Who is Ai Otsuka?

Ai Otsuka (born 09.09.1982 in Osaka, Japan) is a Japanese singer and actress, but she's more known for her songs than movies. It’s hard to determine one particular music style that she follows. Saying that she's a j-pop singer seems to be an overgeneralization. Although her musical career started with a typical j-pop album (‘Love Punch’, 2003), Ai didn’t stick to one genre. Her style is a combination of upbeat pop, touching ballads immensely appealing to the listener’s emotions, a little bit of rock and also a sprinkle of jazz. The music created by her is generally very enthusiastic, positive and energetic, but there are also songs which make you feel relaxed and nostalgic. Some say that Ai Otsuka is so musically talented that she could perform any kind of music with a great success, even black metal if she wanted.

The records are not everything that makes a great artist. Ai is widely known for her perfect live performances - she doesn't use playback and her voice live sounds almost equally well as on CD. Apart from singing, Otsuka plays piano as well. She performs most piano parts on her records, the same during the concerts. Sometimes she also tries different instruments, such as acoustic guitar or even violin.

Ai Otsuka creates her music completely on her own – she writes the lyrics, sometimes she makes up the whole pieces of music. Her songs are basically about love. Everything connected with Otsuka is somehow linked with this emotion, even her name in Japanese means ‘love’. She writes about its both aspects: emotional and physical. When it comes to the latter, Otsuka is gentle, delicate and indirect, so that her lyrics are not nasty or vulgar.

In addition to all that, Ai is also keen in art, she likes illustrating her music with pictures. The limited editions of her albums contain comic books written, drawn and painted by Ai herself.

Ai Otsuka drawing a cat

When it comes to Ai's drawings, we can't forget about Love-chan – a small, white female rabbit created by her. She’s her mascot and an official gadget. Moreover, it has recently become also her additional musical project: Ai, under the pen name of Love-chan, released 2 singles and one mini-album in a completely different musical style. 

For those of you who are interested in Ai's discography, I'm listing here all her albums:

• LOVE PUNCH (1st album, 2004),
• LOVE JAM (2nd album, 2004),
• LOVE COOK (3rd album, 2005),
• 愛 am BEST (1st compilation album, 2005),
• LOVE PiECE (4th album, 2007),
• LOVE LETTER (5th album, 2008),
• LOVE is BEST (6th album, 2009).

For more information, please visit Discography section.

If you feel like getting to know something more about Ai Otsuka, feel free to explore this blog and I hope this will help you discover this pretty, kind and extremely gifted artist. May Love be with you.