Utada Hikaru

Sensei International School

Singer

Literature remains my eternal passion! I've been missing Japanese literature so much of late. I rushed into a bookstore which sells books in Japanese, and bought about 15 books in one swoop... I stay at home and have been grappling with the books like a hungry beast. Buying furniture, collecting furniture and interior goods Though I said I've been growing my hair long, I've had it cut. Ou, la, la. (Girls who had their hair short once would know this feeling?) Of course email is a tool indispensable for business and private life, but cruise the Net too. I learned about several sites from Toshiba EMI's engineer the other day. They are awesome -- quite interesting, Mesdames! I recommend first of all two of them, Modern Living and otogaiworld-------. Visit them late at night, then they'll be further to the point.

Harry Potter

Shawshank Redemption, Meet Joe Black, Godfather Part 2 (I like Robert De Niro), Good Will Hunting, Baghdad Cafe, The Jerk, Unbreakable, Orlando, Amadeus, Sleepy Hollow

First Love (By Me)

Music Station (Japan)

Utada Hikaru Biography
Utada Hikaru is an American-raised Japanese pop artist. She is among the most popular J-pop artists of this generation. Most well-known for her many talents, Utada is known for her wide voice range and original lyrics. Her married name is Hikaru Iwashita, but she is still widely known as Utada Hikaru. One of her nickname?s is "Hikki," a variation of the English word for love bite.

Utada Hikaru was born and raised in New York City, New York to Japanese parents that had roots in the Japanese music industry. Her first album was released in 1996 under the stage name, Cubic U. At fifteen years old, Utada released her first album in Japan, Precious, an English album, however this album was never released in the United States. During this time, Utada was mostly unknown to the public.

When Utada released her album First Love, she became an incredible success. The album sold five million copies in the first month and ten million copies to date. First Love broke the record for amount of copies sold in Japan, and the album still holds the record.

In 2000, Utada moved to New York to attend Columbia University, but eventually left school to continue her music career overseas. Her album, Distance, was released on March 28, 2001. Before releasing her third album, Deep River, Utada Hikaru underwent surgery due to a tumor in her ovary. In September of the same year, Hikaru married Kazuaki Kiriya, a photographer and film director.

Her most recognized English songs are "Simple and Clean," the opening theme for Kingdom Hearts. Although Hikaru released an American album titled Exodus, the album was not a big success. Some of her songs were briefly charted, but "Devil Inside" topped the Club/Dance charts.

Another Japanese album, entitled Ultra Blue, was released on June 14, 2006. The album topped the charts for its first week in release, however, the album was not met with as much success as Utada's previous Japanese albums. .

Utada Hikaru, born in New York in 1983, grew up immersed in music. Recently she's earned much praise for her musical sense and for her talent as singer-songwriter. Everything started with the single "time will tell," which registered on numerous FM charts more than a month before her official debut "Automatic." That release also did well on the charts, and since then, she's followed it up with more and more songs, many of them entering the charts at the same time! Utada won the "PowerPlay" on dozens of nationwide FM stations. It is still freshly remembered that on the week of its release, her single set the record of ranking No.1 in frequency of airplay on FM and AM stations in both the Kanto and Kansai regions (203 times per week a 1998 record). And it's a well-known fact that "Automatic/time will tell" (released Dec. 9, 1998 as both 12cm and 8cm discs) amazed everybody, achieving the extraordinary distinction of being ranked highly on various sales charts for both 12cm disc and 8cm discs, including the Original Confidence (Ori-Con) chart. Her following second single "Movin' on without you" (released February 17, 1999 ), a commercial song for Nissan Terrano, earned the top position as it appeared in the Original Confidence chart. And her debut album, "First Love" (March 10, 1999 release), sold out at record stores prior to its official release date. In addition to instantly ranking No.1 on the Ori-Con chart, it also set new records for "Highest Initial Points for a Debut Album," and "Highest Initial Points for an Original Album." In the May 10 issue of Ori-Con, it became No.1 on the All Albums Chart. In the space of a mere five months after her debut, Utada climbed to the top of the Japanese pop music scene. After the title track of "First Love" (released April 28, 1999) became the main theme for TBS network's weekly drama "Majo no Joken" (To Be a Witch), it was released as a single. Together with the drama the song continues to give heart-throbbing excitement to all viewers. The first live performances as "Utada Hikaru" were held on April 1 (at Umeda Heat Beat, Osaka) and April 2 (at Zepp Tokyo, Tokyo) with a full invitation system. Each host radio station was swarmed by applications from fans. Each stage was one consolidated groove when everybody and everything in the hall became as one amid the highest excitement, as Utada voiced, "Live is great and fun...!"

Utada Hikaru was born in the United States to a famous enka singer and a songwriter, who not only made sure that Hikaru inherited their talents, but also that she learned English before returning to Japan. As a child, Hikaru, spent time in recording studios soaking in the music and, at age 10, she began writing her own song lyrics in English. During that time, she was rocking out to bands like Queen and Bon Jovi, but later on got into R&B. By age 12, she had released three singles in the U.S. under the pseudonym, Cubic U.

God Bless....

People Who Want To Know Me...
and make some friends too...