So I've been listening to the Kiss Me Good-Bye single a lot lately, and I finally realized that the music in the English version is quite a bit different from the Japanese version. It starts off with quiet piano, and also ends with a few bars of piano-playing, which make the song seem to fizzle out. There's a long instrumental bridge after the first chorus that isn't in the Japanese version that somehow leaves the song hanging. Also, Angela Aki's voice doesn't seem as powerful.

I'm rather disappointed with the English version. At least the changes to "Hikari" when it became "Simple and Clean" involved mainly lyrics and not changes to the actual music. Now I'm wondering how "Sanctuary" will compare in terms of "Passion."

For that matter, why did they feel they had to change the title of "Passion"? Maybe I'll understand a little better once I actually play KH2, which according to a press release has just been shipped to stores....

I seem to remember a distinct change in the melody of Hikari when it got changed to English - I like the English version of that one a lot less.  Am I imagining things or can someone confirm that for me?  >_<

Having listened to all three of the FFXII singles now, I have to say that I'm very much unimpressed.  Angela Aki is very "meh" all around and the Taro what's his name theme seems pretty perfunctory.  I hope the OST is better.

The beginning part of the chorus changed melody; the lines: "When you walk away, you don't hear me say, Please baby don't go." Compare that to how she sings: "Donna toki datte, Tada hitori de, Unmei wasurete, Ikitekita no ni." Listen to the very beginning of both songs and you'll hear it clearly. Otherwise, the melody was generally the same, except for a few lines sung in the background that appeared only in their respective Japanese/English versions.

There was this part in the english version..."wish i could prove i love you.  But does that mean I have to walk on water. when we are older.........."

If you listen to the exact same part in the j-version, you realize the vocal notes are simpler than the vocal notes in hikari.

And yeah, the word combination of "simple" and "clean" was always weird to me. 
They were not always words i would associate together...
"Simple and Clean is the way that you're making me feel tonight"
What exactly is that supposed to me?  ;p

Didn't like Passion when I heard it.  Haven't heard the English version of Passion.  So no comment.

About Angela Aki, i'd have to disagree. She has a really powerful voice.
The kind that bellows out forever.
In the J-version of KMB, she sings this loooonngg note, and at the end she adds a vibrato. 
She must have a set of powerful lungs that could hold enough to air to produce a vibrato.  She's got incredibly range and she uses it (in other songs).
The only flaw i could see with that is that she's uneven; unable to control the power she's got.  and maybe she vibratos too much, but you should blame the song and lyrics for that.
Personally i like that English version of KMB more than the J-version.
But still i think this is Nobuo's best vocal to date.

Yeah, you're right. Probably because the Japanese version had way more syllables for Utada to mess around with. ^_~

*LOL* I've wondered that from the very beginning, especially after I listened to the rest of the lyrics. I guess it's supposed to be alluding to the innocence of childhood, but I'm not sure the lyrics overall really convey that. And the song title's not exactly the best...

Funny thing is, I didn't like Passion as a stand-alone song, because the beginning instrumental seemed just way too long. But when I saw the video, I liked it a *lot* better -- I felt as though it was the kind of song that simply must be accompanied by images to really get the full effect of. Then came the horses at the end of the video as a total non-sequiter....

Well, she does that in the English version, too. But I agree, I've always thought her voice was powerful. It just seemed less so in the English version, especially in the two main verses, *especially* coming after a soft introductory piano and a drawn-out instrumental bridge after the first chorus. I do like the English version overall on its own merits, it's just that I prefer the Japanese version. It was kind of a shock to me when I realized just how much the music was changed for the English.

So, years back, I believe I may have expressed some distaste for Aki's rendition of Eyes On Me.  More recent times, however, has afforded me a sunnier outlook on the song.  It's really quite nice, actually.  I've certainly grown to appreciate her lyric enunciation liberties, as well as the simple but effective piano accompaniment.

I still feel Wong's is the superior version, with the instrumentation-pleasant but less-than-desirably pitched Kiyota's Song Book rendition trailing a distant third.

My understanding is that Ms. Utada renamed the English version "Sanctuary" based on the English lyrics, which she also penned. The meaning of the Japanese lyrics vary SIGNIFICANTLY from the Sanctuary lyrics, yet Utada wrote both sets of lyrics.

And, for what it's worth, I think Passion is one of the best songs ever written. Ever. And the music video is awesome too.

Yup. Passion >>>> Hikari in all variations.

I like Kiss Me Good-Bye more than other Final Fantasy theme songs too. The English version was arranged by Kenichiro Fukui and he did a good job in my opinion. Seems the game producers thought so too since the English version was used in both the English and Japanese versions (and whatever plane I was listening to radio on during my trip to New Zealand).