Originally posted by Gordonator:
from
the electric new paper
SIAN-AMERICAN GIRL'S ROAD TO FAME:
[b]She wows Asian fans online with sexy
poses
Then Leah Dizon turns J-pop star after heeding
their call to go to Japan
By Chang May Choon, August 29, 2007
UNTIL three years ago, she was just another high-school-going
daughter of a French-American mother and Chinese-Filipino father in
Las Vegas.
She thought of herself as 'weird-looking' because of her pert
Caucasian nose being 'mismatched' with her round Asian face and
small Asian lips.
When visiting family in San Francisco one day, she was invited to a
motor racing show and got offers to become a bikini model and race
queen.
Leah Dizon was about to chase the Hollywood dream, but the growing
popularity of her personal website in Asia changed her mind.
Just as well. Her exotic looks have now become her biggest
appeal.
Look what Leah, now 21, has achieved in the past year:
# She's arguably the first pan-Asian babe to successfully move from
the US to Japan to pursue a showbiz career.
# Her first pictorial book was the third best-selling title in
Japan last year.
# Her name is the 16th most-searched term and the only personality
on Infoseek Japan's top 20 list in the first half of the
year.
# She debuted in Asia this month as a J-pop singer - after the wild
success of Japanese-crooning Korean popster BoA.
# A video clip of hers posing in an itsy bitsy red bikini attracted
more than 818,000 views on YouTube.
Singapore's netizens call her 'super chio' (slang for pretty) on
Sgforum.
How did she manage to make it big in Japan?
It all started with her US-based website, which attracted an
amazing two million hits in a year.
Netizens from as far as Japan and China became fans of her racy
pictures she posted online - in skimpy lingerie for modelling jobs
and dressing up as a Japanese school girl.
'Come to Japan!' her Japanese supporters beckoned.
So she did. A big fan of J-pop music who first travelled alone to
Japan at age 14, she made a demo tape singing her idol Namie
Amuro's hit song, I Will, and sent it to various talent agencies in
Japan.
Mid last year, she packed her bags for Japan after inking a
contract with the major record label Victor Entertainment (Love
Psychedelico, Smap).
Despite speaking little Japanese, Leah's doll-like face has hogged
advertisement billboards and magazine covers in Tokyo, and toy
giant Bandai roped her in to design and launch its new clothing
line, Sweet Razzer.
CUTE BUT SEXY
Her image follows Japanese sex icon Kumi Koda's ero-kakkoii (erotic
cool) style - which means she can look Bambi-eyed cute one moment
and provocatively sexy the next.
Check out her official website (www.leah-dizon.net) and you'll find
plenty of kawaii (Japanese for cute) pictures of her, together with
cutesy English blog entries of how she gets flustered over learning
Japanese and being too shy in public.
Leah said in an interview with Ign.com in 2005 when she was still
modelling in the US: 'I'm quiet and shy. I usually only talk enough
not to offend anyone.
'Some people think I come off as rude, or stuck-up, but really I'm
just kinda shy. It takes me a while to warm up to people. But once
I open up, I'm really a loud ass.'
On the musical front, Leah is slated to launch her first
full-length album, Destiny Line, on 12 Sep in Japan. She has
released three CD singles which sold reasonably well.
The first two - Softly and Koi Shiyou (Love Me) - both debuted at a
decent No.7 on the Oricon chart.
Koi Shiyou entered Singapore HMV's J-pop/K-pop chart at No3 two
weeks ago. It comes with a bonus DVD and a 100-page pictorial book,
Hello! Leah.
Hikaru Utada, one of Japan's biggest pop icons, is a fan of
Leah's.
During a variety show in March, the New York-born Hikaru said in
English: 'Hello, I saw you on TV saying that you don't have any
friends in Japan yet and you're lonely and stressed-up over
it.
'So I was thinking, maybe I could write you a letter or something,
and I'd tell you this now, I'm also your fan, I heard that you like
my music...'
At which point Leah jumped out from behind her and thanked her in
Japanese. It turned out to be a surprise arranged by the show's
producers, which sparked a new friendship between the duo.[/b]
utada hikaru 
