#18 today.

This gurllll

still on top 20! It's doing waay better than I expected.

At #19 for today:
http://www.oricon.co.jp/rank/ja/d/2016-04-01/p/2/
#3 sold 2,4k.

(and woooow at Babymetal)

Wow it's so steady! I thought it will glide this week.

#21 today!

A BEST is #34 today.

#3 place sold 6k

It kinda perplexes me how low current sales can be... like even at the top 3 are only selling like 4k-6k :/

^maybe it'll make people realise ayu's low sales aren't all to do with people's opinion of her and more a symptom of the Japanese music industry in general.

It was the last day of the week of daily sales. That's normal.



2nd Week
Position: #16
Sales: 5,097

Total: 14,510


That's so good!! I didn't expect 5k at all this week! It'll be over 15k by next week :heart

NICE! I'm so glad it's gonna reach 15,000 :yes

Whoa, I wasn't expecting that much either o-o

Oh wow...almost 15k...

If I read back my old comment..I said that 15k is already so good...then we can hope for 17.5k even 20k...which is really good...the cost production for this releases is so low...so we know that AVEX got lot of benefit out of this releases.

just 6k to beat Utada!

Wow 15k is amazing!

Until you have to take into account the sales of Namie Amuro and Kana Nishino, one of whom is still selling 120,000 DVDs 20 years into her career.

Sorry, I have to point out that Ayu isn't entirely falling victim to the industry. She clearly doesn't feel she has anything left to prove, and it's shown in her work for awhile. I just wish she would take her career today as serious as she took her career 10 years ago.

Edit: I think it's worth pointing out that A BEST -15th- doing as well as it is should point out that even a little promo by Ayu can go a long way.

I don't know much about sales in the japanese industry other than Ayu's but from the (admittedly very little) I do know Namie and Kana are the exception, not the norm. Just like Taylor Swift manages to sell a million copies of her albums in U.S. even tho other artist don't manage to sell half of that anymore even when they are at their peak and selling out shows and whatnot.

Tbh I think her sales are about as the same as most japanese female soloist. I kinda wish she would put as much effort to her new music as to her own concerts nowadays

^she is not ordinary artist, only big names sell more than 20k like milliyah, kana, koda, etc. but there is more in the japanese industry than these big names, a bunch of new singers is struggling to sell more than 10k

I think Ayumi's had consistent criticism over the last five years that has contributed a lot to her sharp fall in sales:

* Working with producers who don't understand her sound very well.
* Writing songs that don't build on her talent as a songwriter (i.e., low effort songs compared to her work from as recent as NEXT LEVEL or RnRC)
* Under-promoting or not promoting her work
* Not building on her prior work in a meaningful way (i.e., doing what she wants vs. at least taking into consideration what fans want to hear and see)

Until 2010-2011, there were occasional criticisms of her actual work, but now it's an every-release bit. With Ls, people criticized the lackluster album tracks. With PQ, people criticized the amateur sound. With La, people criticized how boring the album was, and why she couldn't at least pick an original title. With Colours, it sounded like a blob of songs put together like a mix CD, no cohesion. With AO, people criticized the staleness of almost every track. Ayumi has also been highly criticized for low effort PVs since 2010. The last PVs she invested any significant work in were the PVs from Love songs and FIVE.

So, I criticize because Ayumi is still not the norm, and she will never be "the norm" of Japanese Pop. She's just not giving it her best these days. And we all know she could do a little more to promote her releases, or maybe take an extra month to work on the next album, or maybe work a little harder to make her tours and CDLs different from each other. But she's been cutting corners for the last several years, and it's had an effect. Just like Koda has cut corners and been hurt by it as well.