Nami Tamaki is the princess-du-jour of J-Pop. From the age of 3 in the rural Kansai area of Japan, she took singing and dancing lessons and dreamed of pop stardom.

She has had 4 singles and put her first album out in February. Last year, she moved to Tokyo and sent a demo tape into the starmaker anime show, Kidou Senshi Gundam (Mobile Suit Gundam Seed).

They picked her out of 5000 to do the opening theme, "Believe" and another song, "Realize". She was billed as the "mysterious beauty" chosen for Kidou Senshi Gundam. I'm reminded of Ma'aya Sakamoto doing Escaflowne at age 15 to really send her career into orbit.

Corporate Japan seems to have chosen her for the next big idoru. Everybody loves her. She did her 1st concert in Osaka just in May and finished up a string of 4 California concerts with this performance in Dallas. It appears that the Japanese powers-that-be may even be pushing her for an assault on the American market, something I've never seen pulled off.

Turning 16 on June 1, she appears to be the most spunky, energetic, eager, exciting, cute, and child-like dream-come-true kid you ever saw.

In fact, she is a tall, beautiful, mature, hard-working, dedicated, go-getting, very talented singer and dancer doing all the right things for all the right people.

Onstage, she came off as Brittany Spear's good twin. She wore a 2-piece red outfit with pants. Although sporting a bare midriff and butterfly tattoo on the small of her back, there was nothing hanging out and she projected none of the sluttiness so sought after by the American girls gone wild. Hopefully it was a temporary tattoo!

She was backed up by a recorded music track and 8 beautiful female dancers in white pantsuits (no bare midriffs or cleavage). They were also great. No lascivious leering, pouting, winking, eyelash batting, lip licking, thrusting, or groping themselves. They just smiled all the time and danced their little hearts out.

The only song that really stood out for me was called Shining Star, a fast and funky Japanese styling of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. How could anyone not recognize it?

She made great efforts to establish rapport with the audience. She spoke to them a lot in English. She had notes on the stage to help her out and did a wonderful job. A real gutsy gal. The audience responded big time. People love it when you make an effort. More Americans should try it. Look what it did for David Hasselhoff. A genius in Germany!

She proudly (and cutely) announced her 15th? birthday and the happy fact that she just started her 1st year of high school. The audience cheered. But then, they cheered everything she said and did.

Charming, talented, engaging, and endearing, she entertained without resorting to insincere flattery or pandering to sexual fantasy. Disney would (or should) kill for a package like this.

Nobody could resist falling in love with her. You just want to give her a big hug, wish her good luck, and help her on her way!

She is really uniquely positioned to make a big mark in Japan and maybe the world. You might regret the day you missed the chance to see Nami Tamaki when she was just starting out.