That's a good point, Pips. My family definitely has a history of trying to live vicariously through their children, so I wonder if that's common problem with families in general. Do you think that maybe Utada never really wanted to get into the music business?

From what I can gather from interviews, it seems that Utada saw her parents in the music business and didn't think it looked like too great of a job. But fast-forward to her teens and that's what she ended up doing. Maybe Utada didn't want to be in the music business as a kid, but because she's the child of her parents, she has the same interests as them and eventually realized she loved music, too. I'm not sure I believe she was coerced into becoming a musician by her parents. I think she genuinely wanted to perform. But that's just my opinion. :)

It'd be very hard to work with parents in a professional sense. My father is deceased, so I won't guess at what it'd be like to work with him, but my mother would be a nightmare to work with. Especially to have her manage me? That would be extremely stressful. I've never been able to glean anything about Utada's relationship with her parents based on interviews, so I don't know if stress could be a factor in her "taking a break." That would be interesting though.