I have been looking for a while for Japanese chansonniers, but without any success so far, so I thought I might ask here. I am not thinking of someone like Edith Piaf (that would lead me to Misora Hibari I guess, or some other enka hero (please forgive me if you are French)), but rather of someone like the Japanese equivalent of Brassens, Gainsbourg, Nick Drake, Paolo Conte, Paco Ibanez, Bob Dylan or maybe even Tom Waits, Chet Baker (yes, my definition of chansonnier might be a little broad, I admit) or for something more contemporary Beirut or Bright Eyes.
Any suggestions you might have will be most welcome.
Many thanks!

morita douji

sai yoshiko

phew

kenichi fumoto

ichiko aoba

tokyo kid brothers

fuchigami to funato

kazuki tomokawa

the kokkessies

rocket or chiritori

Many many thanks for these links!
A few of those are very similar to what I am looking for, the others also sound nice.
And I did not know a single one of them.

Thanks to your post umetani666, I started and now can't stop listening to morita douji. I was trying to find something like this for quite some time. Big thanks.

glad you found something of interest there. i would really recommend kenichi fumoto's 美化, it's one of the best contemporary japanese albums.
and yeah, morita douji is awesome.

btw, i forgot to mention たま, a band that got me into this whole japanese folk scene. this is very cool:

[ファブリス]

I used to really enjoy a radio stream from Amidara

http://amidara.com/

However I think they stopped doing the stream.

http://amidara.com/uploads/mp3/chan_bluk...11LIVE.mp3

Nice. I have enjoyed the links provided very much.

Thank you.

Me too. Thank you

Not exactly on the subject but I didn't think it was worth creating a new topic.

Anyway, I've just come across a site that has lyrics of japanese songs analysed. They say it's for the middle aged but hey, it's me

http://ongakukan.music.coocan.jp
http://ongakukan.music.coocan.jp/musicst...ippai.html

Is French folk music the same as a chansonnier?

I wouldn't say that Brassens or Brel were doing folk music but I find it difficult to precisely define what's still folk and what already not.