The Peanuts

The Peanuts was a Japanese vocal group consisting of twin sisters Emi Itō and Yumi Itō. They were born in Tokoname, Aichi, on April 1, 1941. Soon after the twins' birth, the family moved to Nagoya. In their early years they sang Japanese covers of standards, foreign hits, and Japanese folk songs; then they began singing originals, written by their producer, Hiroshi Miyagawa, and such songwriters as Koichi Sugiyama and Rei Nakanishi. Later they embarked on a brief acting career, notably in the 1961 film Mothra and Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster. They are first performers of "Koi no Vacance". The pair retired from performance in 1975. The duo is remembered most for its versions of European songs and for a handful of Japanese pop songs, such as "Furimukanaide". Its performing style played heavily on their being monozygotic twins with voices only slightly apart in timbre. Emi Itō died on June 15, 2012, at the age of 71.