Beginning sometime in 2009, the album's production was handled by several music producers, such as Jeff Miyahara, Giorgio Cancemi, Daniel Sherman, Mats Lie Skåre, ViVi, Andreas Levander, among others.

To Love is primarily a J-pop album with numerous elements of dance-pop, pop rock, R&B, electropop and adult contemporary.

Music critics gave To Love positive reviews, praising the album's overall sound, production quality and Nishino's vocals.

A commercial success, To Love became her first number-one album in Japan, premiering at the top spot with first week sales of over 290,000 units.

This made Nishino the first soloist born in the Heisei era to top the Oricon Albums Chart.

To Love is Nishino's most successful album to date, selling over 750,000 copies and receiving a triple platinum certification from Recording Industry Association of Japan (RIAJ).

fared well commercially, peaking at number four on the Oricon Albums Chart and was certified platinum for selling up to 250,000 copies.

For the album, Nishino's record label SME Records hired an array of Japanese and western musicians such as Jeff Miyahara, Giorgio Cancemi, Daniel Sherman, Mats Lie Skåre, ViVi, Andreas Levander, among others to work on it.

As exactly one year had passed from her previous album, Nishino wanted to express the growth in her values and view on love.

Japan, Nishino explained in full detail on how she wrote the album's lyrics: I get an image from the song, and I make a short movie in my head.

There are many times when it is difficult to put into words, so I work so hard and stoically that once I start writing, I never leave my room.

[8]"＊Prologue＊〜What a nice〜" is the minute and a half opener for the album, which she sings in a whisper while praying to the stars for a prince to appear.

[9] "*Epilogue*～to LOVE～" is the closer of the album; like the prologue, it is a romantic piece that prays to the stars for a wonderful surprise for meeting someone.

The first limited edition version of To Love included a bonus DVD with six music videos along with accompanying behind-the-scenes footage.

[15] It served as the theme song for the Nippon Television dorama Detective M.[16] "Motto..." debuted atop the RIAJ Digital Track Chart.

[20] "Dear.." served as the official theme song for NTT DoCoMo's exam support project "Ganbare Jikkou ’09-'10.”[21] "Maybe” served as the commercial song for Maybelline New York's ‘Volume Express Magnum’ featuring Nishino herself.

In July 2010, Nishino held a tour of “love spots” in Kobe, Osaka and Kyoto called Kana Nishino to LOVE Kansai to celebrate her album reaching number one on the weekly Oricon Albums Chart.

[35] Furthermore, at the end of December, she made her first appearance at the 61st NHK Kōhaku Uta Gassen with the song "Best Friend.

[39] To Love debuted at number one on Oricon's daily albums chart, selling 71,000 units on its first day.

[51] To Love was a commercial success for Nishino; it sold 645,417 copies in 2010, making it the third best-selling album of the year, as well as the year's best-selling album by a female soloist, beating out two chart entries by Namie Amuro and Kaela Kimura.