"Chime" is a song by Japanese singer-songwriter
Ai Otsuka
is a Japanese singer-songwriter from Suminoe-ku, Osaka, Japan. She is a popular artist on the Avex Trax label and is best known for her 2003 hit " Sakuranbo", which stayed in the Top 200 Oricon Weekly Singles Chart for 103 weeks.
A piano player ...
. The song was released as her 26th single on September 4, 2019, through
Avex Trax
is a record label owned by Japanese entertainment conglomerate Avex Inc. The label was launched in September 1990, and was the first label by the Group.
History
Two years after Max Matsuura began a career distributing studio albums from othe ...
.
Background
"Chime" was used as opening theme for the second half of
TV Tokyo
JOTX-DTV (channel 7), branded as is a Japanese television station that serves as the flagship of the TX Network.[Fruits Basket
, sometimes abbreviated , is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Natsuki Takaya. It was serialized in the semi-monthly Japanese manga magazine , published by Hakusensha, from 1998 to 2006. The series' title comes from ...]
'', which began airing July 5, 2019. The song was described as a positive and upbeat track aimed at “ringing a starting bell for those who want to change but find it hard to take that first step.”
Otsuka revealed that she actually had written the song four years prior, but adapted its lyrics to reflect on the anime series.
The theme she wanted to convey with the song was that "it’s okay not to be perfect, that’s why people meet and connect with others."
Otsuka co-arranged the song with Hiroo Yamaguchi (under pen name "hiroo").
The single’s b-sides include “Kit Palette,” which was previously released on digital platforms and used as the theme song for
KitKat
Kit Kat (stylised as KitKat in various countries) is a chocolate-covered wafer bar confection created by Rowntree's of York, England. It is produced globally by Nestlé (which acquired Rowntree's in 1988), except in the United States, where i ...
's "Everyday Nuts & Cranberry" in Japan, and “XOX,” an English self-cover of the 2014 song “
Dame Dame da
"Dame Dame da" (だめだめだ, ) is a song by Japanese singer Shiori Tomita, written by singer-songwriter Ai Otsuka. The song was released as Tomita's fourth single on December 10, 2014, through Epic Records Japan.
Background and release
Simil ...
”, which was originally written by Otsuka for Shiori Tomita, and used as ending theme for TV anime series ''
Naruto: Shippuden''. The self-cover of “Dame Dame da” with Japanese lyrics is included on the ''Chime'' digital EP.
The single was released in four formats: CD only, CD+DVD, CD+Blu-ray disc, and a Fan Club/mu-mo/Event-limited edition. The accompanying DVD and Blu-ray include footage from Ai Otsuka’s ''Ai am Best, Too'' Tour 2019 concert held on May 2, 2019, at Zepp DiverCity, as well as the music video for “Chime.” The Fan Club/mu-mo/Event-limited edition comes as a deluxe box set including an A4-sized photo card collection from the aforementioned tour.
Chart performance
"Chime" peaked at number 35 on the ''Oricon'' Weekly Singles chart, and charted for 2 weeks.
Track listing
Charts
References
{{Ai Otsuka
2019 singles
Ai Otsuka songs
Songs written by Ai Otsuka
2019 songs
Avex Trax singles