Strawberry Flower

History

In 2001, Nintendo asked singer and multi-instrumentalist Gan Matsumoto, working under the name Takeshi Tomozuma for this project, to make music for the upcoming GameCube game Pikmin, which was designed by Shigeru Miyamoto. Tomozuma wrote the song "Ai no Uta" and then asked Tomoe Watanabe to sing on it, which led to the creation of the duo Strawberry Flower. The song came out as a single in December of that year. By January 2002, it had reached number two on Japan's Oricon charts, selling more than 600,000 copies. That was more than the number of copies of Pikmin sold in Japan at the time, though the song did help the game's sales, which eventually passed 500,000 copies in the country. According to Oricon, "Ai no Uta" was the eighth best-selling single in Japan for all of 2002. The lyrics tell the story of the game from the viewpoint of the Pikmin creatures. A separate version for TV commercials, which talks about the Pikmin more directly, was also made. Both versions appeared on the Pikmin World soundtrack, which came out in May 2002. The single's B-side, "Namida ga Afureta," describes the game's events from the perspective of the main character, Olimar, and was only available on that single. Strawberry Flower's next release was a set of three instrumental remixes of "Ai no Uta" called "Pikmin Dance," put out under the name Strawberry Music Group. In 2002, a French version titled "Vos Meilleurs Amis" was released as a single in France by Virgin France, sung by French vocalist Juliette Katz, and used in Pikmin TV ads there. A shorter version of that song, made for the commercials, was also included on Pikmin World. Nintendo later hired Strawberry Flower again to create promotional music for TV spots for the GameCube game Pikmin 2. That led to the single "Tane no Uta," released in May 2004. It was based on the Japanese nursery rhyme "Koganemushi," with new lyrics describing each color of Pikmin. The CD single also included a cover of the nursery rhyme "Shabondama" and a remix of "Ai no Uta" with newly recorded vocals and instruments. As with "Ai no Uta" for the first game, "Tane no Uta" was not actually included in Pikmin 2, though "Ai no Uta" did appear in that game as a hidden easter egg. After "Tane no Uta," Strawberry Flower did not work with Nintendo or the Pikmin series on any new songs, even though more Pikmin games came out in later years.