Hikaru Utada Has Re-Recorded Kingdom Hearts' Intro Song

thegamer.com:

Hikaru Utada, best known in the gaming world for her work on Kingdom Hearts, has released a re-recorded version of Hikari, the Japanese version of Simple and Clean.

Whenever I talk to Kingdom Hearts fans, we're all so invested in the series and have been with Sora, Donald, and Goofy for such a long time, that we inevitably start discussing how we got on the wild ride in the first place. The answer is almost always the same - the adverts on TV blasting Hikaru Utada's incredible introduction songs over footage of Sora running around with Disney characters.

Whether it was Sanctuary (Passion in Japan) for the Kingdom Hearts 2 adverts or Simple and Clean (also known as Hikari overseas) for the first game's commercials, Utada's impact on the series is immeasurable and she has become as synonymous with Kingdom Hearts as Keyblades, Disney, and Final Fantasy characters.

If you have as much love for Kingdom Hearts' incredible music as I do, then you'll be very happy to hear that Hikaru Utada has rerecorded the iconic song that started it all as part of her new album, Science Fiction. The new album, which just released today, is made up of re-recorded versions of Utada's greatest hits over the years, and is leading into her Science Fiction tour later this year.

Although there are lots of bops in the album, the one that is going to interest Kingdom Hearts fans the most is Hikari (Re-Recorded), a new version of the Japanese equivalent to Simple and Clean, the iconic song used to open the very first game in the series and one that has been stuck in most of our heads for the last two decades.

Utada also released 4K versions of some of her old music videos to go alongside the Science Fiction album, which includes upgraded versions of Hikari and Passion .

I've listened to the original versions of both Simple and Clean and Hikari many times in my life, but I have to say that the re-recorded version is just as much of a bop. I wouldn't go as far as saying that I prefer