Hikaru Utada -- Wait and See ~ Risk

I recall somewhat that Hikaru Utada's（宇多田ヒカル）5th single, "Wait and See ~ Risk" and the accompanying music video got a huge amount of hype up to its release. Not quite sure why since the period between it and her previous single, "Addicted to Love" wasn't all that different from the times between her other singles. Perhaps it may have been the fact that it was the first single of the singer-songwriter in 2000 or that the video was something special or the fact that it had been groomed by American producers extraordinaire, Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis.

In any case, if my memory serves me correctly, the hype was such that I think the old news program on TV Asahi, "News Station" even had a "world premiere" of sorts of that video which I did catch. It featured a very svelte Utada (plus two clones) and a cool-as-AKIRA speeder scooting around the empty streets of Shibuya, Tokyo. I've actually been in an empty Shibuya around 3:30 a.m. one time after a massively long 6-hour session of karaoke. If it hadn't been for the sounds of hardy and hearty buskers in various spots on the streets toward Shibuya Station, I would have been rather freaked out.

In all honesty, "Wait and See" was an OK song but didn't have quite an impact on me as had "Automatic" or her later hit, "Travelin'". Still, the studio that was responsible for the the single, Toshiba EMI, was probably in Seventh Heaven as it shipped out over a million copies in preparation for the onslaught of ravenous Utada fans, and even when it was released in April 2000, it still had to take in a further 300,000 extra orders. I'm sure everyone waited and saw....and just marveled at the discs flying off the shelves.

Getting to No. 1 on Oricon was a foregone conclusion, and it eventually became the 3rd-ranked song of the year. In total, the song sold a little over 1.6 million copies. "Wait and See" would also become part of Utada's 2nd album, "Distance" which was released in March 2001 and became the top-selling album of the year.

No speeder bikes yet
but Shibuya is still plenty cool.