WHO’S BACK?

“Who’s Back?” is BoA’s eighth Japanese-language studio album out of 13 albums released during her career. It was released on September 3, 2014, featuring all of her singles released after the release of her last album “Identity”.

Many of the songs in this album during their initial release had commercial tie-ups, such as “Woo Weekend” which was used as the 25th anniversary song for Disney on Ice Japan, and both “I See Me” and “Milestone”, which were used in commercials for Audio-Technica headphones. Several songs were theme songs for television programs: the song “Tail of Hope” was used as the opening theme song for the drama Hakui no Namida, while “Message” was used for the online Bee TV drama Love Message!’s theme song. “Masayume Chasing” was used as an opening theme song for the first thirteen episodes of the seventh season of the anime Fairy Tail. This leave only “First Time” as the new song in the album, and also the single promoted for the album.

CDJournal felt that the album, compiled of almost entirely previously released works, acted more like a greatest hits album than a studio album. The reviewers felt that the album was impressive in the wide range of genres and techniques used, going from “up-tempo dancable pop tunes” to “melancholic medium ballads”.