Beautiful World (Hikaru Utada song)

In 2006, Utada released their fifth studio album, Ultra Blue, led by the digital single "This Is Love". In February 2007, Utada released "Flavor of Life", the theme song for the drama Hana Yori Dango Returns, which became one of their most commercially successful singles, selling over eight million downloads and becoming the second most digitally successful song of 2007 globally. On April 20, Utada's song "Kiss & Cry" began to be used in commercials for Nissin Foods' Freedom Project advertising campaign, and was released as a digital download on May 31. Utada's recording of the jazz standard "Fly Me to the Moon", originally found on the "Wait & See (Risk)" (2000) single, was rearranged and released as a digital download on June 29. Renditions of this song had previously been used in the original Neon Genesis Evangelion animation's soundtrack, and Utada's version was used in trailers for Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone. Utada took their inspirations from Shinji wanting to see his friends and the real world again at the end of End of Evangelion, and Asuka's realization that she did desire love from other people. Utada's relationship with their mother, a musician herself, and her mental illness later in life influenced their Evangelion songs; for this reason, they identified the most with Asuka. ==Composition and release==

Musically, "Beautiful World" is a love song, inspired by mid-tempo house and dance music. According to Utada, they had already said everything they wanted to say in the song through the melody and arrangement, so they made the lyrics subdued so as not to get in the way. The artist also said that they created the song with a "wish" at its roots, with an elusive, fluffy feel like the wind or a smell in mind. "Beautiful World" debuted on the radio and was released as a ringtone on July 23, 2007. "Beautiful World" was released as a double A-side with "Kiss & Cry," which premiered on August 29, 2007, through Toshiba-EMI as a CD single and a digital download. Planitb Acoustica Remix In 2009, the song was rearranged for the second film of the Rebuild of Evangelion series, as "Beautiful World (Planitb Acoustica Mix)". It was released as a digital download on June 28, 2009. Utada worked with Russell McNamara, who had previously made remixes of "Distance", "Traveling", "Hikari" and "Simple and Clean" between 2001–2002. The song was commercially successful, reaching number 8 on the Billboard Japan Hot 100. == Promotion ==

In early September, Utada performed the song at many music entertainment programs in Japan: at Count Down TV on the night of September 1, Hey! Hey! Hey! Music Champ on September 3, Utaban on September 6, and both Music Station and Music Fighter on September 7. "Beautiful World" was performed during Utada's two date concert series Wild Life in December 2010. Articles about Utada appeared in music and fashion magazines in August and September 2007, to promote the single. This included R&R Newsmaker, What's In?, CD Data, Barfout!, Oricon Style, Pia, Pop Teen and Patipati. Two animated music videos were produced for the song, depicting scenes from Evangelion. The first was released at the time of the single's release, and featured scenes of Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone, directed by the film's chief director Hideaki Anno. This music video won a Japanese MTV Video Music Award for the best video used for a film. In 2014 to promote Utada's 15th anniversary, as well as the tribute album Utada Hikaru no Uta, a music video of Evangelion scenes was produced by Kazuya Tsurumaki, one of the co-directors of the Rebuild of Evangelion film series. == Critical reception ==

CDJournal reviewers described Utada as singing about "earnest love and deep prayers in a rhythmic tempo", and noted "a painful beauty where transience and passion live together" in the song. They praised the "melancholy" way that Utada sings the lyric "it's only love", as well as the lyrics' sense of ironic while coming from an everyday perspective. Tetsuo Hiraga of Hot Express gave an extremely positive review of the song, feeling in awe of the emotional sensitivity of Utada's lyrics and how well they resonated with Evangelion. Accolades == Commercial performance ==

Commercially, the single proved to be a success. "Beautiful World/Kiss & Cry" debuted at number three on the Oricon Singles Chart with 95,299 copies sold. The single jumped to number two on the chart the following week, selling approximately 51,637 copies. "Beautiful World/Kiss & Cry" sold 228,716 copies by the end of 2007, making it the 20th best-selling single of the year. The physical single for "Beautiful World/Kiss & Cry" was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of Japan (RIAJ) for physical sales of 250,000 units, and is Utada's 18th highest-selling single. However, "Beautiful World" performed better digitally, with the song individually selling over one million downloads and 500,000 ringtones nationwide. The song's Planitb Acoustica Mix was certified gold for selling over 100,000 legal downloads in August 2009. == Track listings ==

Personnel details were sourced from "Beautiful World" / "Kiss & Cry"'s liner notes booklet. • Goetz B. for 365 Artists – mixing • Atsushi Matsui – recording • Akira Miyake – production • Alexis Smith – additional programming • Yuzuru Tomita – additional programming • Hikaru Utada – arrangement, keyboards, programming, production, songwriting, vocals • Teruzane Utada – production == Chart rankings ==

Weekly charts Yearly charts ==Certifications==