Is Ayu hated in Japan?
 

This subject has always been kind of controversial. Most 2ch users are known for being very negative when it comes to Ayu. If I'm not wrong, some people also hate the fact that she was discovered at a young age and she didn't have to study a career and get a normal job like most people do, and some Japanese people think of her as an old brat and laugh that she's sometimes called "Ayu-chan" even when she's on her early 30s... And don't even get me started on Youtube comments. :shakehead

So, like most artists, even if she has thousands of fans, she also has people who HATE her with passion.
How do you react to this? And why do you think some people hate her in her own country?

When you get THAT famous it's only normal that there will be people worshipping you like a Goddess and people hating the shi* out of you. I guess it's only normal. I don't particularly mind, I love her and nothing is going to make me change my vision. Japan doesn't hate her btw, she still sells a lot and ranks among the firsts positions if not first in many polls etc. The latest one is for example:

from https://twitter.com/ayuangel_news
"Who is your favorit artist ? " #SCAWAII RT @TABC_ek5672 エスカワイイのSガールズ白書ってとこのP130にQ.好きなアーティストは？ １位『浜崎あゆみ』だって〜！！♡️ pic.twitter.com/Fc4CCuXLoC

Where she ranked 1st as favourite artist from SCAWAII readers, above kana, miliyah and namie!
2ch is not to be trusted. You can only and always find negative comments about just anyone. lol

Negative comments and hate in general it's just normal when you're famous or successful in something. You can not have 100% love from people.
There will always be someone how just hates you because you have money, success or other people how actually likes you. Jealousy is just a normal thing in our world and we can not control it. The best thing to do is just ignore it :).

Oh, I don't really think so!
She surely isn't as popular and "trendy" as before, but as people already said, she's still a well-known and kind of respected artist.
When you get that famous, usually people split up between those whom listen to you and whom declare war to you, lol. I mean, think about stars like Madonna, Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift here in the West and the amount of hate they have to deal with.
Don't even get me started on Youtube and 2ch. The first is a laughable source and the latter is the lovely nest of every brainless japanese citizen.
So "hated" is too much of a strong word. "Not trendy anymore" is more like it, I think.

Ayu is just not 'cool' but I don't think that means general listeners hate her. Certain people have hated her for a LONG time now and that hasn't changed for sure, but she's lost the 'appeal' to most people since she's a bit of a relic from the 90s to most Japanese people.

I think she is something like "guilty pleasure" in Japan. some girls&boys may like her but won't tell it other people :laugh

omg :thud

A relic from the 90's? She debuted in 1998, the 90s were practically over. I'd say a millennial relic.

Ayu isn't hated but the most of japanese don't care about her, that's all !

She's not cool and not in vogue, only her fans are interested in her news =D

Well, as in every country there are a lot of haters who loooves write comment on internet (2channel for example) but when you speak with some japanese, very often even if they don't really love her they say "oh, it's the past!" but they often add "yes she's the biggest singer in japan" or "yes, I love this song or this song"

She's still one of the most popular singer, not the most loved of courses, but everyone have a point of view about her ha ha !

Actually I was surprised to get to know two japanese people by the ages of 22 (hardcore fan) and 23. The 22 years old one is a hardcore ayu fan (in Team ayu) and one of them is a fan of ELT, like some ayu, kyari and ketty perry (and know only 3 songs from namie and doesn't know her old classics at all) and all of that was a surprise to me, but I suppose they are out of the consensus. It's like a rare thing I suppose. So except for many trolls ayu has, and a bit of a bad media that makes people gossip about her, I don't think she is really hated by the general public. They just don't care for her anymore.

I just think ayu needs to let people forget her personal life and be more on the music, shows and loads of promotion with good endorsements. (if promotion would ever happen again).

That was such a stupid comment... D:

And that's weird coming from you. :thud

Well, what's stupid about it?

We know it's not exactly cool to like Ayu.
We know people are kind of tired of her. (anecdotal evidence among other things)
We know she's got a band of people following her every move so they can rag on it and pretty much say she's a failure/hag/Babasaki/etc...

No matter what she does really, she's sort of stuck when it comes to gaining favor with the general listening public when they just don't really care about what she does. I mean, is there anything saying otherwise? I'd like just as much as most other fans for Japan to be head over heels when it comes to Ayu but outside of people who already like her, there just doesn't seem to be much change in her fanbase.

I guess the way I see it is that even though Ayu has never really left the scene in Japan, it seems to me at least that the general public stopped paying attention to her music sometime in 2005/2006. Outside of a small handful of tracks, the ones they know are all of her 'classics' from earlier on in her career. It's a shame imo since she has always kept the quality of her music up there, but people just moved on.

Who is the most hated, Ayu or Kuu ??

I don't want a flaming war here... :no

No, this talk needs to stay out of this otherwise very interesting thread, please. ;_;

I found this thread really interesting. I have a friend in Japan and I asked her to ask her friends where they live (Sapporo, Tokyo, Fukuoka) to name some Ayu songs. 12 people all and all.
Here they are:
Trauma, Boys & Girls, Fly high, SEASONS
That's it. One new the chorus to July 1st and one new Days PV.

This was a shock to me. They just laughed and said she's not popular anymore, and not seen as much in TV as before. But everyone knew her, and knew he was still active. I asked what is popular now in Japan and before I was able to finish my sentence one told me: "Girl groups. And Korea is hitting it hard."

But for me Ayu's still cool ^-^

My Japanese friends know Voyage, Days and STEP you also and they are not fans. It's true, she's not as popular now as she was before, but that's how things go in this business. Namie is enjoying a nice era, she's very popular, but she also had her low times. Who know if Ayu will become more popular in the future. What's true is that she need to be seen more on TV, she needs more promotion. This business is tough everywhere but in Japan especially, there's a lot of competition, trends come an go, and recently Ayu has been very discrete musically. She's not hated. Come on! No female in the Japanese music industry has been as successful as Ayu and Namie, no female has had such a rich career. She's like Madonna, no matter what she does in the future, her legacy is there and nobody will evert top that. There's just one Ayu, one Namie and one Madonna.

I don't have friends who loves/likes Ayu (in my country, and I knew Ayu from my sister)....let alone knowing her existences. people love boy/girl band nowadays, especially the korean.

But I think, people doesn't hate Ayu, they just "had enough" with her. She was practically all over Japan (magazine, tv, cm etc etc), she was the "it" during the late 90's and early 00's.

Actually when I meet japanese people, they always say she is not on TV anymore, like it's an important thing to do in order to be popular, but actually, namie doesn't perform on TV (though she does really awesome different promos so she doesn't even need it). I also don't think that music shows are as popular as they used to be in Japan though I might be wrong. But they do always say she is not on TV anymore.

Also, I noticed that a lot of Japanese love and know BLUE BIRD like it's as classic as SEASONS, M and Boys & Girls and that one was released on 2006.

Madonna (or Britney) is an old but good comparation... They ARE known. They ARE big. They MAKE tons of money every year, more than most current acts... But they aren't the epicentre of pop culture anymore.

They will have big hits from times to times, some of their recent releases will become classics of their aesthetic and if they play their cards right touring will always make them tons of money and they have a prestige that can't be taken away from they anymore.

Still, a lot of people can't name a Madonna hit since Hung Up (2005), Music (2000) or Vogue (1991). And a lot of people can't name a Britney hit since Gimme More (2007, but mostly the "It's Britney, bitch" line) or Toxic (2004). And sometimes they even HEARD the songs, they just didn't care enough about them to knowledge who was the singer.

Ayu's last big song was Blue Bird (2006) and her last big video was Days (2009), but she still selling better than most and quite a few of her recent songs are getting download certifications...

2ch comments are just crap, it's a bunch of idiots who have nothing to do except sitting in front of their computer to bash what ever gets in their eyes.

Ayu WAS very popular back in early 2000's, but she was kinda too in your face that some people got sick of her, so when her sales starts declining, those haters will use anything to bash. Just ignore them.

Ayu is currently keeping part of her old fans, but she's losing some and failing to gain much new fans. But who knows, she might come up with a song that goes very hot and she will be more popular then currently.

P.s as much as a coincidence, I seriously do wish that she's tops posting announcement of her love life when her CDs release dates are so near by, being a loyal 14 years fan, I'm always kinda meh about it.

But she has no album release date yet =P

With mannie it was after crossroad and L and just before Love songs.

At least this time she handles things differently and doesn't give much info about their relationship or putting him in her work.

I agree it's not cool to like Ayu anymore. The general response I get from people is "oh she's still around?" or "but she's quite old now right?" and I think it doesn't help that Ayu doesn't have a young sweet pretty face like Namie. She just looks more mature.

But the interest in her concerts still seem pretty high and at least people know her. I think she can still capitalize on that and get her popularity back someday.

A really good tie-in could probably do wonders for her. One with an extremely radio-friendly track(s) especially. However, even the tie-ins have sort of stopped in recent years...

hmmm i only can learn one thing from stardom, the more popular you are, the more people will hate you specially from the rivals' fans.

any famous artists will always have haters, specially when you are soooooo famous.. too bad we can't just tell people to stop giving hate comments.. it's just a sad reality..

being a fan of ayu, i always have to endure whenever i have to read hate/bad comments about ayu and remind of my self that it's the consequence for being famous. nothing we can do about if we got mad or something, it'll just never end. so i just try my best to ignore and enjoy whatever ayu gives me.

I thought BUDDHA and Tales of Xillia were big tie-ins.

does it matter who else likes her or how 'cool' she is? we like her and we should stand by her!

this thread makes me sad. :(

They were, but I would say that they do not do as much for an artist as much as a large commercial tie-up or a really popular drama.

Xillia could do wonders for her stateside though, now that it's out here... saw an IGN thread about how much they loved the opening song, EVERYONE I know personally who's played the game loves the song (which is awesome for me cuz I get to fangirl out at them when they tell me that... and then they think I'm crazy and slowly scoot away :P). Would be nice for Ayu to branch out in this direction riding on "progress"'s coattails. No, she'd never be mainstream popular here, but it'd be nice to get a few more fans adding to her sales.

To me it's the opposite. I do admit it's not that 'cool' to love an artist that's 35 years old and has a messed up love life and a not kawaii voice and especially when her music isn't in English. She's not AKB48. But I would never say I'm ashamed of loving her though, because obviously Ayu's music is very high quality and I love almost everything about her as an artist. When people ask I usually say I have a lot of favorite artists but my Queen is Ayu.

I'm curious on how the other (big?) celebrities feel toward Ayu though.

Probably Kuu, I love her but I've seen so much unfair hate towards her

The pop divas Era has ended, their fans have grown up and most people stop listening to pop music when that happens. The current generation is only interested in kyary, perfume and idols. Kana Nishino manages to snatch some attention but she's already fading too, also Namie 'cause she keeps her image as pure and young as possible.

I personally feel like J-Pop is dying. The only thing that really sustains Japan's music industry is idol's releases that use all kinds of gimmicks to sell and catch people's attention.

Besides, let's be real, ayu is not even trying anymore. She just releases some music here and there for the remaining fans and does her yearly tours to cash in some real money.

Agreed :(

It seems I'm starting to lose interest in J-pop as well... (And that's on top of Sayuri Sugawara exiting the major music label business...)

Well, I do agree that ayu isn't popular as she is previously. But I don't mind telling people I'm her fan. After all, music isn't about listening to what's trendy in town now. I mean, you do see others that are younger or 'better', prettier, cooler singers/bands than ayu. But that's totally a different era. Our preference, perception are different. No individual can replace another individual so easily.

THIS so much. I don't think it's really uncool to say you're a fan of some artist. I mean, people still look you in the eye when you tell them you're a fan of, I don't know, U2, or Madonna. They may be outdated as musicians, but that doesn't change the fact that they've made a legacy with their music and paved the way for artists that came after them. That's exactly what I think about Ayu.

And about Japanese music these days, I don't think it's a bad thing that people care too much about artists like Kyary or Perfume (they're probably the best thing Japan has to offer musically in terms of Pop music), and, to be honest, it would be quite boring if music just stayed the same like it was 10 years ago. Vocaloid is also very popular with kids these days, and AKB48 are pioneers with their "senbatsu" system, so fans can see their favorite idols taking the top spots of the group, which is a very interesting concept, very "reality show"-like.

I wonder what will come next! Maybe Ayu will do some amazing album and surprise us all, and people will shut their mouths and focus on her music instead of her personal life.

I kind of agree, but tbh, since album sales are decreasing everywhere, it seems like Japan found a way to make big money with (idol)pop-music. So we can say, even if maybe some find the music and their selling tricks questionable, that it's one of those few countries that managed to stay fresh and keep selling physical cds.
But it's absolutely true that pop-divas era has come to an end. For now, lol.

The problem, and different thing in Japan from the west is... I'm not sure how they see the past divas and if you will talk to them about the divas that they will probably not say things like "she paved ways for solo females after her or new music or trends" I think that after an era of someone is gone, they just tend to not care anymore, and not really appreciate past stuff, except for some classic songs.

I'm pretty sure I read more than once from japanese people about how influential Seiko, Akina, Momoe, Yuming, etc. are to newer popstars...

TrueHappiness is on point with his comment.

Having lived in Japan & only recently moving back to my hometown, I can comment that Japanese people def know who she is. If you tell them you're her fan, there's no criticism. But there is an association of being "gyaru" (or at point having been a gyaru) if you are her female fan. If you go to her concerts, it is a hodgepodge of different types of people, most of them in the "older" demographic. Most young people know her name (as she's still referred to as having led many fashion movements & is an icon) but she is far overshadowed by younger & newer acts who are on TV, in commercials, and have more recent releases than her. It seemed pretty clear to me that Ayu is now doing the music she feels like doing at any given moment and is performing for the fans who have been with her for ages. Ayu is not old by any means but in the J-pop industry, she is.

She is certainly not hated but I did notice the last time she was on SMAP Bistro, a lot of comments towards her were along the lines of "This segment is so boring" "Ayu is so spoiled" and "Where is the segment with only SMAP" (that last comment can be ignored since it's from fans who only wanna see SMAP.) The reason she may have a negative image is that she's only ever on the Yahoo News front page when something is happening in her personal life. But even then, her personal life isn't as interesting to the public at large because there are other people with dating scandals.

^I've been wondering how the Japanese public took to her tv appearance on SMAP Bistro. Thanks for sharing. I guess if there is little interest in an artiste, anything she does would be boring or associated with negative perceptions of her.

a gay friend in japan said she is "fucked up"

yes

It would be interesting to know why he thinks she's fucked up.

^dunno, he wa stalking about how she appeared at Tokyo Pride, which they thought was kinda cool but kinda weird and that she looked really fucked up.

^I actually heard a few people say that about Tokyo Pride. They appreciated her support but somehow thought it was weird, especially her performance.

Lol she acted somewhat like a western star there and I see a lot of criticism concerning how she was dressed... Her boobs were all over the place XD

When I was trying to get my japanese tourist Visa, I mentioned Ayu and they denied it :(

In the hotel I stayed during my Tokyo trip I talked to some japenese guys.
As I mentioned Ayu, they laughed and said "The one from long ago, right? She's sooo done!"

Sadly... :(

I don't know why but this made me scream omg

I think it's expected (in most cases) for anyone that's been in the spotlight a long amount of time for negative reaction. But there is still people that have a favorable view of her - I've seen some of the public call her the song princess.

Foreign fans will always have a different point of view than domestic fans, it's like how many Japanese high school students love certain American singers that at times get a lot of hate from the American public.

Personally I will keep telling people I'm Ayu's fan and they can all suck it.

I was in Switzerland last week, and met some Japanese tourists there, and naturally, the talk came to my experiences with Japan and such, lol. When I mentioned Ayu, these woman in their late 40's-60's were very like "Oooh, Ayu, my daughter likes her" and such, but they also said "You have a thing for old Japanese music?" hahahah. But I've never heard a negative reaction towards her, more so respectful and "Oh of course you know Ayu if anyone else, she is the biggest star of our country".

^to add to that, I was in Japan during the gay pride, and was walking towards the Yoyogi park, when these foreign tourists stopped me and asked "Excuse me, we heard this biggest singer in Asia is going to perform here, do you know which direction we should go?". So yeah, even though she's old school, she still has a level of respect that won't fade away I feel.

^I went to grab some coffee with a japanese boy while I was in Tokyo, and when I mentioned Ayu (and Hikki) he just said their are very, very famous, but he clearly didn't care about any

"Hate" is such a strong emotion and I really wonder what's going on in some people's life that they spend time with such dismal thoughts. Ayu is a pop singer, not a rapist.

Agreed, I've always thought that if you don't like an artist, just ignore them. Actively hating on them all the time just seems pointless.

Yes I agree. I think most "haters" do not know real meaning of the word "hate", they think that word has same meaning as "dislike".

SJKFHKFJSA :laugh

What I’ve learned is that hater are even more obsessed than casual fans ... they know every details of the celebrity and look at every single move ! It’s something really strange but they definitely have interest otherwise they would just be indifferent !

I'm shocked at strangers laughing at you for your taste in music, i'm even more shcoked at such topic coming up in first conversations. Did you just happen to meet the rudest people in Japan? Or is your imagination running wild?

A bit off topic...but....I think it’s important to be able to say who you love and admit it with confidence. The “trend-only” thing is indeed for people with weak self-esteem. If you are afriad of how people see / judge you, you won’t survive in workplace. I came to understand this after i became mature and experienced a few years of depression. Feeling shameful about yourself/your taste/ your love makes you vulnerable to mental illness.