Kōji Wada (和田 光司, Wada Kōji; January 29, 1974 – April 3, 2016) was a Japanese pop singer. He was best known for performing theme songs for several installments of the Digimon anime television series, including his recording debut in 1999 with his first and most famous single, "Butter-Fly", the theme song of the animeDigimon Adventure. He was signed with the Lantis recording label. His nickname is "Immortal Butterfly Anisong Singer" (不死蝶のアニソンシンガー).
Life and career
Wada was born in Fukuchiyama, Kyoto, Japan. In 2003, Wada released his first original album, All of My Mind, which included many of his previous works. He also collaborated in Michihiko Ōta's self-cover album Mirai e no Message: Ōta Michihiko Self-Cover, featuring in two tracks – a cover version of "Hontō no Tsuyosa" (本当の強さ) (Ken & Wormmon's Theme) and in "3 Primary Colors" (the Tamers theme), along with AiM. Later, he released an album called The Best Selection: Welcome Back!. It contains several of his earlier works as well as two new songs, titled "Pierce" and "Kimi no Keshiki." On August 1, 2008, he debuted a mini-album titled Ever, which contained five brand new songs. An album titled Kazakami no Oka Kara (風上の丘から), was sold at his live concerts in Japan throughout the end of 2009 in commemoration of his 10th anniversary in music, and it was released worldwide on January 11, 2010.
Wada had contributed songs to six of the seven Digimonanime series (with one of his songs reused for the seventh, to which he contributed no new songs), including opening themes for the first five of them. He also performed two songs used as ending themes for Digimon Frontier, "Innocent: Mujaki na Mama de" (イノセント～無邪気なままで～) and "an Endless Tale" (with AiM). He starred in various other songs for the series, such as "Bokura no Digital World" (the "memorial" theme for the Adventure series), "Yūki o Uketsugu Kodomo-tachi e" and also several Christmas songs. He also performed the theme song for Transformers: Robots in Disguise.
International appearances
In July 2007, Wada made his first show in Brazil, doing a solo presentation and singing along other invited Japanese singers at the "Anime Friends" convention. This happened one year after Ayumi Miyazaki visited Brazil in another convention "ExpoAnime Brasil". He also visited the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul on October 14, 2007, during the Anima Weekend event. On December 15–16, 2007, he made a live presentation in the "Anime Festival XL" event in Santiago, Chile. In August 2008, he released a mini-album named ever, which contains five original songs, with four of them composed and written by himself. In December 2008 he was performing in the "Animeku 08", in February the "AniCon", and in July the "Anime Friends" (both in 2010) Events from "Yamato", in Brazil and Argentina. On June 5–6, 2010, he did two concerts in Monterrey, Mexico in the Santa Lucia Arena at the "Dengeki Live", a J-pop event and anime convention. In response to his metastasized cancer in 2011, he cancelled two appearances planned for Chile and Peru.[citation needed]
Death
On October 4, 2011, Wada announced via his blog that he was putting his career on hold to deal with a sudden metastasized cancer, which was previously treated in 2003.
On April 3, 2016, Wada died suddenly from complications related to nasopharynx cancer. His last single, "Seven〜tri. Version〜", was released five days prior to his death.
Tribute
A CD tribute for Kōji Wada was released in Japan on July 31, 2016, under the name of "Digimon Song Best of Koji Wada". The CD includes a total of eleven tracks by him. Additionally, the cover features Angemon, Wada's favourite Digimon character. Another compilation, "Koji Wada Digimon Memorial Best", was released on January 25, 2017.
