Akiko Yoshida, otherwise known as Kokia, is a Japanese Songwriter and Singer, creating music and tracks often sentimental in nature. During her career, she had released numerous tracks for a handful of anime serieses, and released plenty more under her own Kokia identity.
I believe this is a good musician to recommend towards the start of the year 2022, for many reasons! Describing Kokia’s music is something challenging to me at first, but after digging around and realizing that she had written both the lyrics and the music for a majority of her music, I am very convinced, and encouraged to write about her, especially considering the contents of her tracks!
Kokia’s music can vary to a handful of unique genres. From your typical J-POP, to Country, to something a bit more Spiritual. As such, the Instrumentation contained within each track can vary significantly, with each variation bringing something new and fresh to the library for Kokia.
Though the main cream of her music is, undoubtedly, her vocals! Any fans of Kokia would refer to the best thing about her music is her vocal work that she performed for most, if not all of the tracks she was involved in.
Similar, but equally impressive when compared to other renowned vocalists such as Cassie Wei’s or one that we had previously covered, Hanatan, Kokia makes a statement with her vocals, and that is something that I think people should really experience.
You like somber sounding music? Paired with lyrics that make you ponder on ends? If so, Kokia is a great artist that you can check out. All of her releases are top tier in terms of quality, be it for anime or stand alones tracks that she releases. When Hontou no Oto came out, I was in disbelief that that isn’t an anime ed or insert song, even now, a part of me still thinks that Hontou no Oto is an ed from an anime of the year kind of source; but it isn’t, it’s just a standalone track.
Let’s talk about her music, splitting them into two parts, her own releases, and stuff that she composes for anime.
For her own releases, Hontou no Oto and Fukurou would be my current top picks. This is where my recommended entry point for Kokia will be, as these two songs illustrate the focal point of her music the best in my opinion.
Hontou no Oto, (my favorite song, if we’re talking about Kokia, yes it won against her songs with chaos language, that’s how good this is to me at least). The somber theme that thi song is going for hits nicely in the spot where it won’t be riling you up too much or making you feel too uncomfortable, while the lyrics are down to earth enough for it to not sound too much like an edgelord or too pretentious for people to enjoy. For elaboration sake, the song’s lyrics are about how keeping true to yourself is important, and you should never forget who you are at your core, and how putting on too heavy of a facade can lead to you completely losing your true self, straight forward lyrics that conveys its meaning nicely in a simple way while still harmonises with the instrumental.
As for her other releases, (mainly for anime in this segment) Nageki no Oto, EXEC_COSMOFLIPS and Chouwa no Oto (there’s a lot of 音 being thrown around). All of which carries her iconic somber tone while fitting to the anime contextually, which is always nice and a +sign in my book.
(Here’s the chaos language music I was talking about, Dance of the Spirits, I have no idea what the lyrics in that song are or what they mean, but all I know is that I like how it sounds; it’s like listening to two toddler talk to each other, you have no idea what they are saying, but it’s entertaining and endearing, so you keep watching.)
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