“Hikari”, the theme song for Kingdom Hearts (A PlayStation 2 Game) is a delightful song sung by young Japanese sensation Utada Hikaru. Refreshingly for a main theme, it’s not a ballad; it’s a pop song. With a real beat and a catchy chorus, Hikari can easily be ranked up there with the great vocal theme tracks for anything.
For the single, the Japanese version is used, and while the actual song only differs by a few vocal notes in the chorus to the English version, it still comes across as as fresh and delightful as this is actually the original cut! It’s electronic drums are fresh, it’s acoustic guitar chords bouncey and its vocals are restrained passion.
Also onboard to make this a very worth purchase are 3 other versions of the song. First up is the PLANITb remix, which turns the pop song into a light techno song. The song speeds up the lyrics a little which can make for some funny chipmunk moments, but on the whole the remix, which is also used in the games opening sequence (albeit in only half its entirety), is a great success and is great to dance too. The “Godson Mix” is a previously unreleased one, which turns it in a summer’s day pop song. While it still sounds ok, the cutesy child-like version is more of an alternative, rather than an improvement. The final version is the Karaoke version, which is great for those who want to sing it in English instead!
If you have the Kingdom Hearts OST, your wanting for this single will be diminished by the lack of any other songs, but getting the full PLANITb version and a karaoke version to sing along to should sway you into spending your hard earned cash. “Simple and Clean” the English version is on the “Colors” single from Utada Hikaru.