It's funny that Ayu become famous for personality than for music.
I remember reading her attidute wasn't really that nice, according to gossip newspapers and so on though lol.
But it's quite true. I don't think without her strong personality she would have ever become one of the best-selling japanese/asian artists.

About her looking horrible, eh that's just harsh. She doesn't look kawaii anymore, but she's far from looking horrible. I agree with blond hair comment though. Ayu bring back (m)u hair thx.

This comment is so true ! she is very impassive lol

I expected the comments to be very nasty honestly, but all most people did was criticize what alot of us here do; the marriage/divorce drama, the music station no show and the fact that Namie is "cooler" than her. I can't say I disagree with anything other than the argument that she was never talented cause that's ridiculous.

Anyhow don't know how much 2ch is a reflection of the general population's opinion but thanks for sharing.

It seems that her marriage and the Music Station cancellation left a bad taste in people's mouths.

OMG IM DEAD.
Some of the comments are so brutal.

「盛大にスベった」- "major flop" in Japanese. Mwuahagagahjjkinni

Not as bad as I thought it'd be, tbh :laugh Some of those comments look like they could've been straight from AHS, sooo.

I always find it amusing how often the word 'scandal' is thrown around regarding Ayu. Because what she's done is so scandalous :laugh Right.

same, i thought they'd be much worse.. all they do is pretty much show the cultural view on age, mariage/divorce, cancelations & rumours... Frankly i find it all silly, really, i mean if they can't even realize thata magazizne pictures are photoshopped then i have noting to say....but that's Japan for you *shrugs*

I like how they brought up the whole Max being president incident lol

It's weird to read that people began to lose interest in her so early on. I mean, I almost feel like everything was a warm up for her all the way up until Memoria Address where she truly found herself and freedom to experiment a little more and also fine tune things she's attempted in the past. I didn't feel like we were losing her until NEXT LEVEL. Maybe a short sting during Secret era just because the album seemed rushed but oh well. I hope she continues to move forward but it looks like it's impossible for her.

And I can't help but just dislike Namie a whole lot more after reading those comments.

^ Why? Namie didn't do anything.

And yes, Ayu's popularity began going down way back around Rainbow. The average Japanese person doesn't have any memory of her beyond that album.

I no; I don't follow her too much. I mean I know the titles of her releases and I check out all of her albums. But, she is boring for me. Ayu seems to be the type to take control, and carve her own path in her career, where as Namie's choices are more or less made for her, and she trusts that they are the right choices. It was made to sound like this is the reason Namie continued to succeed where Ayu has failed, and made to sound like the right choice, but I feel Ayu's passion and need for control is what makes her so admirable.

Every japanese person I know ONLY knows Boys & Girls or SEASONS.
Mainly B&G

^ I had a friend that lived in Japan for a lot of years, and he wasn't an Ayu fan. When I asked him about her songs he knew none, but he remembered lots of them by hearing...

The thing is... outside the fanbase (including casual listeners) and people who follow that music genre, most people will only know the biggest hits for any artist. There was a poll recently asking about Namie's hits, the poll was divided in 3 periods of time. The 1st one had a huge number of votes for "Can you Celebrate?", while both her low point and her new peak had the option "I don't know any of these songs" as the most voted.... That this happened after BEST FICTION and Baby Don't Cry, that is most likelly her biggest recent hit.

If you ask any person about songs from any big artist they don't follow, the result will always be +- the same.

I read most of the comments and honestly, those netizens are just simply judging Ayu by what the media fed them. News media can sometime be bias. I don't think those people have any right to judge Ayu because they don't know the core of the stories. Another thing that I noticed is that they kept comparing Ayu with Namie Amuro. It's not fair for the both of them (Ayu and Amuro). Being compare to was never fair and honestly... those people just have too much time on their hands to even worrying about other's lives.

I actually don't see anything horrible about anything Ayu has done.

I could understand if she was like a Kardashian, whoring herself out to every magazine, TV show, media outlet, etc. that she could. But she's not like that at all. In fact, she's severely decreased her media presence.

I wonder if it'd change if she did appear more regularly though? Then maybe people would think, "This person doesn't seem like the one painted in the magazines at all."

Then again, she would probably be asked questions about her personal life and her answers would be taken out of context by these horrible kinds of people.

Poor Ayu. It obviously hurts her (lyrics to m(u) ). I'm glad she can be strong though.

It seems like it's Ayu's personal life that got her a bad image? Those comments just surrounds on how Ayu looks like (getting older) and who she's with. Why didn't they see Ayu's amazing voice and talent? -_-

Btw who is this Sakura? They hire people to watch Ayu's concert for free? Is tat true? :O

Also, I'm curious as to what this "Sakura" is... some sort of agency that pays you to attend concerts???

Well, that was interesting!
I can't really take it too seriously, because most of the comments were very lazy, even when interesting, so... Basically, she's not young (new) anymore. Ok. If I think there are singers extremely famous being ten times ruder than she'll ever be (I remember reading Rihanna making wait the crowd at her concerts for four hours) I can understand it's just a matter of hits. At the end the music is for music fans, very few among people I know buy cds, they're gonna buy the song they heard somewhere and that's where it ends. So tie-ins and promotion are very important. So, in the end, it's all marketing. So, if she has a single chance to become big again, that's only going to happen with a nice promotion.
And if, even with that, she fails, than it just didn't happen and she can count on us, her fanbase, as long as she did her best. But you've got to try to know.

"I LOL'd when she made a miraculous recovery 3 months after declaring that her ear lost the ability to hear"

I still don't understand. The article was from a tabloid article (that ayu had nothing to do with and she is still deaf in 1 ear) or did they really interview her and she said so?

^ A tabloid, she never said she miraculously recovered. I guess some people think she was lying about the hearing loss because she keeps singing and never spoke about that again..

most of the comments there are pure rumors that people tend to believe... And most seem to come from people that never liked her, or only liked her in the beginning when she was huge.

For me the bigger problem is her lack of promotion, and also the bad promotion, so I do agree with the ones that said that the music station cancellation and her divorce were two of the main reasons...

THIS LOL