Why did you bring AKB48 into this unnecessarily? Way to make enemies :/

Anyway, I'm not at surprised by the way things are going. This is just the way these things go. Japan is Japan. We may not understand it, but its a cultural thing.

I'll probably get jumped on for saying this but I think Japan's obsession with duty is totally ridiculous. In fact I find the whole situation ridiculous..

I don't know why Japan puts so much pressure on their people. No wonder all these japanese business men drop dead from heart attacks at 40 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kar%C5%8Dshi )

Actually, a lot of these articles are citing AKB48 as the reason why she didn't go on MUSIC STATION.

ayu keeps on updating her weibo.. i think she is still sick..not really better yet..
but she's doing rehearsal for POM though.

she have yet to update her twitter though.. it might upset some fans

I love the politeness in Japan, but dear god I hate it when if you make the slightest mistake, not even of your own fault sometimes, japan's news will just jump on you and point the finger like you've done the worst thing ever and deserve to be punished. :/ I mean, even with Koda's scandal (which I noticed had been brought up), she didn't intentionally mean to hurt people at all. And I didn't find it offensive at all. She was just trying to help her manager decide when to have her baby by stating what she thought was a scientific fact. And of course tabloids and people who dislike Koda, used this chance to write hell about it. She had to make a public apology, and was demanded to explain why she said it on TV (or she offered), cancelled all of her promotions, had to apologize on her tour on stage before she performed, and then put herself into solitude for a month, as another apology. I mean, you'd never see a western artist have to do all that? You get western artists that ***** about each other all the time (Katy Perry even *****ed about one of Lee Hyori's songs not long ago), but if you did that in Japan you'd lose your head. Like someone said, it's the one thing with Japan culture that sometimes irks me. I love politeness and respect to people and your peers but there is a limit.

I really don't see how Avex could punish Ayu for not being PHYSICALLY able to catch a plane....I quite dubious as to what's truth when it comes to tabloids, and I don't really believe the AKB48 rumor either. To be honest I think Ayu was just looking forward to singing Beloved, no matter what time slot she was in. So missing her performance and being ill...she must be very bummed out. :no I hope people ignore the tabloids and Avex does not stress her out anymore than she is with punishment (considering that they already made a statement saying she was stressed), the poor woman is very ill, I don't think they would do anything to make her health even worse.

And I think I would explode with anger if I saw any tabloid being cruel about namie's mum's death. I would find that very hypocritical considering they seem to write hell about anyone who does a seemingly 'rude' comment, like koda, if they were doing it themselves. XD

(Sorry for essay, tabloids irk me, hahaha.)

You can still find some really mean articles about Namie's mom and her pregnancy on Japan Times, and in English!

^Wow, I'm not even sure I want to read those. :no I think I would just raaaaage hahaha. How can people be so cold-hearted? Makes me sad. :no Thanks for telling me, though! I might read them one day.

This writer is full of ****. Fans know Ayu's attitude.. she doesn't care who performs first, middle, last. And it's funny that these people make it seem like she got sick on purpose so she can cancel the appearance.

^Exactly. There were people putting rumors around that Ayu pretended to be sick because she didn't want to perform because she was furious about AKB48 being put to end the show instead of her. I mean it's just ridiculously childish. XD

This.

I'm rather undecided on this issue. Ayu is a smart woman, and she obviously wouldn't want her fan base knowing all the inside information.

For all we know, Ayu could have done this in response to being replaced by AKB. Her saying otherwise on Twitter and her fan diary doesn't mean she's being 100% honest with us. She would never tell us the truth if it meant her looking bad, that's just the smart thing to do.

And I still think it's impossible for her to not have been able to find even one flight out of JFK and LAX. They're 2 of the biggest airports in America, and she has no problem with money.

It wouldn't surprise me if the information is true, but I don't necessarily think it is. It'd be different if all this was written in tabloid magazines, like Friday, but it's in newspapers. Japanese newspapers don't usually focus on rumors. Scandals, yes. But you rarely see completely falsified information in the news (even in America, while things are often overblown, there's usually some type of truth to it).

Of course since we're all fans of Ayu we want to believe she was completely innocent, but only Ayu and Avex know the truth.

If she were to leave Avex, I wonder how things would change in her music production, videos, etc. And if she were to start her own label or something, I wonder if she would then start signing people... I'm sure that for someone to stay with the same label their entire singing career could sometimes be suffocating.

I should have elaborated. I meant in such a negative way that didn't relate to the article, their personal opinions of AKB48 were unnecessary. It was just useless AKB48 bashing.

That AKB part is blasphemy lol unfortunately, according to my friends in Japan, this has become awfully big news. however most people seem to just shrug it off as an unavoidable situation, "shikata nai", because she is sick.

^ THIS counts as big news? Sheesh. This has been an unnecessarily dramatic year.

Indeed. Especially considering everything Japan's been thru this year >.<

Ayumi Hamasaki > Earthquakes/Tsunami/Nuclear Hazzard

TAKE THAT, OTHER JPOP SINGERS!

:P

Hahaha so true, why is this even getting so much attention when they could work on other things..

Tabloids want to sell stuff, they do so by namedropping famous people through their publication.

Western tabloids do this just as much. At the end of the day, it's someone's job to write articles that will bring in their pay cheque. We can say "why don't they do something productive" but that goes to everything everyone in the world does :P

Why do they write bad stories, why don't they write about provinces recovering from earthquake?
Why do they write music and sell it, why don't they give it away for free as in these times people can't afford it?
Why do you listen to music, why don't you volunteer at a soup kitchen?
Why do you only volunteer 5 hours a week, why not 25?

If you put it in perspective like that, everything anyone does could be labelled "pointless" xD But at the end of the day, Ayu's fans aren't going "omgwow she maybe doesn't like ABK48 i will set all her CDs on fire" or "I am becoming an anti now thanks to this article". In a few weeks it will likely be forgotten like Kuu's incident. If you don't take the bait and go read all those articles they'll stop writing them eventually. Your hits on the sites are probably making them want to write more on it!!