Utada Hikaru beguiles Tetris foes

Utada Hikaru, the Japanese pop star best known to gamers for her songs from the Kingdom Hearts franchise, trumped 26 of 30 Tetris challengers in a Nintendo-sponsored event over the weekend in Japan.

Nintendo hosted an event called The Tetris Battle at the Tokyo International Forum on Saturday, according to Japanese Web site ITmedia. Members of the Club Nintendo fan club who won a Nintendo promotional contest each challenged the Japanese pop icon in a round of Tetris DS.

Utada--a self-proclaimed Tetris aficionado since the age of 5--lost her first two games, but she rebounded, winning 26 of her next 28 bouts. She also defeated a Nintendo developer in an exhibition match. The 23-year-old singer blamed the unfamiliar Nintendo DS system she used at the event for her slow start. Before her winning streak began, a shocked Utada reportedly exclaimed, "Are you serious?... This is impossible!"

Besides Tetris, Utada has other ties to video games. She contributed the single "Easy Breezy" for the first Nintendo DS advertising campaign in Japan and sang the theme songs "Simple and Clean" and "Passion" for Square Enix's action role-players Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts II, respectively.