Overview
Utada Hikaru is a singer, songwriter, and producer from Japan. While a popular musician in Japan since their debut in 1999, in the West they are most well known for creating "Simple and Clean", "Sanctuary", "Face My Fears", and "Don't Think Twice", theme songs for the popular video game series Kingdom Hearts, as well as creating the theme songs for all four Rebuild of Evangelion movies.
Following their 2009 English-language album "This is the One", Utada announced they would be going on an indefinite hiatus from music. In an interview with JETTANY Quarterly Magazine, Utada stated that they would not be working with Disney on the Kingdom Hearts series due to the hiatus, with Utada's father, Teruzane Utada, claiming that they had turned Disney down for low payment. Teruzane later claimed Hikaru would be involved with Kingdom Hearts III, only to later state it to be "undecided".
In 2015 Utada announced they were working on a new album, Fantôme, marking their return to the music industry. In 2018, it was confirmed that they would be providing two new songs for Kingdom Hearts III, one named "Don't Think Twice" and another named "Face My Fears", produced in collaboration with Skrillex.
On June 26, 2021, Utada hosted a live Q&A via Instagram, joined by Evangelion series director Hideaki Anno (due to Utada's involvement with the Evangelion series.) During the livestream, Utada came out as nonbinary.
Trivia
Utada is a big fan of Tetris, claiming in 2006 to have played the game every day since they were five years old. Utada also helped promote Tetris DS by way of a 2006 Nintendo-held competition in which they faced 30 competitors, chosen from winners of a Nintendo Club drawing. Over the course of the event, Utada won 26 out of 30 matches.
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