 She has had a career as a singer since her debut with the song "Shitamachi no Taiyō" in 1962, for which she won the "newcomer award" of the Japan Record Award.Her 1965 single, "Sayonara wa dance atoni", a cha-cha ballad, later had its melody inspire the 1992 song "Moonlight Densetsu", the theme song for the first four series of "Sailor Moon".A cover by Mariko Takahashi would later appear in another Ghibli film, "Only Yesterday."