| Kōji Wada 和田 光司 |
|
|---|---|
| Born | January 29, 1974 |
| Origin | Kyoto, Japan |
| Genres | Rock |
| Occupations | Singer |
| Instruments | Singing |
| Years active | 1999–present |
| Labels | King Records (Japan) |
| Website | wadakoji.blog87.fc2.com |
Kōji Wada (和田 光司 Wada Kōji) (born January 29, 1974) is a Japanese rock singer. He debuted in 1999 with his first single, "Butter-Fly", the theme song of the anime Digimon Adventure. He is currently under the King Records (Japan) recording label.
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Wada was born in Kyoto, Japan. In 2003, Wada released his first original album, All of My Mind, which included many of his previous works. He also collaborated in Ōta Michihiko's self-cover album Mirai e no Message ~Ōta Michihiko Self-Cover~, featuring in two tracks – a cover version of "Hontō no Tsuyosa" (本当の強さ) (Ken & Wormmon's Theme) and in "3 Primary Colors" (the Tamers' theme), along with AiM. More recently, he has released an album called The Best Selection ~Welcome Back!~. It contains several of his earlier works as well as two new songs, titled "Pierce" and "Kimi no Keshiki." On August 1, 2008, he debuted a mini-album titled ever, which contained five brand new songs. His most current complete album, called Kazakami no Oka Kara (風上の丘から), was sold at his live concerts in Japan throughout the end of 2009 in commemoration of his 10th anniversary in music, and it was released worldwide on January 11, 2010. His latest concerts will be held in Japan on August 21. It is a collaboration between himself and AiM, and their two-person unit is called "KALEIDO☆SCOPE".
Wada has contributed songs to six of the seven Digimon anime series (with one of his songs reused for the seventh, to which he contributed no new songs), including opening themes for the first five of them. He also performed two songs used as ending themes of the series, "Innocent ~Mujaki na Mama de~" (イノセント～無邪気なままで～) and "an Endless Tale" (with AiM). He starred in various other songs for the series, such as "Bokura no Digital World" (the "memorial" theme for the Adventure series), "Yūki o Uketsugu Kodomo-tachi e" and also several Christmas songs. He also performed a song for Transformers: Robots in Disguise.
On 4 October 2011, Wada announced via his blog that he is putting his career on hold in order to deal with a sudden metastasized cancer which had previously seen treatment in 2003.[1]
In July 2007, Wada made his first show in Brazil, doing a solo presentation and singing along other invited Japanese singers on the "Anime Friends".[2] This happened one year after Ayumi Miyazaki visited Brazil in another convention "ExpoAnime Brasil". He also visited the state of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil on October 14, 2007, during the Anima Weekend event. On December 15–16th 2007, he made a live presentation in the "Anime Festival XL" event in Santiago, Chile. In August 2008, he released a mini-album named "ever", which contains five original songs, with four of them composed and written by himself. In December 2008 he was performing in the "Animeku 08", in February the "AniCon", and in July the "Anime Friends" (Both in 2010) Events from "Yamato", in Brazil and Argentina. On June 5–6, 2010, he did 2 concerts in Monterrey, Mexico in the Santa Lucia Arena at the "Dengeki Live", a jpop event and anime convention. In response to his metastasized cancer in 2011, he cancelled two appearances planned for Chile and Peru.