a little suspicion, not to mention fear. I came to Japan at the end of the summer, to enter a 10 month Japanese language program at the Inter-Univeristy Center in Yokohama. I was extremely surprised to discover the extent of Hekiru's popularity. It didn't make any sense to me. She hadn't done any major roles aside from Rayearth, which isn't that big a hit, certainly not on the caliber of Sailor Moon, so I couldn't understand why she would have so many fans. In addition, during this time, I was becoming a massive Kasahara Hiroko fan. She has a lovely voice and I love her singing. As I listened to more and more Hiroko, the disparity between her lovely singing and what I knew of Hekiru's "talent" through Rayearth became all the more apparent. The next thing was the Rayearth OVA 3 afureco in October that I had the good fortune to be invited to. For a detailed report, check my Hiroko page. Anyway, Hekiru wasn't there since she was too busy. My friend had met her before and apparently she rubbed him the wrong way because he kept saying she was very "urusai" ("picky") and that she was really particular about getting her photo taken, and that she exerted complete artistic control over her photos, hence the fact that all her photos look the same, that she refused to answer questions if her agent was not with her etc etc. Basically he painted a rather unflattering picture of her personality, to the point where I had an image of a really bitchy ojousama in my mind. They say that there is no smoke without a fire, so maybe Hekiru is that way. But I can't see her as being a really unpleasant person. I mean, right now I've seen so much and heard so much of her... Her personality as far as I can tell is, well, nice. I don't think she's an angel or anything, because when she gets serious she really gets serious and obstinate. But I think she cares very much for the people around her and has a very deep emotional capacity. She is always very polite and humble despite her status; one of her staff said that when they were riding the train, and being very depressed and worried because they were going to miss their flight due to their taking the wrong train, Hekiru still immediately gave up her seat to an old man who had stepped in. Well, maybe that doesn't mean much, but the way I see it, Hekiru puts high value on being a "good person". Getting back to the story, for some reason I was starting to get interested in Hekiru. I continued to rip on her, but I knew myself that I was definitely beginning to pay her more attention that would be normal. Was it her looks? Her (to me at the time) mysterious, inexplicable popularity despite her shortage of singing ability? Whatever the answer, I was curious enough to buy her "Hyouryuusha" CD single. I wanted to know if she had gotten better since Rayearth. Also, another friend told me it wasn't bad. I simply had to find out for myself - Why the heck is Hekiru so popular?! I don't think I made a very unbiased judgement... I thought "Hyouryuusha" was a bad song badly sung by both parties, and "Well, I guess it's not that bad of a song and Hekiru isn't singing that bad but still this is Hekiru we're talking about" was the reluctant evaluation of "246". Overall, it was "Okay, Hekiru has gotten better. Now she's not atrocious, she's simply bad" and with that, I sold off that CDS to my aforementioned Hikaru/Hekiru fan friend when I went to the US for winter break. But... that's not how it ended, of course... How did I go from anti-fan to worshipper? Read on to find out... *drumroll*

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