Emi Ito and Yumi Ito

Emi Ito / Yumi Ito Born April 1, 1941 Tokoname, Aichi, Japan Died June 15, 2012 (Emi), May 18, 2016 (Yumi) Occupation Actresses Notable role(s) Shobijin First work The Wonderful Nineteen (1959) Notable work Mothra (1961)

Emi Ito (伊藤 エミ,   Itō Emi) and Yumi Ito (伊藤 ユミ,   Itō Yumi) were identical twin Japanese singers and actresses who performed as The Peanuts (ザ・ピーナッツ,   Za Pīnattsu). Active from 1958 to 1975, the duo was one of the first successful J-pop groups, selling over 10 million records. They acted in films by five of the six major Japanese film studios from 1959 to 1968, most memorably in the 1961 Toho kaiju film Mothra as the title character's diminutive singing priestesses, the Shobijin. They would reprise the roles in two subsequent Godzilla films. The Shobijin, or characters inspired by them, have accompanied Mothra in most of her film appearances since then. Emi passed away on June 15, 2012, at the age of 71, and Yumi died on May 18, 2016, at 75.

Selected filmography

• Mothra (1961) as the Shobijin
• Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964) as the Shobijin
• Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (1964) as the Shobijin
• Godzilla: Tokyo SOS (2003) as the Shobijin [stock footage]
• Godzilla Final Wars (2004) as the Shobijin [stock photo]

Selected discography

• Mothra (1961) - "Mothra's Song", "Daughters of Infant Island"
• Godzilla vs. Mothra (1964) - "Mothra's Song", "Sacred Springs", "Mahara Mothra"
• Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (1964) - "Call Happiness", "Sacred Springs"

Gallery

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  The Peanuts in Mothra

• 

  The Peanuts in Mothra vs. Godzilla

• 

  The Peanuts in Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster

Videos

The Peanuts perform on The Ed Sullivan Show on April 3, 1966

Trivia

• The Peanuts and their immediate successors, Pair Bambi, are the only Shobijin actresses to have actually been twins.
• The Peanuts are mentioned in episode 35 of Chibi Godzilla Raids Again as the singers of the "original version" of "Mothra's Song" in-universe.

References

This is a list of references for Emi Ito and Yumi Ito. These citations are used to identify the reliable sources on which this article is based. These references appear inside articles in the form of superscript numbers, which look like this: ^[1]

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