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Akiko "Akko" Wada (和田 アキ子, Wada Akiko^?), birth name: Kim Bok-Ja (Korean: 김복자, Hanja: 金福子) Kim is family name. Born April 10, 1950, is a female Japanese singer and television performer of Korean ancestry, originally hailing from Higashinari-ku, Osaka. Like many Zainichi Koreans, she had a legal Korean name and a name for everyday use, which was Japanicized Fukuko Kaneumi (金海福子, Kaneumi Fukuko^?). Due to her above-average height (174 cm or 5'8.5"), she is nicknamed "jotei" (女帝), meaning "empress".

She is signed to the Horipuro entertainment agency.^{[citation needed]}

She played the voice of as King Koopa in Super Mario Bros.: Peach-Hime Kyushutsu Dai Sakusen!.^[1] She has also voiced Marge Simpson in the Japanese version of The Simpsons.^{[citation needed]}

She also performed with the music group M-Flo on the song "Hey!" on their Beat Space Nine album which was released in 2005.^{[citation needed]}

Along with fellow Japanese entertainers Takeshi Kitano, Ken Shimura, and Nobuyoshi Kuwano, she severely criticized TV star Masashi Tashiro after his arrest for voyeurism.^{[citation needed]}

Wada became the first Asian to perform at the famous Apollo Theater in Harlem, New York, when she performed there in September 2008 as part of her 40th debut anniversary tour^[2].

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• japan-zone.com article
• Official website (Japanese)

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