Strawberry Flower

Strawberry Flower logo as seen on the cover art for "Ai no Uta".

Strawberry Flower was a Japanese music duo, mostly known for their work with Nintendo in creating songs for TV commercials for the Pikmin franchise. Formed in late 2001 specifically to create a song for TV advertisements for Pikmin, Strawberry Flower made the song "Ai no Uta". It became a sleeper hit, getting to #2 in the Japanese charts and becoming one of the best-selling singles in Japan in 2002. They later followed with more Pikmin-related single releases until 2004, totalling 1 million singles sold in their home country. Although they have been largely inactive ever since, they briefly reunited in 2015 for the song "arukuhayasade", released independently and with no ties to Pikmin.

History

In 2001, Nintendo enlisted singer instrumentist Gan Matsumoto, credited as Takeshi Tomozuma in the project, to create music to be used in the then-upcoming Pikmin game. Tomozuma composed the song "Ai no Uta", with Tomoe Watanabe recording the vocals, forming the Strawberry Flower duo. The song was released as a single in December of 2001, climbing to #2 in the Oricon charts in January 2002, becoming a massive hit and selling over 600,000 copies, outselling Japanese sales of Pikmin itself. The single version of "Ai no Uta" features a B-side song, "Namida Ga Afureta". In March 2002, a second single was released, "Pikmin Dance", featuring 3 dance versions of "Ai no Uta". The Pikmin soundtrack album, Pikmin World, contains "Ai no Uta" and 2 additional versions of it.

In 2004, Nintendo commissioned Strawberry Flower for promotional Pikmin music again, for TV commercials for Pikmin 2. The resulting single was "Tane no Uta". This was the last time Strawberry Flower made music for the Pikmin series, though they briefly reunited in 2015 for a new single, called "arukuhayasade".

Sheet music

In light of the popularity of Strawberry Flower's music, two different sheet music books were released containing music for Ai no Uta. They were released in Japan by the publishing companies KMP on January 15^th, 2002 and Doremi in January 30^th, 2002. The retail price for each was ¥500.

KMP

The cover of the Ai no Uta book published by KMP.

This book was published by KMP on January 15^th, 2002 and contains three different arrangements of the song: a solo piano arrangement, a guitar arrangement, and a 2-part chorus arrangement with piano accompaniment. All of the arrangements are in the song's original key (D major). Also included at the end of the book is a lyric sheet with the chords. All of the arrangements within are arranged by K. K. SMALLWOOD. The book consists of 11 pages, and its ISBN number is "ISBN 4-7732-1915-7".

The text on the cover translates to:

• CM song for the Nintendo GameCube software "Pikmin"
• Song of Love
• Strawberry Flower
• Piano Solo
• Guitar Arrangement
• 2-part Chorus with Piano Accompaniment
• Pikmin
• PIKMIN

Doremi

The cover of the Ai no Uta book published by Doremi.

This book was published by Doremi on January 30^th, 2002 and contains three different arrangements of the song: a solo piano arrangement (three staves, voice with piano accompaniment in the original key of D), another solo piano arrangement (simplified to the key C, this time with only two staves), and a solo guitar arrangement. Also included at the end of the book is a lyric sheet with the chords, similar to the other book. The piano arrangements are written by Shiori Aoyama and the guitar arrangement is written by Michio Tashima. The book consists of 11 pages, and its ISBN number is "ISBN 4-8108-1594-3".

The text on the cover translates to:

• Piano & Guitar Piece
• Piano playing • Easy piano solo • Guitar playing
• Pikmin
• PIKMIN
• Song of Love
• "Pikmin CM Song"
• Song / Lyrics & Composition: STRAWBERRY FLOWER

See also

• Wikipedia's article on Strawberry Flower