Mari Iijima
飯島 真理
Iijima atTekkoshocon in 2010
Born	(1963-05-18)May 18, 1963 (age 61) Tsuchiura,Ibaraki, Japan
Education	Kunitachi College of Music
Occupations	Actress singer
Years active	1982 (1982)–present
Notable work	The Super Dimension Fortress Macross asLynn Minmay
Musical career
Genres	J-pop pop city pop synthpop
Instruments	Vocals piano keyboards
Years active	1983 (1983)–present
Labels	Marimusic/BounDee
Musical artist
Website	www.marimusic.com

Mari Iijima (飯島 真理,Iijima Mari, born May 18, 1963) is a Japanese actress and singer. She writes and produces most of her own music, and plays the piano and other instruments. After being signed toJVC Victor in 1982, Mari first became known for hervoice-acting role asLynn Minmay in theanimeMacross. Her debut original album,Rosé, was released in 1983, which was produced by composerRyuichi Sakamoto. She lives in Los Angeles, California.

Iijima was born inTsuchiura, Ibaraki. Her original demo tape was picked up byJVC Victor in 1982 and she was signed to the record company as a singer-songwriter. Soon afterward, she was asked to audition for the role ofLynn Minmay inThe Super Dimension Fortress Macross by the label and the producers chose her to play the role. The series quickly became a mega hit and brought Iijima to stardom. Her debut album,Rosé, containing noMacross tracks, had lyrics and music written by her.^[1] It was produced byRyuichi Sakamoto, who used the newYamaha DX7digital synthesizer (released the same year) while producing her album.^[2]Rosé debuted at number 10 on the charts in September 1983, and she started her career as a singer-songwriter.^[1]

Iijima moved to Los Angeles in 1989 to expand her music career.^{[citation needed]} That same year, she appeared as a guest vocalist onVan Dyke Parks' albumTokyo Rose. It was around this time that she married James Studer, who had been her producer on her 1988 albumMiss Lemon.^[3] The couple had two children, Andy and Ryan, before separating in 2001.^[4]

After releasing her first independent (and first English language) album,No Limit, she was nominated for the 2000 Los Angeles Music Awards' Best Pop Artist for the album and she was in the final four for the award.^{[citation needed]} She won the best Asian song for her trackUnspoken Love from the albumWonderful People at the Just Plain Folks Awards in 2006 and performed as a guest performer.^[5]

In 2006, she reprised her role as Lynn Minmay inADV Films' English-language release ofMacross,^[6] which made her the second Japanese voice actor to reprise her role in an English anime dub (following onlyMiyuki Sawashiro).^[7][8][9] She dedicated her performance in the ADV dub toArihiro Hase, the Japanese voice actor of Hikaru Ichijo inMacross and a close friend of Iijima. She maintained good relations with Hase's mother after his death by suicide in 1996.^[10]

Iijima released her twenty-first studio album, calledEcho, in August 2009. The title was taken from the nymph characterEcho that appears inEcho and Narcissus. The album's theme is unrequited love.^[11]

She has continued to perform into the 2020s, both live and in videos, but a Tokyo concert planned for August 2020 was postponed to January 11, 2021 (then to August 28, 2021), due to theCOVID-19 crisis. Iijima stated on her website that she "likes the ring of '1.11'" as a sign for the future.

Wikimedia Commons has media related toMari Iijima.

• Official blog(in Japanese)
• Official website
• Official website (Victor Entertainment)
• Mari Iijima atAnime News Network's encyclopedia
• Mari Iijima atIMDb
• Mari Iijima convention appearances on AnimeCons.com
• Barder, Ollie (June 22, 2017)."Mari Iijima on Music, 'Macross' and Minmay".Forbes. RetrievedOctober 29, 2019.

• 1963 births
• Living people
• Anime singers
• Japanese emigrants to the United States
• Japanese radio personalities
• Japanese television actresses
• Japanese video game actresses
• Japanese women pop singers
• Japanese women singer-songwriters
• Japanese women record producers
• People from Tsuchiura
• Singers from Ibaraki Prefecture
• Victor Entertainment artists
• Voice actresses from Ibaraki Prefecture
• Warner Music Japan artists
• 20th-century Japanese actresses
• 20th-century Japanese women singers
• 20th-century Japanese singers
• 21st-century Japanese actresses
• 21st-century Japanese women singers
• 21st-century Japanese singers

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use mdy dates from August 2021
• Articles with hCards
• Articles containing Japanese-language text
• All articles with unsourced statements
• Articles with unsourced statements from October 2014
• Commons category link from Wikidata
• Articles with Japanese-language sources (ja)
• Official website different in Wikidata and Wikipedia