What did they do to Ayu on her A best time?
And yeah Avex seems to be very severe with their artists..

But they (avex) always support their artists, even if they're going not so well...

in the beginning avex kept releasing singles and albums of kumi even when she was failing in the charts and sales with every release

They forced her to release A BEST.

Well I think that's obvious. She was signed on a contract and was still getting paid no matter if she sold well or not. They had to at least use her...

Koda was the one desperately wanting to be a singer remember? Avex was the only one willing to pick her up at all. Like in most fields of life it's about giving and taking. Koda isen't a victim or anything, think of everything she can thank avex for (which is.. hmm, every tie in she had to make her popular (who knows where she would've been without cutey honey), composers, arrangers and um, even the idea of her ero-kakkoi image which has gotten the blame for a lot of her popularity now). I'm not saying it's good or whatever, but that's the business. Some busienss' are harder than other, showbusiness being one of the hardest. And koda was the one desperately wanting to be in it. I'm sure she's thankful for her popularity now, at least she should be. Because along the way there are so many people helping out. and those people are hired by avex.

^ I agree. Plus, Koda Kumi story is one of the few with a happy ending. Most just work work work and never succeed.

Anyway, I don't think AVEX forcing Ayu to release an "A BEST" is that shocking. And seeing how she agreed to do billions of magazine covers, I think she didn't care as much as she said. And I don't believe at all when she said she tought it was her last album. Hello!? There's no way she would go out of AVEX in 2001, she was half of their profits...

Well there is the possiblity that she didn't want to re-sign the contract and continue singing.

Well, I just watched the parts of the video and there doesn't seem to be anything too polarizing in it so far (will wait to see the 2nd part).

As Psychotic_X said, Matsuura said that Kuu was chubby but nothing else that is that controvesial. Everything so far looks like any other music documentary.

^ It's true. The video really isn't as scandalous as most people would have it. Max Matsuura, as much as I'm not sure if I particularly care for him or not, said nothing horrible, and the terms "very fat" or "very ugly" were never spoken. He said she was chubby, and that's it.

As far as Avex pushing their artists, even when they aren't selling well... that's because producing artists costs millions of dollars (or 100s of millions of yen). The company ONLY makes a profit from their initial investments if the artist releases like crazy and sells well. Whereas most companies would just drop an artist if they flop, Avex's philosophy is to fabricate something of an image around them, squeeze as much out of them as possible, and then let them do whatever they want until they have new artists to make up new revenue.

that's because the first part is not important at all...

Yeah, I noticed the documentary is cut in two pieces. The 2nd isn't up on YouTube, though, is it? I'd really like to see it. Kumi is really very interesting; I like her very much as a person.

Well, there's that whole thing where a BEST is probably going to be your last album / will probably signal the end of a career.. She probably wanted to quit singing at the time of A BEST.

I don't find Koda's story at all sad or anything. I think it's mostly HER pushing herself and that's about it. D: I wonder what'd happen if Koda was on toshibaEMI or like Sony...

The point is: if in 2001-2002 Ayu decided to quit, she would take Avex with her. A whole record company. And I don't believe that was really an option.

About Max, the word is "fat", but in english it can be translated as "chubby". Anyway, in my opinion, I don't think it's nice to call people fat, even as a joke, because they get mad, unless they have a big sense of humor (most people don't). It's not very nice to say that she was fat, as a joke or not (and it wasn't a joke, because of course we know that's AVEX opinion), after all she had inferiority complex for a long time (the first-part is all about how unhappy she was when she was "fat"). So Max wasn't nice, anyway, it isn't ok to call people fat "as a joke".

Well, she kinda was, wasn't she?

hmm yeah i agree, but the thing about Max calling her fat is just rude, calling anyone fat is rude, when someone who u don't know relli well says your "fat" especially from a guy it's relli hard to take it off their mind, so Max is just an ass

Well think about it..

Would you want to put someone on TV who most of avex probably thought was chubby? [I'm sure Max wasn't alone in his thoughts] And even then if you put them on TV, they probably wouldn't sell much anyway...?

I think it was in order to save money even though it was a bit 'rude' D:

Yeah, but I think the problem was calling her fat on national television.

she said that she did those covers because even though she didn't want to produce the best album, she felt that she had to give it a "presentation" for what it was -- she felt that regardless of whether or not she wanted to do it, she ought to give the album as much as she could. that was in the NTV interview

If Kuu was at toshibaEMI or Sony, it would probably be the same way...Except they probably would have dropped her a LONG time ago because of her sales. thing is, the whole BEST album thing isn't just with avex. Hikki said that she was pissed off at toshibaEMI because they went ahead and produced her BEST album without even consulting her. It was already ready to go on the market before she even knew about it -- she only had a little bit of time to tack on that silly quote on the front of it...there's a lot of trouble between Hikki and her label right now. They're apparently pissed at her because she doesn't consult them over anything anymore. It's not just avex where artists have problems...it's just avex is the most public about them. I'm sure if Hikki did an interview and told about toshibaEMI, people would think the same way about them as they do about avex. Avex does seem like quite the ass-kicker, though.

Quite true, but Kuu is not a competitor for Ayu anymore. Kuu's beat her in every sales aspect right now (with the exception of live concert ticket sales).

Yes, I know, I saw the SP. But I don't really believe the SP. I dunno, it was too fake. I know lots of things were true, but I think lots were made more dramatic than they really were to make people feel bad and go buy her album or something...

Presently yes, but that's because Koda is currently riding on a wave of popularity driven by ero-images and the boost given by the 12-singles / BESTs. I don't think she'll consistently beat Ayu though..

Yeah...at the rate that avex is pushing her, they're not going to leave her much lasting power...