2 songs from new album debuting in April as theme songs for major drama, news program

Japanese newspaper Sports Hochi reported on Tuesday that singer and songwriter Hikaru Utada will return to the entertainment business after a six-year hiatus with a new album next spring. According to Sports Hochi's sources, at least two of the songs in the new album will debut in April as theme songs for a major live-action television series and a news program.

She had previously announced in July that she was working on a new album overseas while pregnant with her son, who was born this past summer. She had married Francesco Calliano, an Italian bartender, in 2014 and dealt with the passing of her mother the year before.

It has been six years since Utada's last studio album release. She has been on hiatus from the entertainment business since the beginning of 2011, although she returned to host a monthly radio program called Kuma Power Hour with Utada Hikaru on the InterFM station starting in April 2013. She did contribute the song "Sakura Nagashi" as the ending theme for 2012's Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo (Evangelion Shin Gekijō-ban: Q), but her management emphasized that the song did not represent a full-fledged return from her hiatus.

Utada is an internationally known, bestselling pop artist born in New York City and raised in Japan and the United States. Her debut album, 1999's First Love, is still Japan's bestselling album ever with about 8 million copies sold.

Utada previously provided a 2007 remix of her 2000 cover of Frank Sinatra's "Fly Me to the Moon (In Other Words)" for the trailer to Evangelion:1.0 You are (Not) Alone (Evangelion Shin Gekijōban: Jo), as well as her "Beautiful World" song for the anime film itself. She also contributed the "Beautiful World -PLANiTb Acoustica Mix-" for the second film, Evangelion:2.0 You Can (Not) Advance (Evangelion Shin Gekijōban: Ha) . In addition to her singing career, she played the heroine Pinoko in the 2001-2002 Black Jack net anime series. She toured the United States and the United Kingdom in 2009.

[Via Minna no Eva Fan]