The late, legendary Japanese rock artist Yutaka Ozaki (尾崎 豊, Ozaki Yutaka) was on born 29 November 1965 in Tokyo and rose to fame in the 1980s, gaining anti-hero status among the country's youth for his protest songs of angst and rebellion. He began playing the piano in 1975 and first performed live in 1978 at his school's cultural festival. He signed with CBS Sony five years later and kicked off his professional career in 1983, scoring his first hit single that year while he was still at high school, "Jūgo no Yoru" (15の夜, "A night at Fifteen"), and its follow-up Seventeen's Map (十七歳の地図, Jū-nana-sai no Chizu, literal translation: "The Map of a Seventeen Year Old"), the title track of his debut album, which was also released in 1983 and struck a universal chord with a repressed teenage generation. Yutaka Ozaki later confounded his rebellious reputation with an 18-month prison sentence for drug possession in 1987. He went on to release five more albums—Kaikisen - Tropic of Graduation (回帰線, 1985), Kowareta Tobira kara - Through the Broken Door (壊れた扉から, 1985), Gairoju - Trees Lining a Street (街路樹, 1988), Tanjou - Birth (誕生, 1990), and Hounetsu e no Akashi - Confession for Exist (放熱への証, 1992)—before his untimely death on 25 April 1992. The cause of death was reported as pulmonary edema after he was found unconscious in a Tokyo alleyway. However, fans have speculated over the years that he was in fact murdered. It was reported that over 37,00 people gathered at Tokyo’s Gokokuji Temple for his funeral.
