Before embarking on her hiatus,�Utada Hikaru held her last concerts (called "WILD LIFE") on December 8th and 9th at the Yokohama Arena, pulling in a total of 28,000 fans. During her final�concert on the 9th, she told the audience, "Today is my 12th anniversary since my debut. It was a strange 12 years, which I felt were both long and short, but I couldn't even imagine 12 years ago that I would be able to hold a live concert with this many people. I am such a lucky person."

Stating earlier that she would do everything she wanted to do until she burnt herself out, Utada performed 22 songs on a round stage, allowing her to be surrounded�by fans from a full 360�. She played the piano during the performances for "SAKURA Drops", "Stay Gold", and "First Love", and also played the guitar for her cover of The Beatles' "Across The Universe."

Fans screamed to her, "Thank you Hikki" and "We will be waiting for you!", to which Utada answered, "Will you still call me 'Hikki' even when I become an old lady? �Well, I will look forward for it - let's meet again at a live when I become an old lady."

Holding back tears, she also told fans, "It's not that I'm retiring, but when I think about not being able to hold any more lives for a while...". Choked by overwhelming emotions, Utada was unable to finish her sentence.

For the very last song in her encore, she appropriately chose "Time will tell", the followup song from her debut single "Automatic", which was released on the same day 12 years ago. After the final notes trailed away, she kept telling her fans, "Thank you, thank you."

At the very end, she carefully placed the microphone on the stage, gave a deep bow to the audience, and left with tearful eyes.

We hope that Hikki enjoyed herself fully during this emotive and touching final show - tokyohive definitely looks forward to updating with news of her comeback!

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Source & Photo: Oricon style
More photos: Sankei News