Utada Hikaru, born January 19, 1983), also known by her fans as Hikki is a third culture singer-songwriter, arranger and record producer in Japan. She is well-known internationally for her two theme song contributions to Square Enix's Kingdom Hearts video game series

Utada's first official Japanese album First Love became the best-selling album of all time in Japan with over 7.65 million copies sold to date in Japan alone (10.056 million worldwide to date),[2][3] cementing her status in the music industry in Japan. The release of her later works only help her reign as one of Japan's top artist, with three of her Japanese studio albums being rank in the Top 10 all-time best-selling albums in Japan ranking (#1, #4, #[4]. She has had 12 #1 hits to date on the Oricon Singles chart, with a record five of them being million-sellers and four placing in the Top 100 List of Japan's All-Time Best-selling Singles (the former record for a female solo or group artist she has tied with Namie Amuro, Pink Lady, and Ayumi Hamasaki )[5][6].

In addition, Utada has won the Nihon Golden Disk "Song of the Year" award for fourteen of her singles since 2000 and has won the Golden Disc "Pop/Rock Album of the Year" award for all four of her Japanese studio albums.[7] In 2003, Utada was ranked the #24 Japanese pop artist in its survey of "Top 100 Japanese Pop Artists of All Time" by HMV,[8] and #10 in HMV's "Top 30 Best Japanese Singers of All Time" in 2006.[9]

In 2007, her single "Flavor of Life" reached #2 in worldwide digital download single sales with over 7.2 million downloads[10] (the only non-American artist to hold such a distinction), and she sold a total of 12 million digital ringtones and songs in that same year, making her the first artist ever to have this many digital sales in a year's time.[11]

Early life and musical career beginnings
Hikaru Utada was born in New York to Japanese parents with roots in the Japanese music industry. Her father, Teruzane Utada, was a record producer while her mother, Junko Utada, was an enka singer, performing under the stage name "Keiko Fuji." Junko Utada’s mother, and Hikaru’s grandmother, was a blind shamisen player (ごぜ, or goze). Utada made her first professional recording at the age of twelve. She did her recordings with her mother, releasing songs under a band named “U3” (also known as Utada 3) until 1996 when she started her first solo project, "I'll be Stronger." The "Cookin' With Moses Vocal" from this project was called the "Cookin' With Gas Vocal" on the promotional release. "I’ll Be Stronger" was the first song Utada wrote. It was released under the artist name "Cubic U," a mathematical reference to her being the third Utada 'power,' which was Hikaru’s pseudonym before becoming a superstar in Japan. The song failed to release in the United States, and in 1997, she started her next project, though at first she was hesitant.

"Watching my parents, doing crazy things to continue working on music, um, I thought I never want to be musician, It's crazy, and it's unstable... Just, it looks like a very hectic life, and I didn't really understand the passion for music they have back then. But I ended up following my parents' footstep and carry on the family business and I am a musician now as well and, now I understand the driving passion behind it, and that's ok," she said in an interview
Cubic U released her debut single "Close to You," which was a cover of The Carpenters' song. She then released her debut album Precious, but it failed to be released in the United States due to restructuring issues at her then record label Capitol Records. In an MTV interview (on MTV's You Hear It First, October 2004), Utada explained: "Someone in Japan heard it—at a Japanese record company—and he said, 'Oh, can't you write in Japanese? You speak Japanese… And I said ok, why not? I'll try. Then I gave it a shot, and the Japanese album just really blow up in Japan."[1] She released Precious in Japan on January 28, 1998, and then later re-released it on March 31, 1999 to much better success. It has sold 702,060 copies to date in Japan, making it a significant hit for an all-English album in that market.


Utada moved to Tokyo in late 1998 and attended Seisen International School, and later the American School in Japan, while continuing to record on a new contract with Toshiba-EMI. Leading up to the release of her first album First Love, Utada released two successful million-selling single: "Automatic / Time Will Tell" and "Movin' on without you." "Automatic / Time Will Tell" eventually became the 2nd most successful single by a female solo artist behind Namie Amuro's "Can You Celebrate?" as well as one of the most successful debut single to be release in the country.[13] The success of Utada's singles eventually lead the album First Love to sell over 7 million units in Japan alone (with an additional 3 million overseas, bringing it to a sum of at least 10 million units[4]), becoming the highest selling album in Japanese History.[14] Due to popular demand, Utada later release the song "First Love" as a single as well. By the end of the year, Utada was able to be rank #5 on a Japanese radio station "Tokio Hot 100 Airplay's" Top 100 Artists of the 20th Century by the station and its listeners.[15]


As it had been two years since First Love was release, the album Distance was highly anticipated among her fans, having the largest first-week sales for any album in music history, with over 3 million units sold.[18] At the end of 2001, it became the most sold album for any J-music artist worldwide or in the residential industry, with 4.469 million copies sold in Japan alone. After Distance, Utada released a single that was dedicated to the female victim of a murder case in Ikeda, Osaka entitled "Final Distance."

After recovering and finally releasing Deep River, Utada eventually went back to promoting. While there were no TV appearances, she promoted her album in magazine and radio interviews. The Oricon count of the album was another amazing first-week sales debut for Utada, with 2.35 million sold for the week post its release day. Oricon reports that sales eventually surpassed 3.60 million, making her the only singer or group in Japanese music history to have three consecutive albums surpass the triple-platinum (3 million) sold mark, by RIAJ standards. It was also her third consecutive time to hold the #1 position on Oricon's Yearly Albums chart[20] and became the eighth best selling album of all time in Japan.[4]

In 2003, Utada's promotional and personal life schedules got more active due to her marriage and an imposing agreement with Island Records in America to release a proper full-English debut album. New Japanese-language singles would therefore come few and far between, but Utada did release "Colors" on January 29, 2003, which was her only single release for 2003. This song was distinctive because it featured heavy ethereal and experimental tones for the first time in Utada's discography, something that would display itself fruitfully in all the Ultra Blue and Heart Station eras' singles. It became her longest charting single ever with a 45 week trajectory on the Oricon Singles chart, selling 881,000 copies, and was #3 on the Yearly Singles chart.

Her first singles compilation album Utada Hikaru Single Collection Vol.1 was released on March 31, 2004. It became the best-selling album of 2004 in Japan, making her the only solo or group artist to reach #1 four times on the yearly charts. It was also the first compilation album to reach #1 in six years on the yearly charts, and the first compilation album to reach #1 in twenty six years by a female artist.[21] Its success was a particularly amazing achievement, since it received very little promotion and contained no new material or photos. Moreover, it charted longer on the Oricon Albums chart longer than any other Utada release to date, over 2 years. It was also her first to debut at #1 on the United World Charts, the first time in music history for any Asian artist.[22] The album would go on to sell over 2.575 million units in Japan, making it the 34th best-selling album ever in the country.[4] A month later, on April 21, she released her only Japanese single in 2004, "Dareka no Negai ga Kanau Koro," which topped the singles chart for two consecutive weeks and sold 365,000 units by the year's end and was also the main theme song for Casshern, her now ex-husband's directorial debut.


The fourth single from her English Exodus album, "You Make Me Want to Be a Man," was released in October 2005. "Devil Inside" became a club smash in the U.S. and topped the Billboard Hot Dance/Club Airplay charts. Both the Exodus album and "You Make Me Want to Be a Man" single were released in the U.K., with different artwork from the USA and Japanese versions. In October 2005, "You Make Me Want to Be a Man" became another #1 on the Billboard Dance chart.

A year after the international releases and promotion of Exodus, Utada moved back to Tokyo and returned to the Japanese music scene. Leading up the release of her fourth album Ultra Blue, Utada released a string of successful hit singles: "Colors" (#1), "Dareka no Negai ga Kanau Koro" (#1), "Be My Last", (#1), "Passion" (#4), and "Keep Tryin'" (#4). The digital single " This Is Love" was also release to promote the album, netting in at least 1,000,000 digital downloads and ranking as the ninth most downloaded song of 2006 at iTunes Japan.[28]

Ultra Blue later became available on the iTunes Japan online music store, charting at #4 on the 2006 yearly download rankings[32]. Two weeks after the release of Ultra Blue, Utada began a nationwide tour titled "Utada United 2006" on June 30, 2006 which ended on September 12, 2006. This was Utada's second concert tour after her debut tour "Bohemian Summer 2000" and one performance at Budokan Dome in 2004. Aside from her Japanese work, the tour's set list featured three tracks from her 2004 English-language album, Exodus. On September 20, 2006, Exodus was re-released in Japan in addition to releasing "Utada Hikaru Single Collection" Volume 4 in September 2006.

The year 2007 ended with "Flavor of Life" single becoming the best seller of 2007 and with Utada being voted "#1 Favorite Artist of 2007" by Oricon's annual readers poll, three years after she was last voted #1 on the poll.[27] She also sold a cumulative total of 12 million digital ringtones and songs in 2007, making her the first Japanese artist ever to have this many digital sales in one year.[11]

Hikaru's name variations have been a source of some minor confusion in the past. Her legal name at birth is Utada Hikaru For her original U.S. debut album, she used the name Cubic U. However, she gained very little fame at this stage in her career. For her Japanese recordings, she has used the name Utada Hikaru with her given name in katakana. Unlike most Japanese artists, she became well known in the English-speaking world under this surname-first name ordering, since her name has been romanized only in that order for the Japanese domestic market. In Japan, it was known that her nickname growing up in the U.S. was "Hikki." However, due to her immense popularity in Japan, she became better known under this nickname in Japan than in the United States. After her successes in Japan, she re-entered the U.S. market simply as Utada (sometimes Iwashita). On a few rare occasions, she has been credited in full on U.S. domestic albums as either "Hikaru Utada" or "Utada Hikaru." Her legal name in Japan was Hikaru Iwashita due to her marriage to Kiriya Kazuaki (whose real name is Kazuhiro Iwashita). However, she does not use this name for most public purposes. Her legal name in the United States has not been clear, especially since the announcement of her divorce on March 2, 2007.