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Evangelion Team's Music Video for Hikaru Utada's 'Beautiful World' Streamed

The official website for Neon Genesis Evangelion began streaming the Studio Khara's music video on Wednesday for Hikaru Utada's song "Beautiful World," which was the ending theme for 2007's Evangelion: 1.0 You Are [Not] Alone. The video, directed by Kazuya Tsurumaki , features some new footage interspersed with footage from the new Rebuild of Evangelion films.

An acoustic version of the same song became the ending theme for 2009's Evangelion: 2.0 You Can [Not] Advance. Utada contributed the song "Sakura Nagashi" as the ending theme for Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo.

The video promotes Utada's 15th anniversary cover album, which features a variety of artists covering her songs.

The cover album, Utada Hikaru no Uta, will ship on December 9 and is the second album the artist is releasing this year to commemorate her 15th anniversary. The first one was a remastered version of her debut album First Love that shipped on March 10. Utada's official YouTube channel began streaming a few of the covers of her songs from the cover album.

AI's cover of "Final Distance"

KIRINJI's cover of "Keep Tryin'"

Yousui Inoue's cover of "Sakura Drops"

Ringo Sheena's cover of "Letters"

Other artists who will perform songs for the album include:

• Trio Ōhashi
• Yasuyuki Okamura
• Miliyah Katō
• Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis feat. Peabo Bryson
• tofubeats with Bonnie Pink
• Hanaregumi
• Ayumi Hamasaki
• Kazuya Yoshii
• Love Psychedelico

Utada has been on hiatus from the entertainment business since the beginning of 2011, although she returned to host a monthly radio program called Kuma Power Hour with Utada Hikaru on the InterFM station starting in April 2013. She did contribute the song "Sakura Nagashi" as the ending theme for 2012's Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo (Evangelion Shin Gekijō-ban: Q), but her management emphasized that the song did not represent a full-fledged return from her hiatus.

Utada's father Teruzane Utada had originally said in a Twitter post in October 2013 that he and his daughter would be involved in the Kingdom Hearts III theme song, but he took back that comment the next day, saying that "as of now it's undecided." Utada contributed the two theme songs that have been used for every game so far in the Kingdom Hearts franchise.