I do find it kinda weird that so far she did not attend any TV shows and sing some of her songs in the latest album... She's like doing the minimal promotion of her album... Maybe because this whole 5 releases are mainly for fans, and she don't wanna it to be too commercial..?

But anyway.... I am attracted to ayumi in the first place is because of her attitude... That she don't really care about anything, and got this kind of "princess" feel... (A bit arrogant, but not really the right word... she just got an attitude). And then i realized that was the point she was being treated as a product in Avex.

Afterwards, she's trying to be herself... instead of a product... But ironically, i sometimes do like her treat herself as a "product" (no offense)... Not so sure why the reasons, but maybe when she is a product, her lyrics came out deeper, and seems to be continuously fighting and finding the path out...

I completely agree =) :yes

edit:
I don't think she acts like a DIVA ! I seen FNS and when she finished her performance during MC we can see her seating at the table and she looks very not at her place like she was uncomfortable to be there ! I felt like she didn't appreciate to be there with all other singers around her ! IMO she don't likes that at all because you all know how she is bashed after by people and of course she knows it ! Her staff reads what's people think of her !

Maybe she's happier with the way things are now?
If she wasn't, wouldn't she of changed it as quickly as she changes wigs? xD

Ayu I think has always been awkward in interviews though. Even back in the day, she always seems so...I don't know how to describe it. She's different to everybody else. She gives off that aura of 'untouchable' even if she acts quite bubbly.

^ yeah, you're right.

the only difference is that she was adored and super-famous those times, 10 years ago, so it was OK for her to behave like that. now I feel like it's a little bit out of place.

If she's happy that way, then it's fine.

During her peak, she was on every TV program that you could find, almost every week putting out her info for the new releases. But I remember watching not for the music, but for her personality. She was different, she said things that were blunt, in a cute way, and her personal love life was completely hidden.

She gave herself to the public, while keeping a certain level of privacy. But the fans were completely okay with this agreement - they got everything they wanted, and Ayu's private life, namely love life, was completely guarded by Avex - there were very few actual scandals that weren't just rumours.

She was known for her insightful lyrics, and her piercing voice, and her charismatic attitude. I went to Countdown Live 2012 - 2013, and I need to tell you that although I felt like she was an artist, she wasn't charismatic, not the way she was. Look at 2000 Countdown Live's Fly High appearance. She is dancing around, making her dancers look lazy, and she can't wait to get out the lyrics, and she is hitting those notes. Fly high in 2012 - 2013, she is struggling to keep up with the energy, even though she's turned the key of the song down one or two semitones, and she seems just bored. It seems she can't wait for the long notes to be over, and overall, she couldn't wait for the live to be over.

One thing that really struck me odd was that she did not even come onto the overhead speaker in Yoyogi Arena to say "thank you very much" after the show, like she normally did to surprise her fans.

I feel like she's lost her fire... it feels like she's a shell of the former self, the one who moved around vigorously, laughing, having the time of her life. I don't know what's going on now, but like...

I just...

You know when you feel like someone can do so much better, and you're so disappointed and defeated that they're not? Even though you support them so much, and think that the next thing they'll do will definitely show the world that she's back? And then you get let down that it doesn't happen? I feel like that soooo much lately and I absolutely hate it.

Get back on those TV programs. God, even that stupid girl from Berryz Koubou is getting more screen time than her... and everyone hates her. And it makes me so angry LOL

I think Ayu has always been uncomfortable on TV. I rarely got the impression she genuinely enjoyed being interviewed or taking part in variety shows- she was just good at faking it. That whole Ayu persona thing. From my view it looks very much like Ayu isn't really a people person at all, she only likes it when she's around people she's known for a long time. When it's more in her control if that makes any sense...which I completely understand because I'm EXACTLY the same way. Not to mention whenever she does appear in public people badmouth the crap out of her, is it really any wonder she might want to avoid it?
Not to say I wouldn't want to see her doing some of these things once in awhile. Though we did get the gyoa thing and whatnot and she seems her usual charming, smiling self on both occasions :)

maikaru & Kagami you read my opinion lol I completely agree once more !

The public may have an image of her as a "diva" or whatever but she's always good to her fans and that's what matters. Like buying people waiting outside her hotel in London coffees because she was running late and making sure everyone gets something signed and gets a picture.

mi|kshake~

Many people forget that fact.

for a pop singer of her level, she's incredible with her fans. devotes her music to them, not for sales that are clearly not significant to her anymore.

I think that deep inside she's very very unhappy. She broke up with Maro, right? And new album's title sounds so desperately "Love again". I'm sure she was very happy when she got new love, but now it seems to be over.

The person who is not encouraged himself can not encourage others.

However on the other side, she is the one who made her talk show. She was the one who decided that she would do a show then, and the outline of it. =[ I think she genuinely enjoyed that show, because she had control over it.

She needs to take control of her entire career once more, like she did before as she mentioned in the CNN Interview for Secret.

Honestly, her happiness and bubbliness seemed so fake in the Gyao Interview and Line Bubble event... like she's hiding her sadness.

Well, there should be a whole new thread for that LOL. But yeah... anyways. Sales are attrocious for an album from Japan's "Top Diva."
I'm quite sad. haha.

^let's just say she's not the top anymore.


i realized this just recently, but the proud days of the ayu fandom in terms of royalty, sales, and presence are long over, perhaps right after Love songs was released. the ayu i see now, is just ayumi hamasaki: a singer, an artist, a long and distant friend. and i guess i'm happy with that?


ayu is not the top anymore. she's nowhere near that now. so let's calm our tits and enjoy ayu's legendary music.

She was sitting at fns???? where? i was looking for her left n right couldnt find her..

do you know which performances she was sitting or which segment? i always thought she got in and got out asap.

2nd week's 3rd day
Position: #3
sales: 1,627（〃10,046枚）

I will look ^^

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNDg0ODU5NjMy.html

255th minutes

omg, thats great!!

3rd Day
Position: #4

4th Day
Position: #3
Sales: 1,627
Total Sales: 63,111

yaay! bought my copy today ^^ glad she's in top 3 ^^

better than I thought!
I was hoping for top 10! looks like its gonna be in the top 5!

Tbh it seems like most if not all physical sales in Japan went to ***** this year.

Thank you dear, you're very kind, aww she looked cute, she's sitting next kato miliyah, i wonder if miliyah fan girl'd over ayu since she said once she looked up to her.

woo hoo! Number 1 first week (sorry late on the news) congrats Ayu!

RISE again ;)

^ Yea! She's no.2 today... with sales 1,792! Great! Who knows she might take over 2PM's 1st position spot on next week! ^o^ !

5th Day
Position: #2
Sales: 1,792

http://www.oricon.co.jp/rank/ja/d/2013-02-15/

Wow she went up again o_o

Looks like LOVE again will be able to get top 5 for the 2nd week after all

*1 2,136 2PM (累計 44,800)
*2 1,792 浜崎あゆみ (累計 11,838)
*3 1,386 DEEP (累計 11,039)

she will finish at #2 for 2nd week most likely

5th Day
Position: #2
Sales: 1,792
Total Sales: 64,903

Great, over 65,000 tomorrow :)

wow, this week is really bad for sales.
too bad she cant get number 1 again!

Yeahh! i hope she could get no.1 tmr ^^Go Go!

Hope she will get back to number one tomorrow!

I'm in a bit of expected shock because the album won't sell more than PQ.

n i believe all kpop news will say 2pm beating hamasaki ayumi on oricon
╮("╯_╰)╭
they used to spread those kind of thingy
lol

wow #2, that's pretty awesome. All week in the top 5 too

im rly happy about the numbers, no promo, and she still there..

There's been all the usual promo, lack of tv appearances is nothing out of the ordinary for years now. The only thing that's changed is the amount of fans. Even against no real competition the last 2 weeks, the new album can't match the sales of the 1st mini album. Even a #1 spot isn't impressive when there's no competition and the sales don't begin to compare to any album that's sold well.

^I was just going to ask if she had any competition, because the sales are pretty low and she still got #1.

Hope Ayu is still the number 1 for the second week, sales are so low for her these years. Is that the reason why she did not release any CD single for this album as well as The Party Queen?

under 2k a day in 2nd week, very low. but chart position is pretty impressive.

2nd Week, Day 6
Rank : #3
Sales : 1,612
Total : 66,515

6th Day
Position: #3
Sales: 1,612
Total Sales: 66,515

it might be #2 for the 2nd week.

Thank you Gkone :)

thanks again guys =)

World Charts

1st Week: #15
Sales: 53,000


the 2nd week will be out on thursday :)

Nice to see Ayu get weekly #1 on the chart again for a change. XD

I think it will cross 70k mark in the second week:)

^ then it's gotta sell 4k in its final day lol

How does this chart run compare to Party Queen's?

worse, clearly... lol... party queen had a pretty good second week. over 18K
and by clearly i mean party queen sold more then love again in its first week total.

party queen sold like 150k total,aka love again and again sales combined... hard to believe

her next original album won't break even 50k :laugh

gold gone for good.
such is life.

i think the sales is pretty good, since LOVE again is a combination of her two minis plus new album tracks, no new PV...

i think this album can sell 100k in a long run...(HOPEFULLY)

IT IS hard to believe
I love LOVE again much more :O :love:love:love

The trend for ayu albums seem to be that around 2/3 of total sales are generated on the first week. I think in the long run it should sell about 80k.

I'm satisfied with the sales as long as she gets the number 1 spot. :P The album is good.

Btw I think that the Japanese copyright law is hurting music sales in a very bad way... So it affects everyone else equally I guess, not just Ayu.

it's no 6 today

this album has sold worse than Kuu's "go to the top" single!!!

^ no it hasnt. Kuu's go to the top stopped charting at 69K...
Ayumi is gonna be around or pass that in the 2nd week.
I dont see how this is worse.

so sad.. Using single to compare with full album

What if you had 66,515 snicker bars? You see? Fantastic sales.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-uVzqGlG0SI...fb4216d8f6.jpg

Yeah but eventually koda reached 100k. No offense but I don't think ayu could reach that :( . Because ayu already reached
Sales of: 1,612 which is a huge drop!! and her sales right now are a Total of: 66,515. :(

Tbh this album got what it deserved. They need to stop releasing recycled material as new albums, they lied to the fans, so yeah. I enjoy the album a lot but it wasn't fair how they tricked us.

Another BEST of or compilation album right now would be suicide.

7th Day
Position: #6

Should be #2 weekly!

Change that into kitkats and maybe.

kuu hasnt sold 100K, she has shipped that much. Ayumi's album has already sold more than Kuu's single. Ayumi will get the gold if not this month then next.
Besides you want to talk about single sales lets just look at kuu's last single, Koishikute , it barely broke 20K.
there really is not point in comparing Kuu's and ayumi's sales. They both suck.

^

word.

I think this is the lowest Ayu will go before she makes a full comeback which brings her album sales to around 150,000 to 200,000 copies.

Ayu just needs to change it up a little and make it exciting to the public. She needs to release a hit single.

I'm not going to be depressed about the sales because I'm sure Ayu will make a comeback.....hopefully soon.

A comeback?
She needs to visit namie or something.
She proved that it is possible.

Wow chill speedy. I was just making a statement cause someone talked about it before hand. No need to get emotional ok!! I'm just as depressed as the next guy in terms of ayumi's sales. You think I feel happy comparing kumi's single to an ayu album. I never thought I would see this day and for future reference. No I'm not gonna let it go, ayu is an amazing singer with great music and she doesn't deserve these sales.

All of this is the truth. If Avex didn't pull what they did, she might have sold more, and that's the sad fact of it.

You don't even need to bring up Kuu to prove how the album is doing. Love the mini album did better than this release and that is really sad.

There is really no one to blame this time around besides Ayu for not doing any TV promo.

I think ayumi need get hiatus, maybe 2 or 3 years, and comeback with 51th single. She need take a break.

Oh and then while she takin a break, she can learn what her fans wanted from her, or she can travel around the world and find new idea to writing the song and hope she go to Indonesia, if I lucky I will met her and the first think that I will tell to her is please visit to www.ahsforum.com and read what you fans all around the world talk about u LOL

Ayu's not going to take a long hiatus, ever. She's not interested - making music is her life and she'll keep pumping out the releases until she retires. If anything, she'll be back with another release by the Japan summer. We won't have to wait too long.

And I hate to admit this, but in hindsight LOVE again was just not to Ayu's usual standards. The mini tracks were mostly good, but the album as a whole played it too safe. It felt very uninspired - music for the sake of making music. I hope Ayu goes back to experimenting with her sound more. I'm over the nostalgia trip. It was her least memorable album to date for me, since A Song for XX.

Glad to see that this album hit #1 weekly, but wow the sales are bad. I didn't expect them to drop THAT much after Party Queen. Well... after she reached her peak several years ago, her sales pretty much have steadily declined. So I'm not surprised this album's sales are lower than Party Queen's. I figured that an album with conservative covers and conservative sounding songs would be more of an appeal to the Japanese public, but I supposed her overall image is pretty tarnished these days.

That's what I thought as well.
The covers and songs were safe, so that would equate to better sales.
I also thought that the mini album/maro fiasco also added some nails into the coffin.


Edit: she and xtina both stopped caring about their respective albums right after they were released. only it was ayu that gave up faster...

Ayu isn't even promoting this album, she is now on L.A, she doesn't care the sales anymore

she has repeatedly said sales dont matter anymore.
Really nothing is going to help ayumi unless she because another person all together... it seems the general japanese public just doesnt want to see or hear her anymore.

cmon, u guys are still on this single/mini album thing? we all know that "again" and "LOVE" were released as min-albums so ayu wouldnt lose her strike, but they work together as singles! please stop complaining about that, we know avex for almost 15 years.

Ummm... her ever-increasing, yearly and sold-out tours of Japan say otherwise.

Lol it's the first time I've "complained" about it. Just simply stating an opinion as to why I think the sales dropped as drastically as they did. Maybe if they chose a different way, it would have a longer chart life.

I actually thought the album flowed pretty well and was a little surprised that it didn't do as well as the last album, but I guess lack of her promoting, public lacking trust in her after the scandal really did it. Either way, she's probably working on new material as we speak, and I hope the Japanese public can move past it. Clearly she has.

Also, why quote me? I was agreeing with someone else : )

The tour will promote the album...

That is true, but she tours every year. I feel at this point of her career that it is expected of her to tour lol.

I disagree with people saying that Japanese people don't like ayu anymore. They love her and want her to do well most of the time, they just have the same problem that some of us in here do, we wanna support her but the latest releases were a joke.

They love going to her concerts, buying her goods, even if they are illegal ones from outside of the venues, etc.

I think that once she gets it right we will know, right now her team is lacking a lot and it shows, and she's allowing that to happen, so I guess we better wait until she actually takes over her artistic direction once again.

AVEX is just milking her desperately just how they're trying to milk what's left of other of their artists *hm hm* Ami Suzuki.

the fact she still reaches #1 in rankings it's the testimony japanese still like her

She reached #1 because no one else releasing at the time has any popularity to speak of. Her sales are horrible and the lack of fans compared to 2 years ago shows alot.

And as far as her taking charge like b4, she never was in charge. That whole documentary was staged and when they got any footage Avex didn't want anyone knowing about they were asked for the film and to refilm it especially interview segments where things Ayu answered something in a way her managers didn't like and it was redone. If you're ever around her and her staff, try to carry on a normal conversation and watch closely. She acts like she can't answer even a very simple question without checking with a manager first, that's far from ever being in control.

tours doesnt boost her album sales if it's that what you mean..

I feel the album is too .. safe. I want her to release something fun, upbeat and amazing. Whatever happened to Memorial Address? Or even something like the beginning of PQ. I would love for her to come out with a more dancey album, to see what she could do when really experimenting.

yeah, she seriously needs to make some upbeat hit :/

^as STEPyou or sparkle seriously

Of course if there were more competition she would not have been number one but the week before Mika Nakashima was number one with less than Ayu did and no one complains people should stop this thing ! A lot of artist would not have been number one if there were more competition ...we're not going to condemn her for being number 1 with 50 K O_o

I don't know why you bring this story about this documentary ? this has nothing to do with how she works and creates her music !! When we see the making of her concerts we can see that she control all aspect of her shows ! what you try to say is a bit out of context IMO !

3rd Week
1st Day
Position: #1
Sales: 1,066

yay!!

Definitely YAY! And I get my copy today! Go Ayu!

2nd Week
Position: #2
Official Sales: 15,564
Official Total Sales: 68,629

3rd Week

1st Day
Position: #1
Sales: 1,066
Total Sales: 69,695

im so happy about the 15k, i was afraid it would barely cross 10k...

any strong release this week??

V6 is the 1st artiste that came to my mind as their 1st album in 3 years Oh! My! Goodness! will be out tomorrow

Also , MISIA's Super Best Records - 15th Celebration - too . SUPER GiRLS is also releasing tomorrow but I don't know how both of them sell as I don't listen/support them

i just checked ninki

NINKI ratings for the week of 18/2~24/2/2012

Albums

01 81.60 V6 - Oh! My! Goodness!
02 74.20 MISIA - Super Best Records -15th Celebration-
03 49.30 BRAHMAN - Chokoku
04 44.30 SUPER☆GiRLS - Celebration
05 36.70 MONGOL800 - GOOD MORNING OKINAWA
06 25.70 Hanazawa Kana - claire
07 23.60 TOUYU - Tokyo Pleasure Ground
08 21.30 HUSKING BEE - SOMA
09 20.30 KREVA - SPACE Instrumentals
10 18.00 D=OUT - Kabuki Desuko

nice sales for ayumi! lets hope she stays in the top 10 this week!

Not on Oricon as it only count 1/3 of the venue sales... Still, for Ayu and Avex sales are sales, counted by Oricon or not.

may be that 5 releases present thing will help to boost the sales??

deep inside I always hoped that it would do it. like people would be dying for presents and then go and buy all 5 releases :laugh

Yea! That's cool! Back to the top!

Though her sales figure may not seems so good, but i think at least the sales are steady... At least she's in the top 5 for like this 3rd week...

For the past trends, it is like after the first week, it will dropped down very fast... Now, it looks quite steady... Even Mika Nakashima album ranking is quite steady also, only when there is new albums coming out, it seems that it will just temporary drop down...

Hopefully ayumi can stayed in the top 10 for 32 weeks!! :thud (am half joking...)

Glad that this album turned to No.1 for today
it's time for Ayu to release new pv as per SAKURA and Gloria did well on mumo and recochoku charts ^^also missing is back on chart

Good idea especially as Sakura is my favourite song on the album ^_^