Hikaru Utada announced today that she is ready to release her first new album in 8 years. The yet-to-be titled album will contain the tracks “Sakura Nagashi” (the Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo theme song), “Hanataba Wo Kimini” (the theme song for the Toto Nee-Chan: Fatherly Sister drama) and “Manatsu no Tooriame” (the theme song for NTV’s NEWS ZERO program) along with new music. Utada is best known in the West for making two theme song contributions to Square Enix and Disney’s collaborative video game series Kingdom Hearts: “Hikari” (which was rewritten as “Simple and Clean” in English) for Kingdom Hearts and “Passion” (which has the English title “Sanctuary”) for Kingdom Hearts II. She was regarded as the “most influential artist of the decade” by The Japan Times in 2009. Hikaru Utada new album is set for release on September 28.
Sakura Nagashi from Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo
