In January 2002, it was announced that Ueto would continue her music career as a solo artist under Pony Canyon subsidiary label, Flight Master. During her summer break from school, she appeared in a 5-episode arc of the long-running drama "Wataru Seken wa Oni Bakari", and starred alongside Akiko Yada and Hiroshi Abe in the TBS drama "My Little Chef". Ueto released her first solo single, "Pureness," in August 2002. The song debuted at number 4 on the Oricon Weekly Singles chart, making it the first debut single by a female artist with no commercial tie-in to enter the top five in three years. In between filming her first feature film, "Azumi", Ueto released her second single, "Kizuna," and launched "Seventeen's Map", a radio show on Nippon Hōsō. The program would go on to last four-and-a-half years, changing names after each of her birthdays to "Eighteen's Road", "Nineteen's Nine", "Hatachi ni High Touch!", and "21 Peace!".