Born in the United States to Japanese parents, Hikaru Utada is a singer/songwriter and producer. Her first album ”First Love” released in 1999 and was an instant success, becoming the country‘s best-selling album of all time, and still holding the honor to this day. She was featured on the cover photo of the 2001 "Music Goes Global" issue of the US news magazine Time alongside U2's Bono and Bjork, and by the end of the 2000s, Utada was deemed "the most influential artist of the decade" in the Japanese music landscape by The Japan Times. Utada's commercial success has made her one of Japan's top-selling recording artists of all time with over 37 million albums. Utada announced a hiatus from her music career in 2010 to focus on her personal growth, returning to her career of music in April 2016. The international audience would recognize her contribution to the Square Enix/Disney video game series Kingdom Hearts, where she wrote and produced theme songs for each game in the series. "Face My Fears," the most recent 2019 collaboration with Skrillex and the opening theme for KINGDOM HEARTS III, charted in the US Billboard Top 100. Her 2021 single and "EVANGELION:3.0+1.0 THRICE UPON A TIME." theme song, "One Last Kiss," charted in 33 countries and regions worldwide as well as the Spotify Global Viral Chart.
