a) first hearing JEWEL! that song is too good

b) when GUILTY was released. it was my first album and it was so exciting to get it

LOL @ Ayu naturally gorgeous in BLUE BIRD! I'm surprised all that make-up on the boat scene was not dripping off her face. Those boat shots are terrible.

But as far as favorite time to be a fan, right when I started following her current releases. I heard Depend on you first through Thousand Arms PSX game. Then I decided to research albums and I asked my mom to get me LOVEppears for Christmas because it was the most "club" sounding. Shortly after, she released Moments and I started following her in real-time and the rest is history! So that first year through the release for (miss)understood was amazing for me.

When I first became a fan and downloaded anything and everything that came up with 'Ayumi Hamasaki' in my Limewire search. It was so much fun. Oh, and watching the Real Me video for the first time. I love that PV.

Hmmmn... my favourite time as a fan... I dunno, but probly I would say Duty era was the best I guess? I knew her on the release day of LOVEppears/appears, and my bro got the album (even tho it's not Japanese version :P). I really became her fan after kanariya released, but I guess I didn't become a "hardcore" fan until SEASONS. That was the moment when her popularity was starting to getting to the top. Of course she was already popular during LOVEppears era, but I think she was just one of those "getting popular" artists during that moment.

Ah I remember the time when the first beauty clinic cm came out. ayu came out from the mud, with Duty's chorus as the background music. That was so phenomenal. Also, that very cute morinaga chestnut candy cm, and every fan expected she would beat mai-k's first week sales (which sadly didn't come true in the end). Oh and SURREAL and Duty both got no. 1 on the same week.. That was like the beginning of the golden era. And everything got tuned down a bit during AUDIENCE's release, and all of the sudden everything heated up with M, and her "ayu-design" TU-KA cm. Sigh I really miss those wonder cms... TU-KA, VISEE, morinaga... (and Panasonic later on...).

for me, it's MY STORY era. been a fan since A BEST but it's till MY STORY era that i am a regular ayu-forum member.

it's definity cool when you can look forward to a upcoming album with all the fans, even though ou can't literally meet them.

i got into ayu around 2002-2003, but didn't come into the forum until Moments was released. i honestly loved the MY STORY to Secret eras. those were some great times! :D i was excited for every release, i listened to all the previews, and was anticipating all the PVs!

Good times, good good times.

I became a fan around MY STORY (but not because of MY STORY), but I started following properly (aka STALKING EVERYTHING), rather than just being "oh hay, Ayu album!", with Secret. I still love that album now. The first album I pre-ordered was NEXT LEVEL though. I owned most of her discography by GUILTY though.

By the time Secret came out I was well acquainted with her old music. That was probably the best time for me. Hearing this dull album called "MY STORY", but then finding out that everything else was glorious and listening to it all in one go. I like MY STORY more now :p

Its such a hard question for me cause I like every phase of my fandom. Sure, it was magical when I first heard her, but everytime she releases an album my excitement is over the top.

Maaybe... the time RnRC was released 'cause my beloved friends gotten into her 'cause of that album and we never stopped playing it in the car, on summer vacation, while went partying, I mean.. its amazing when you can share your love for ayu with people IN PERSON. lol. without me dragging them 'oh hear this and this', they did it on their own.

Everytime I get ayu item in my mail. Everytime we have drama on AHS lol. I dont know.. I dont want that to stop going.

Im so stupid I didnt register earlier and didnt start posting earlier!!!!!!!! I was so shy.

Strangely enough it was the release of Endless Sorrow. I'll never forget sitting in 6th grade social studies and just DYING to come home and check out the cover art. I was NOT disappointed! It's still one of my favorite covers! Also the release of RAINBOW was fun because it was such a different sound for her and the covers were also gorgeous!

It was in 2010.

I first heard POWDER SNOW, and I didn't really liked the song but the arrangement got stuck in my head. I could foresee how the song would progress (like imagining how the beats would go and all. and I'd get it right). Then at the midway I was like, this would be awesome if there were some heavy kicks in it (heavy drums), and then out of nowhere, the Heavy drums got in. Like WHOA I was stunned. The only thing I didn't like was the picture that was on the YouTube vid (I was listening from). It feautured ayu as a kitten... Super stupid. >(

Then I found out about Rule, Sparkle and Mirrorcle World from a YouTube user who made a "Top 10 ayumi hamasaki Songs". I LOVED Rule for the soft parts. They were AMAZING, later I loved the whole track. Sparkle was a tad weird, but the chorus was so damn haunting and sexy in a way? Then I heard Mirrorcle World, and the 1st time I was like; ... Weird sound in the chorus. But I ended up loving it anyhow. I also started watching Rule / Sparkle + Mirrorcle World PV and I got the wrong picture of ayu. I thought that she was a sexy attention ***** or something, but boy I WAS SO WRONG, if I only could have known back then XD.

Then later in 2010 I joined this forum. And I started following ayu around the crossroad / Love song era.

Now I'm 100% hooked on her! (so this is my favorite time too). I hated the time during ayu-mi-x 7 + FIVE announcement / Tales of Xillia song: Making Fate, because of the terrible nature disaster and the postponing etc. I felt like a few of the albums didn't really deliver as well. + ayu was really not showing up at that time for my feeling.

the release for the "&" single always stays with me. It's a great single anyway, but it's the first Ayu item i ever purchased ^^ There's many memories i have from being an Ayu fan over the years, the release of evolution being a big one, right around when i first became a fan. All in all... there's been a lot of love over the last 10 years or so ^^

I remember being able to buy Ayu songs off iTunes.
I bought Sparkle a few years ago. At the time, I wasn't a huge fan and Dearest was the only Ayu song I had in my iTunes. After I listened to Sparkle... all hope was lost lol. I was hooked. I think I was just a fan of Sparkle and not Ayu though. The song did propell me to be an Ayu fan, though. It made me crave her music. So buying the song was my favourite moment due to my sheer excitement. I remember the day I bought it and listened to it like the next day was doomsday XD

Mm, maybe now?

I first heard of Ayu in 2004 (through a staff member on here who I met on a non-music related forum) but didn't listen to anything by her until 2007 when a friend sent me the link to the glitter/fated PVs. She just needed someone to fangirl at and I didn't expect to come out of it loving glitter. After several other run-ins of her music via many different people -- including but not limited to: my Dad's coworker who was teaching himself Japanese; my quarter-Japanese ex; an accidental poster of her being rolled up in a gift my mother bought me from Taiwan for my 19th; someone I dated briefly in my first year of college; and a friend on last.fm who insisted I watch the ourselves, fairyland and INSPIRE PVs -- I gave-in and started looking more into her. It seemed like fate that I was consistently being reminded of her existence from multiple sources - especially considering that I live in Britain! At that point I obsessed over MOON/blossom, crossroads and L for a while (I'd tried NEXT LEVEL and RnRC when they firsts came out but I never really got into them) and then after that just listened casually. I even started listening to NEXT LEVEL, RnRC and earlier albums, too.

Then Party Queen was announced and I decided to have a day where I just listened to her music. Then I noticed something on one of the CD's I'd borrowed from my Dad's coworker (he found out I liked An Cafe in 07/08 then sent my Dad home with, like, 20~30 Japanese CDs): on A BEST 2 -WHITE- the track listing went up to 15 but I only had 14 of them. File 6 of 15 was missing. Looked it up and it was Real me. One listen to that last month propelled me out of the "casual fan" zone. Now I'm hooked. So only in the past month have I really started to love her music; pay attention to the lyrics; watch her PVs; buy physical copies of her CDs; register here - oh, and this afternoon I watched CDL 2006~2007 for the first time! :heart

So, yes, now.