Hikaru Utada returns the favour to Nariaki Obukuro for his single "Lonely one"

After Nariaki Obukuro made a low key, but impactful appearance on Hikaru Utada's 'gay and lonely as fuck 4 life' anthem "Tomodachi" in 2016, he sees his favour returned with his 2018 single "Lonely one".

Nariaki is one of few artists who can say that they not only featured on a song with Hikaru Utada, but had her feature on one of their songs and co-wrote the damn thing. That right there is level of promo and recommendation that yen can't buy.

Despite the song being on Nariaki's vibe, it still has an air about it where-by its not hard to imagine the whole thing being flipped into a Hikaru Utada song. In fact, when Hikaru makes her appearance on the second verse she pretty much takes over the whole thing. Her flow is unlike anything I've heard from her before. It's cool to hear Hikaru go in on a song in such a manner. But the strain on her vocals when she goes high makes my dick shrivel.

Unlike "Tomodachi" where Nariaki was woven throughout the entire song, Hikaru's verse feels like its just dropped into the middle of it, and the sparse, unfinished, demo like vibe of the production (or lack thereof) doesn't help. "Lonely one" would have come off so much better had it been a duet and we got to hear their voices together. Hikaru's verse comes and goes pretty quickly, but her presence manages to remain in the song's outro despite her vocals not being a part of it. The tail end of the song blossoms into an elaborate arrangement of strings and horns, which sounds like something straight off of a Hikaru Utada release. It contrasts to rest of the song and comes out of nowhere, but its the best part of it.

Now that we know Hikaru Utada keeps receipts, we can expect (and pray for) her to feature on another Sheena Ringo song and to make an appearance on something from KOHH.