World! Wide! Love!

"World! Wide! Love!" is the 33rd physical single and 34th single overall by Japanese singer-songwriter Hitomi and was released on May 20, 2009 by Avex Trax. "World! Wide! Love!" is the second single from, and is set to appear on, Hitomi's ninth studio album, "Love Life 2".

Background
While there were many rumors that Hitomi was going to retire, they were quickly disbanded when her 34th single, "Sagashi Tsuduketeta Mono/World! Wide! Love!", a double a-side featuring a "pop ballad", was announced to be released on January 28, 2009. However, this single was soon cancelled for unknown reasons. Not long after, another single release, tentatively titled, "Birth", was soon scheduled on online stores to release a month later, on February 18, 2009, in both a CD-only and CD+DVD edition. Once again, however, this single release was cancelled for unknown reasons. Finally, however, her ninth studio album, then untitled, was confirmed by online retailers and Hitomi's official website. Soon after, "World! Wide! Love!" was announced. The title track was used in skincare product "Easuterinie" commercials, and was also a tie-in song for the "Bee TV" series in Japan. Both "World! Wide! Love!" and the b-side "Kokoro no Sogen" will appear on Hitomi's upcoming album "Love Life 2".

Music video
The promotional video does not feature Hitomi herself; rather, it depicts a girl in a long t-shirt walking around a school campus. As she walks, more girls join her and wear part of the girl's long t-shirt. The beginning of the video features a spoken, robotic message (most likely from Hitomi herself), and the song used in the video prior to release of Love Life 2 uses a more vocoded voice than the version on the single. This vocoder version appeared on the CD Love Life 2 However, the version of the video on the CD+DVD version of Love Life 2 uses the single mix.

Charts

 * Oricon Sales Chart (Japan)