K & J-Pop Fans: Looking for Strong, Big-Voiced Female Pop Stars, Aretha & Janis Style

Superfly? although singer Shiho Ochi is a bit more Joss Stone than Aretha

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izOOizwXfnY

http://mbmelodies.tumblr.com/post/22681848230/a-little-on-that-marty-friedman-what-is-j-pop

the basic assumption you have is that liking japanese anime/manga = liking j-pop.

Yeah, this is maybe an easy mistake to make but very wrongheaded. I generally don't care much for the former but love the latter.

Yuki isn't exactly what contenderizer's talking about here, but she definitely has one of the more distinctive voices in j-pop.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zd1ggCENFto

Utada Hikaru is another good one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fR-IIj4YClI

I have a lot of other favorites, but I can't think of many that stray from that general high-pitched range.

woah, timely revive. was thinking of this thread last night, sorry that i'd let it die. anyway, a bunch of great recommendations from two weeks ago. lee michelle is amazing, and i fucking LOVE that superfly track. it's exactly the kind of singing i was hoping to find when starting his thread, and i'm a sucker for 70s metal. also, been hearing about shiina ringo & tokyo jihen for years on ILM, but had never checked her/them out. great stuff. thanks again to all who responded.

the basic assumption you have is that liking japanese anime/manga = liking j-pop.

again, not to mutilate a dead horse, but hatsune miku was an example chosen for specific reasons and wasn't meant as a general exemplar of all j/k-pop. i do think she's an instructive example when talking about the way japanese & korean pop culture is often marketed and (mis-)understood in the US, but i don't wanna get distracted by an argument about that.

also like that yuki song a hell of a lot, and it does help answer my initial question, cuz she's got a bit of that joan jett, punk style, "fuck you" rasp and swagger (lol, despite the fact that she's basically offering herself to the listener, check the video)