Youmi Kimura

Youmi Kimura is a Japanese singer and lyre performer. She was born in Osaka Prefecture Japan and became famous in 2001 for her song Always With Me Itsumo Nando Demo which served as the closing theme to the popular 2001 anime film Spirited Away by Hayao Miyazaki. Kimura and Miyazaki had great admiration for each others works. She was so moved by his 1997 film Princess Mononoke Mononoke Hime in Japan that she wrote a letter to him enclosed with a copy of her album. Miyazaki wrote her back and mentioned to her about a film he was currently working on called Rin the Chimney Cleaner Entotsukaki no Rin. Hoping Miyazaki would use her material on this film Kimura with her lyricist Wakako Kaku wrote a new song called Itsumo Nando Demo Always With Me. Miyazaki did like the song and intended to use it but the Rin project was eventually scrapped. Later Miyazaki started working on his next film Spirited Away and listened to the song again. Throughout the entire production he would listen to it obsessively. He would later realize that Kimuras song about finding inner peace meshed perfectly with his coming of age story of a girl who finds her inner strength. Kimura also worked with Miyazaki on Howls Moving Castle writing a song for it. Sekai no Yakusoku.