Kōji Wada

Life and career

Kōji Wada was born in Fukuchiyama, Kyoto, Japan. His first original album, All of My Mind, came out in 2003 and gathered many of his earlier songs. That same year, he worked on Michihiko Ōta’s self-cover album Mirai e no Message: Ōta Michihiko Self-Cover, appearing on two tracks: a cover of “Hontō no Tsuyosa” (the theme for Ken and Wormmon) and “3 Primary Colors” (the Tamers theme), the latter alongside AiM. He later put out The Best Selection: Welcome Back!, which collected older material plus two new songs, “Pierce” and “Kimi no Keshiki.” On August 1, 2008, he released a five-song mini-album called Ever. To mark his tenth year in music, he sold the album Kazakami no Oka Kara at his live concerts across Japan through late 2009, then made it available worldwide on January 11, 2010.

Wada contributed songs to six of the seven Digimon anime series; one of his tracks was reused for the seventh series, to which he did not supply any new material. He sang opening themes for the first five series. For Digimon Frontier, he performed two ending themes: “Innocent: Mujaki na Mama de” and “an Endless Tale” (the latter with AiM). He also recorded other series songs, including “Bokura no Digital World,” “Yūki o Uketsugu Kodomo-tachi e,” and several Christmas songs, and he performed the theme for Transformers: Robots in Disguise.

In July 2007, Wada made his first trip to Brazil, performing solo and alongside other invited Japanese singers at the Anime Friends convention. This came a year after Ayumi Miyazaki had visited Brazil for the ExpoAnime Brasil convention. On October 14, 2007, he appeared in the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul at the Anima Weekend event. On December 15–16, 2007, he performed at Anime Festival XL in Santiago, Chile. In August 2008, he released the mini-album ever, which contained five original songs, four of which he composed and wrote himself. In December 2008 he performed at Animeku 08, in February at AniCon, and in July at Anime Friends (both in 2010) as part of events organized by Yamato in Brazil and Argentina. On June 5–6, 2010, he gave two concerts in Monterrey, Mexico, at the Santa Lucia Arena during Dengeki Live, a J-pop event and anime convention. After his cancer metastasized in 2011, he canceled two planned appearances in Chile and Peru.

Death

In 2011, Wada paused his music career after announcing on his blog that a cancer he had first been treated for in 2003 had returned and spread. He passed away on April 3, 2016, due to complications from nasopharynx cancer. His final single, "Seven〜tri. Version〜", came out just five days before his death. A tribute CD called "Digimon Song Best of Koji Wada" hit stores in Japan on July 31, 2016, containing eleven songs and featuring Angemon—Wada’s favorite Digimon—on the cover. Another collection, "Koji Wada Digimon Memorial Best", followed on January 25, 2017. The 2017 game Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth – Hacker's Memory honors him with Hudiemon, a butterfly-like Digimon, and the hacker group Hudie, whose name means "butterfly" in Chinese.