"Woman who deserves close-up shots"

. . . is our Keiko's proud nickname, not to mention, and now her daughter is learning about how great mom has been!!

You know, lately my mom's greatest hits album has been released as a box set. The set came with an application postcard for mom's extra large poster, and I thought like I was dying to get the poster. Huh? Surprised? Well, Cause . . . you see . . . All right, to be honest, as I'm so huge fan of Keiko Fuji, that I even dig out her fan-sites and bookmark them secretly!! (Oh my, I finally told this to you! Aw, I bet you're thinking we're such a stupid family, aren't you? (lol)) But I'm too shy to ask mom for her poster . . . Well! Then there's no other way but to mail the application postcard quite ordinarily!! - eventually I made up my mind like this. See, I really like her. I mailed the postcard with the name/address borrowed from my friend as it won't be taken seriously if I use my real name, and seems like I drew a blank, so I thought like I had to give up the poster. But!!! At that time I talked a bit about this story when I was interviewed here and there, which eventually reached the record company's ears, and you know what! They exceptionally gave me the poster as I was her daughter!!! I just received it a couple of days ago. Rolling it out I found it was an extra-large poster, on which her upward-glancing close-up shot was printed. Probably you just imagined something lovely, right? I don't know why, but actually she casts me a VERY sharp glare! (lol) Yes, her glare is all powerful! Well, she does deserve close-ups. So fascinatingly beautiful. She has a great amount of aura, which just blows me away. I've got to follow her, cause half of my DNA springs from her!

Anyway I'm just so happy and boasting around with this. I'm very, very sorry for the other fans who posted the card, but . . . For me it's like, a portrait of close-yet-distant mom . . . it reminds me of lots of feelings. Now I'm gonna hang this on the wall of my home's entrance hall! It might make me scared a bit when walking through the entrance hall in the dark . . . especially when I wake up for the bathroom in the middle of the night. (lol) I guess she herself will be most surprised by this, so I'll report on mom's reaction later☆ Heh heh. Let's see what happens♪

It's spring - the season of new life!

It's time for Grand Site Refurbishment Opening, decorated gorgeously as if to say "I've got the Matsusaka Beef for tonight's special dinner!"

(ノ≧▽≦)ノ This site has been renewed!! Yay--!

It's not just a renewal, you know. The site has become much, much more powerful than before! Isn't it great?? I was really surprised to see it. This is wholly due to the efforts of Toshiba-EMI's programmer people, animation designer people and Kaji-san! Thank you☆

This time I added some to my profile section, here and there, so please check the site and find out where we updated!

this TANSU(bureau)?

Hello!
I started this message off with a ridiculous pun title above, so ridiculous that it would be hard to believe this message came up right after that last tear-jerking, sweet message! You say "So you're trying to hide your embarrassment? How cute!"?? Well. Thank you very much for all your replies on my last message . . . I got a lot of emails telling me that that message moved them deeply, and those emails moved me deeply as well. I'm so happy that I can feel we are connecting with each other . . . (I was reading "Sasameyuki" till some time ago and that's why I'm speaking in this chaotic Kansai dialect! So simple-minded, huh??)

"You say so, but you updated the message here after a long, long delay, didn't you Hikaru-chan!"

Absolutely. My posting pace has dropped off in the last couple of months. I'm sorry to you guys checking here occasionally!!! Well, actually I was once determined to talk about the album thing here, but I found I couldn't make much progress on it as I had a feeling I had already talked about it as much as I could in magazine interviews . . . so, I know I'm late, but here let me write about my impressions of your impressions on it! First, I found a lot of people liked oddities like "Drama," and I'm very pleased with this as their real parent!! Yes!! And also I found many of you wrote me that seems like I grew up a lot compared to the first album era . . . Hey guys! It's just normal!! I was 15 when I made the last one and now I'm 18. Girls grow up most rapidly at those ages I suppose? Honestly I'm very shy about those processes of me growing-up seen by Nippon people. Lately I've been thinking objectively the magical charm of "First Love" might be that of which is proper to "children" . . . Are you trying to pose as an adult all of a sudden, Utada! You're still far from it. Tehee.

That's all I can think of to tell you right now, cause I've fully talked about the songs' content, theme and others in magazines. I may start talking deeply about a specific song when I suddenly take it into my mind to do so, little by little! If you have anything you want to know, then just ask me about it any time.

I promise next time I'll write here again soon! This month, is now called "Hit-the-Pace Month"! Whooop!


********************
(NOTE by Nuuk)
"Sasameyuki" ... a novel written by Junichiro Tanizaki, a Japanese writer.

Watch out for the electric shock, please . . .

Sorry I kept you waiting until now for my message, though it's been a couple of days since the album was released!
I didn't know what to say and actually I several times started to write, but then ended up erasing it all halfway through or just giving up uploading it here . . .
Right now, so many emotions are welling up in me while I'm reading emails from all of you who have listened to Distance, and I just cannot keep back my tears, cause I've already read thousands of emails and still haven't encountered even one telling me "This is a letdown" which I've been prepared for beforehand, and instead have kept receiving piles of "This is very good!" . . . up to now I wasn't frankly pleased being somehow half in doubt even though I got thumbs-ups from the interviewers and music industry people who had listened to my album a bit earlier, but it feels totally different when I'm told "That's a good album" by all the people like the schoolgirl who saved money and bought my album on its release day, the fan who pre-ordered it a month ago, the guy who saw it by chance at a record store and paid 3,000yen for it, the regular visitors here who was always criticizing me severely by email; and now I'm really surprised at myself being touched this much.
Though I've always tried to write here about myself as frankly as possible without the filter of media, I've been careful about using a proper character of mine with being aware that my messages are always public, cause this place here is not a private board after all; but (I bet you've already found it at this point anyway) this really is the first time I speak here running my nose and shedding tears, without thinking of anything at all!
I believe I've taken a real cool attitude toward the release of this album in interviews, and actually I'd completely forgotten that the release date came around until a friend of mine told me about it; I was sure I wouldn't care much whatever people might say about the album cause that's what I had already finished making. But reading emails from you all telling me "I'm so glad that I bought this album!" or "This is awesome!" this much made me really really happy and made me think from the bottom of my heart that I was glad I'd been doing music though I'd experienced many things I couldn't tell you for two years since I debuted, and made me realize why I'm presenting my music to the public as a professional, not just as a hobby, then somehow tears (and my nose) just flowed out . . .

I think probably I'll write a follow-up comment to hide my embarrassment and a couple of specific stories about my album that you'd like to know more about later after I calm down, so now I upload this message before I make a clean copy of it as usual or erase it by myself for lack of courage!
Thank you so so so much ----- !!!!