ayaka - Funtale (2023)

ayaka (絢香), born Ayaka Iida (飯田 絢香) on December 18, 1987 in Moriguchi, Osaka Prefecture, Japan, is a Japanese female singer under her own label A stAtion. Ayaka was first introduced to public singing in her early years and throughout high school where she would sing song covers at school concerts. Her first solo concert was held in her second year of high school; it was a small high school concert in where she sang only covers of famous musicians. After speaking with an audience member, Ayaka was referred to the voice music center in Fukuoka. Ayaka began practicing original song composition as well as learning about the various recording methods used in mass media recording. In 2006 debuted under Warner Music Japan, with the ballad "I believe", which was used as the drama Rondo's theme song. This single reached #3, making it the highest debut single rank reached by a female singer/songwriter since Utada Hikaru's "Automatic / Time Will Tell" in 1998. Her album First Message also came in #1 on the World Charts.

Ayaka's 7th original album after 1 year and 4 months since her previous work. Fun = Fun Tale = Story, "Funtale" from the idea that the story packed in the album can be sympathized with someone who picks it up, and it can be enjoyed while empathizing with the characters of the story. All songs written and composed by Ayaka are arranged by Kei Kono, UTA, Kan Sano, Shin Sakiura, etc., and are an ambitious work drawn with a variety of sounds. The contents of the recording are the new song ballad "Home", which can be said to be the true value, "Mirai e", which became a hot topic with Kana Kurashina's MV appearance in NTT Docomo's "Docomo Mirai Museum" CM song, and the movie "Tenma" released last year as a special track. A total of 11 songs, including the gem ballad "Beautiful World (Koji Tamaki feat. Ayaka)", which was also used as the theme song for "Three Sisters of Sou".