Yui stylized as YUI or yui, is a Japanese singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and actress. Born and raised in Fukuoka prefecture, she played live at various locations in her hometown before being noticed by Sony Music when she was 17 years old, and released her debut single months later. Her singles, however, were only met with moderate success until the breakout “Good Bye Days”, which charted for 44 weeks on Oricon and marked her as one of the Japanese music industry’s rising stars.
In February 2005, Yui released her first major debut single “Feel My Soul.” With the publicity the drama tie-in drew in, “Feel My Soul” managed to sell over 100,000 copies and managed to chart at number 8 on Oricon Weekly Charts in its first week. Yui released her debut album in February 2006, titled From Me to You, a moderate success that debuted at number 4 on the Oricon charts, charting for 121 weeks. Yui’s seventh single “Rolling Star” was chosen as the 5th opening theme for the Bleach anime.
She released her second album Can’t Buy My Love in April 2007. The album spent two weeks at number 1 on the Oricon charts, breaking her entire previous album’s record sales in one week. Can’t Buy My Love managed to sell over 680,000 copies. Due to the success of Can’t Buy My Love, Yui’s previous album, charted once again, adding another 9,000 copies to the Oricon counting.
Her third studio album was released in April 2008 titled I Loved Yesterday. It quickly charted at number 1 on the Oricon Weekly Charts and sold more than 400,000 copies, behind her second album. The 10th track on the album, titled “Oh Yeah”, was used as the opening theme to Mezamashi TV, a morning television show. The limited edition version of the album included a DVD which contained music videos of her previous singles and live footage of her Nippon Budokan show. The album was composed mainly of semi-ballads with much of the same themes as her previous releases such as youth.
In her “Yui Diary” blog entry on August 29, 2008, Yui mentioned that she would put her career on hold, not making any public appearances after the release of the album. She asserted that the break would allow her to fully concentrate on her plans for the next year. Yui announced her return from her five-month hiatus on March 25, 2009 on her official website. The single celebrating her return was an up-tempo song titled “Again.” The track was chosen as the first opening theme of the new season of the Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood anime, premiering in April 2009. The single was released in June 2009. “Again” debuted atop the Oricon charts, selling over 110,000 copies in its first week. The single had the highest opening week sales for a female act in 2009. It was this track that first introduced me to Yui. David brought it to my attention via his watching of the Fullmetal Alchemist series and it became one of our regular travelling songs.
In January 2010, Yui released “Gloria”, selling over 80,000 copies in the first week and again topping the Oricon charts Her next single, “To Mother,” was released in June 2010, yet again topping the charts. In July 2010, Yui released her fourth studio album Holidays in the Sun, which included her five singles from “Summer Song” to “To Mother”. It became her fourth straight album to top the Oricon charts, eventually selling over 300,000 copies and attaining the certification of Platinum.
