you're welcome :innocent

It's good, as long she stays in top 5 ^^.

i assume it's because japanese artists put out an album every year (for the most part) and so every week there's something new from popular singers. but in my country (the USA), some singers take like 3-4 years between albums, so there's less competition week to week. japanese music industry is very...constant haha. there's always something new--i don't know, does this make any sense? o_O

too many realeases of different artists

^^

thats why

Down to no.5... I think she will get a weekly no.7 at best.

I assume that Ayu's charting times are the way that they are because she releases when all of the other big artists do (see B'z the week after A COMPLETE or Kobukuro/EXILE the week or so before GUILTY and so on..)

@^: Well it goes generally for most releases in Japan I think..

@tokyo/naga: Ah, yea, that seems logical. I wonder why Japanese people bring out so much more music and IMO with a higher quality too mostly. Maybe it's because of the higher working spirit of people in Japan? Yea..

I'm surprised that anyone in japan even buys CDs when they come out, they are at least twice as much as the typical american pays for a CD in the US, probably the same elsewhere right?

maybe an album doesn't stay in #1 many weeks... but in only one week AC have sold more than an album of a popular artist here in Spain can sell in 3 weeks... here a good final sales are 300K or 400K... and if an album does 500K or more is extremly good... So for me Japan sales are really amazing!! Here in Spain people are really "illegal download fans"! hehehe

That's probably because you're buying it online... Maybe the prices increase or something? I have no idea. A large store here in Australia called JB-Hifi imports Japanese music... I was actually contemplating purchasing LOVEppears from there... then I realised it was $72.

Yeah I always thought it was just their work-a-holic nature so they always come out with top notch stuff super fast.


Me too! I almost never buy J-music from Japan (I get the HK versions) unless I want my purchase to count towards oricon.... in fact, this year is the first year I've bought so many things from Japan.... Cause I wanted my Mirrorcle World and A COMPLETE purchase to count.

Not really. While shipping and some extra addition is added (I'm talking about yesasia and cdjapan not amazon.com were the price is ridiculously heightened) its about the same as you would pay in Japan which is in the 30-40 dollar area. A typical new release Cd in america is 15.
i hear you! While all of my Cds are Japan versions, alot i got used when I went to Japan and from ebay. used Cds in japan are ridiculously cheap, i'm talking like 5 for 3 american dollars, newer releases about 15 dollars each. And of course you can always get good deals on ebay and such.

^ I'll keep that in mind when I got this summer :)

I don't usually like used items, but considering the price it is new in Japan, I don't really care xD;

THANKS !!!

^Yup keep an eye out for Book-Off the best supplier of used CDs (as well as DVDs and manga)! The amount of items in that store was jawdropping. And the quality is actually rather high, they are rewrapped and OBIs are usually always included (sometimes they are in the cd case and not displayed on the outside). The ones at Books off were on the outside from what i remember.
Typically you'll have a section for new Cds, then used, then used CDs that are ridiculously cheap at other CD stores.
What part of Japan are you heading to?

Don't Japanese consumers make more money than American consumers? I'm assuming this based on relative currencies, though.

The Japanese CDs in my local store are more expensive than the Chinese and Korean ones.

The listed price of their CDs are normally 3000 to 4000 yen so paying so much for an album is standard to them i guess. I don't think they earn much more than the average american or singaporean for that matter. That's why they have to allow overseas presses, otherwise, i'm sure they won't be able to sell much.

It's like how one of my textbooks have the exact same content as an american textbook but it's called international version and cost only $40. In america it cost almost $200.

back at #4

^ YEZZZ!!!
KEEP IT UP A.C.!!! X3

Up and down and up and down and up and down. :P

wow..back to number 4, nice

Yeah there's probably only copies different between the ranks. Glad she's up there! But i almost dread the new releases.