Singer-Actress Takamine Mieko and Shōchiku Ōfuna’s Cinematic Construction of the Japanese

For over a decade spanning the three years before and after the Pacific War, the Shōchiku Ōfuna studio’sTakamine Mieko (1918–1990) was consistently voted by movie fans as one of the top five female actresses in the country. Despite this popularity and her seminal role as Japan’s first nationally known utau eiga joy (singer-actress), she has been largely overlooked by both Japanese and Western scholars. This article seeks to elevate the actress-singer to her position as the woman who most deeply embodied the qualities embedded in the modern ojōsama persona.