Utada Hikaru and Kingdom Hearts

Utada Hikaru, or "Hikki" as she is known to some fans, is one of my favorite musicians. My love for anime introduced me to Japanese music when I was younger but I never came across any of her songs until a particular video game that many people doubted took the world by storm.

When I first saw the commercial for this game, I was sold and not because of the great looking graphics, the intriguing premise, or the fact that the mash-up of Disney and Final Fantasy might actually work. In fact, I didn't even know what game the commercial was for.

I only wanted to know two things:

1. Who is the owner of that heavenly voice?

 2. What is the name of the song playing in the background?

Any time the commercial came on I watched it in its entirety and through typing what lyrics I could remember into a search engine, I was able to determine that the voice was owned by Hikki, and the song was "Simple and Clean".

Words can't come close to describing how much I love this song. I played (play) it over and over again. Everyone in my house knows it by heart. Everyone. And I wasn't content to just hear the song in English; I also had to hear the Japanese version from the original Japanese commercial. In the process of tracking down the other version, I learned that despite the songs having the same tune, they have different meanings since Utada rewrote the original version "Hikari" instead of just directly translating it into English.

So the English version:

And the Japanese version:

Are two different wonderful songs which are both the theme songs of Kingdom Hearts in their respective countries. 

I also have to admit that I have all the remixes to both songs which also have high play counts on my playlists. My favorite is the "Simple and Clean -PLANITb Remix-" which speeds up the song slightly and gives it more of an dancing edge. This song and the original two always end up on my writing playlists. There's an epic quality to them that gives me a boost whether I'm writing about vampires, aliens, witches, or dimension jumpers. It's no wonder that the director of Kingdom Hearts, Tetsuya Nomura, only wanted Utada to do the theme song.

As a treat, here's the "Simple and Clean -PLANITb Remix-" over the Kingdom Hearts opening in honor of the upcoming 10th anniversary of the game.

"Simple and clean is the way that you're making me feel tonight
It's hard to let it go"
-Utada Hikaru