It's only a paper, but it's a sincere paper

(I'm so sad! I've just had a compulsory shutdown on my pc and my message is gone just before uploading-! Damn my pc! I don't give up! Let's write it again . . . )

Yes! Messages for 2-days consecutive! Surprised, huh? Actually I was planning to write a message with the title "Mangos and Papayas" for today, but I've got another thing to tell you. Guess what, Utada Hikaru & Toshiba-EMI staffs finally published a free paper magazine, a real cool one! It will be placed in CD stores or anywhere else and can be taken home for free. Or have you already seen it? Please please take it in your hands if you see a bunch of them titled "UTADA MAG vol1" around the counter! (I'm shooting a beam of "please take me with you *heart*" from my eyes on the cover(lol)) You know, it's free♪ Nothing to lose♪ Er, can it be lost actually? . . . It's OK!!

The chief editor is *Mr. Nozomu Kaji* of Toshiba-EMI, our idol. His self-portrait manga is a big fun! Also Okita-san, director, writes a funny serial column which is very popular among me! This time I wasn't able to participate in the editing as I was too late, but I, who was the chief editor of the class newspaper when in junior high, got excited like "please let me do something for it~! I wanna make it with you all!" once I read the 1st issue. My super hand-made page will start from the next issue so please check it out! Also from the next issue the paper will have a nickname "UTA-MAGA" and its logo is hand written by me as well! Am I getting too excited??

To make and distribute a free paper, means of course, the staffs concerned work for free of charge in a sense, but we put our emotions in it all the more because it's free - we'll issue it every month for half a year, so please keep your eyes on us~!

From Utada, who tends to call Kaji-san "Chief Editor" lately♪
(are Mangos and Papayas still on your mind?)

To which do you attach more importance: outer appearance or inner beauty?

I finished the photo shooting for the jacket a couple of days ago and we are now putting the final touch on it! Huh? "Then tell us now what the photo looks like"? "Is it a sort of 'close-up☆shots' again?" No no no guys, don't sell me short, you'll see a new Utada you've never seen before on the single cover this time!!! The director, Okita-san, was saying like "but . . . say this is so Hikaru, isn't it" so it is, in a sense, more close to the ordinary me. You know what, this time Hikki is putting on the custom-made plastic. (it's a little weird to say "Hikki" myself even if it's intentional!) Well, that's all I can tell you now . . . heh. (I'd like to give myself airs once in a while, you know☆) I'm "traveling" OK!

The package of "MTV UNPLUGGED" which is to be released both as DVD and VHS copies on the 28th(same day as "traveling") has already been completed, and it is so damn cute! It's like, how can I explain it . . . let's see . . . something like "peeping in"!!! Aw, obviously this can't be helpful at all! Sorry but please look forward to it as well.

The reason why I can take a look at the photos and packages, which are still on the trial process, is that designer people or staffs concerned are kind enough to bring them to me for checking while I'm doing recordings everyday in the studio☆ Actually that's the moment I'm always looking for, to take a good rest from recordings. Watching people in the other section are steadily doing their best to do their best work makes me think I gotta keep up with them in the field of music. When we judge someone's humanity, we often do it alternatively on the basis of which we attach more importance to - outer things such as faces and figures or inner spiritual things . . . but it's not a matter of which we should choose, is it?? Both can't be separated from each other and both are equally important, I think. Both are good is the best☆ (it's just greedy isn't it?(lol))

Making music, creating packages and visual images for delivering music to you, all of them are stimulating each other to advance☆

I am alive!!!

When I see a child deeply hurt and crying, I somehow feel like the whole "human race" is crying. And I feel like the whole human race has to protect the child. We feel betrayed by all things in this world when we are betrayed by someone who was supposed to protect us, don't we? So I understand the feelings of the US government a little, who claim the sudden terror attack happened on September 11th is not only against America but against "the whole human race." But, although they say the US retaliatory bombing which is going on at this moment is "the war against terrorism," I cannot but think it is the attack against the whole human race as well. It's because I feel the child is crying harder somewhere. The 21st century is crying . . .

Politicians and people all over the world are arguing like: "there is a just reason to do so on this side like this" "that side has a history like that" "whether retaliatory measures should be taken or not" "which side is suffering more" "what sort of opinion I should have" "how I should show my stance to others" - and here I'm just full of anger for all of them. I again realized that wars are truly a matter of politics and economy. Governments and mass media who stir up people's anger; those who take their revenge on the foreigners around them; politicians who say they'll take part in the extermination of terrorism; Americans putting a tiny American flag of five bucks on their car front; Japanese who think "Yuck" even if it's just a little bit when Arab-ish person sits down next to them on the train - all of them are just hurting themselves, which is so sad. In New York I see the Stars and Stripes everywhere: at the cash register of a cigar store, in the show window of a Calvin Klein shop on 5th Street, at the antenna of cars passing by, on Major Leaguers' helmets, in the windows of apartments and houses which had once looked warm. It's not a "holding up one nation's flag" situation I suppose . . .

Here I keep singing music, for the time being.

So. I'm sorry for having kept you waiting. Here comes the new song, my new single! It's fixed ma'am! The start toward the next album has already been made! It has already begun!! My train has already departed! It's heading for the amazing place this time. I've made a couple of songs, and though things have just begun, some days ago I somehow had a feeling that this third album as Utada Hikaru would be the best and most meaningful piece I could make in my whole life. Hey this girl says something shocking out of the blue! (lol) Sorry, sorry if I surprised you! Please don't take it seriously, now I'm just moving with full conviction which simply makes me think like that. Yes, right now, music in me is getting great. Every each song is so earnest. I'm really gonna make this album at the risk of my life. Well, that's what I'm gonna do for the next few months!! I'm sorry for making you worry, having been away for a long time since my last message. I suppose I needed a sort of pause like this. But music is flowing continually. I'm making the best Utada Music I've ever made!

It will be very encouraging for me if you in front of the screen could come with me toward the completion of this album on the coming long journey. Next month I can let you listen to "traveling," which will be the first stop station. You can get the ticket by . . . purchasing the single of course, but the moment you listen to the song, strangely enough a one-way ticket appears in your heart . . . !! (Woow isn't it beautiful!) Every time I send each song off to the world people get on this my train little by little at each station; the number of passengers increases steadily, and finally we altogether manage to arrive the better, wonderful world I have yet to see - I'm now heading for "traveling" station, hoping that to be true!

Please stay and wait behind the white line☆