The largest Ayu fandom meltdowns~
 

For those of us who have been Ayu fan for longer than the span of 2 years: what have been milestones in the meltdowns of Ayu fandom? When were fans the most (irrationally) upset about Ayu's career?

DZ made a good post on RAINBOW meltdowns here.

I remember when...
* NEXT LEVEL was released and fans were freaking out over the 4 interludes. :9
* The Sparkle PV was released and people were upset and calling Ayu a sl#t.
* Lady Dynamite PV was released and homophobic Ayu fans shut down their websites and tried to give Ayu in person a bible (I was there, it was awkward) lol.

LOVE again.

Sunrise/Sunset covers.

HEAVEN at #2 for most of the week.

Party Queen's covers.

Lady Dynamite

Sunrise/Sunset

Manny

The truth about Again, Love and Love Again

Oh yeah the Sunrise covers haha. I remember that. They're not so bad in hindsight tbh.

And Mirrorcle World almost not getting #1!

The Shuuchishin battle was so dumb, ughhh. The Hexagon group of single was insane.

GUILTY being #2 lol

:tired

Did these happen on this site or/and elsewhere too? I was never really part of the fandom even though I was an Ayu fan so I missed all of this (luckily?)

Homophobic Ayu fans... They exist?

Not anymore they don't hahaha. One guy stalked Ayu on twitter sending constant creepy quotes from the Bible, saying how he wanted to save her from hell and stuff. xD

And yeah happened on this site, too. :9

I remember a friend of an AHS member being an extra in 1 LOVE's PV. AHS melted down when he mentioned Ayu was going to be pole-dancing in the PV :laugh

Oh wow, I'm almost sad I missed that! Did Ayu ever say anything?

Wait, in LA? I was there too...I wonder if we met?

Not everyone was feeling the release of A SUMMER BEST. Plus it was being released late in summer. And the cover was quite hated. Like people saying it was her worst and stuff. And then You & Me

But in the end, it didn't turn out to be as bad as actual meltdowns. But it was funny to watch

pretty much everything hahahaha specially here :P



The homophobic pricks tho http://thepopzone.net/public/style_e...ault/ew133.gif

Your signature is f#cking flawless.

@ohsixthirty: Maaaybe, but I know the AHS screen names of the fans I befriended in LA and London. :0 I think. I have them on FB anyway lol. Except Megan. And Leo. And Paella-guy. And the rude group of French people. I think I lost contact with the Italians tho, they were so nice 'n cute. ;-; #getting-off-topic

Love a good interlude! I'll have a meltdown if there's no interludes on the new album!

There should at least be an intro, am I right? :9 An Ayu album without interludes is no Ayu album !

(miss)understood giant smile cover is the one I remember

the whole 15th anniversary mess.

ayu getting remarried.

ayu aging. LOL

The whole of 2012 is a meltdown. From Party Queen to Maro. That year is a big black hole in Ayu's career.

Anytime Ayu has ever released anything ever there has been a meltdown

Oh I remember that guy! He was one crazy Christian lol. He's still not on AHS? :O I seen his posts a couple times, and replied once saying that he made Christians look crazy.

I don't really remember much besides when Ayu got married, and everyone was going cray cray! XD

I am pretty sure he still sends Ayu tweets on a daily basis...

* Breakup with Tomoya Nagase...

* Rock'n'Roll Circus, I love the cover and booklet, but the songs are pretty forgettable for me; I usually enjoy every single songs in Ayu's album but R'n'RC... I know there are a lot R'n'RC fans here but sadly this is my least favorite album. But I really love Don't look back!

* I don't like how she shouts so frequently during live performances for upbeat songs like evolution,
Kono hoshi ni umaretsuita hi
Kitto nandaka ureshikute
Kitto nandaka setsunakute
Bokura wa naite itanda-COME ON!!!! WOW YEAH!!!!

* I became a fan since Moments era, I didn't really have any problem with her releases... R'n'RC happened to be released in 2010 which was the year that I was a huge K-pop fan, I almost didn't care about her new songs anymore.

* (miss)understood covers.......

Oh yeah the (miss)understood covers..that was the first ~meltdown~ I experienced on here. Such a shame, such a great album...but yet the artwork is horrendous. The art direction, photography, typography..everything about it just sucks.

I think Mikajohn was the one behind the concepts for (m)u. Eek.

LOL I remember when INSPIRE PV was released.
fans started blabbing how ayu had lost it and that they wouldn't listen to her anymore and that the song was extremely unlistenable and horrible. That her PVs had lost it. It was chaotic. And then, when MY STORY was released, the same stuff was repeated over again. I think, since the, it has been like that after every release :laugh

And homophobic ayu fans? LOL the world really has many people on the gray zone :laugh Reminds me of the funniest psychiatry example of the differences between a neurotic and a psychotic. "The difference between a neurotic, a psychotic, and a psychiatrist. The neurotic builds castles in the sky, the psychotic lives in them and the psychiatrist collects the rent", some people really need to treat their psychosis by paying their rent.

It's weird that MY STORY had such a strong backlash at the time since it's such a legendary album now. 2010's releases were probably the least drama-filled, I think. I remember reaction to Rock'n'Roll Circus and Love songs was pretty positive.

^

I don't get the backlash to MY STORY either, and I wasn't on this forum back then.

MY STORY is pretty safe and flawless? You got your rock-pop, your A+ ballads, your cutesy stuff, your mellow ballad, some artistic aspects... eh.

if the new PVs for Feel the love & Merry go round has her new husband I'm gonna have a meltdown. or if her husband is on anything I'm gonna meltdown

Suprised no one has mentioned Timmy yet... ;)

Someone is seriousley sendind tweets to Ayu, trying to save her from hell? How have I missed this??!!

I'm afraid to get banned lol. It's the main reason I lost Ayu excitement for 2 years. :p

Did the forum really have meltdowns about him, tho? I thought that all got covered up by deleting posts and banning users or something.

Besides what everyone mentioned already, there was the whole issue about her lips looking different during 2011 and beginning of 2012 and people thinking she had done surgery to make them bigger. Every single pic that came out during 2011 was followed by comments about her lips... (what did she do to her lips that year anyway? One whole year her lips looked different and then they were back to normal lol)

The photoshoots that she did when Kazuyoshi Shimomura was behind the camera

Seriously , the whole (infamous) fish lips was & is still bad

How dare people question the glory of miss(understood)'s visual concept as an album. Nowadays it feels as if the covers and booklet became a legend even before their actual release Ö.Ö

Whoever the makeup artist was must have been applying LOADS of gloss.

The "Bold & Delicious" release, that song is still a hot mess to this day. :P

I don't think there was a meltdown necessarily over Bold & Delicious... but everyone had their jaw dropped for like a few months after that song and video, lol.

paela LMFAO!

Sunrise/Sunset covers
2012 in general. Party Queen, Mannie, etc.
LOVE, again, LOVE again

SJW's freaking out about the fat-shaming in the Feel the love PV.

I vaguely remember people being appalled by the STEP you / is this LOVE? covers and calling her a big ol' whore.

NEXT LEVEL having four interludes.

Surprised that nobody mentioned about GREEN PV.

If I remember correctly, people were surprised that ayu used her female dancer during a solo dance scene (instead of her male dancer), and then surprised part 2, because it's actually one of her most expensive PV, and then surprised episode 3 because Kazuyoshi Simamora is the man behind this PV. That moment is enough to entertain me.

And then, Rule, which got some nice promotion, tie-in with a Dragonball Movie, which was unforgettable and sucks (the movie), though at first everyone are soooo excited about that like ayu is going to be popular worldwide.

I think blossom PV got some problem with a Korean artist too which I actually forgot, no?

Also... A COMPLETE ~Beyonce~.

I think PCDL got some meltdowns too, but I'm not sure.

EDIT:
About NEXT LEVEL for having four interludes, aren't GUILTY had four too?
Mirror is more like intro for me.

Well, it was neat to hear Rule in a movie played in the US. I actually caught it on TV a while ago and hearing Ayu's music played on cable TV was so strange, haha.

Oh yeah I forgot about the whole JAEJOON in the blossom music video. People were accusing Ayu of using him to get more sales or something lol

Hahaha. Now that you mentioned it, I see it.

Couldn't agree more!

I remember people whining how pointless and random Mirrorcle World PV was too.
Some even went nuts because she wore lingerie.

Oh and also RED LINE ~for TA~!
People got angry because they thought TA was her japanese fanclub only. Uhm, maybe I should say "we" because I was one of those lol.

I don't know if this was fandom wide but I personally remember freaking out over the Party Queen covers when they were revealed.

I remember some reactions about the Mirrorcle World PV part with the lingerie now that you mentioned it again..

YES OMG. Memories! <3 I remember my MOM disapproved of it. Aww, good old times.

Shibuya 109 incident when ayu visited there for DejiDeji book promo but "didn't ask police permission" or something of that sort in 2008.

ayu breathing in general.

This is a mini one but my fave..the shower sex thing...so hilarious.

That's it, that sums it all up. :D

People kept saying she was copying lady gaga for the sexy little things video. Particularly bad romance.

And then they met on TV which was awkward to some and cool for others.

But did result in some usual who did what first drama.

Party Queen covers - Fans are calling her a whore and calling her desperate and can't be "hip" anymore

Anything she had released from 2012-2013

- Fans are calling her lazy and boring (lol I think fans keep using the word "lazy" without actually knowing what it really means) and endless comparisons with past releases

- Endless comparisons with Namie Amuro and Koda Kumi

- Her love life.

- 15th Anniversary releases too

- A BEST LIVE and CDL 2013-2014's vocals. (LOL I can't wait for her voice to be "Britney Spears" auto-tune. I love that sh*t tbh

Everything she does is a meltdown here (:

its been said before:

the whole 15th anniversary mess.

nuff said.
But I was also one of these people.. it WAS a mess. Just... almost a slap in the face.

If just Britney could ever reach the level of the part of Me and Curtain call vocal performances from the CDL. Even ayu screaming in Humming 7/4 and Boys & Girls are better than Britney's vocals (hence why Britney doesn't sing live at all).
I still think that the whole auto-tone thing got out of hand by fans, since ayu doesn't use it so often live (it's not really auto-tune anyway it's probably something like a vocal limit control).
So it is indeed a good thing to put here, but it were just some fans lol

I think you can make your point without bringing other artists down. Just sayin'

What??

Mannie tweeted an image of a window in the bathroom or something and said something about good memories in there... then Ayu retweeted it or replied to him with a smiley face or something iirc.

Did the bathroom at least have a shower in it or was it just a toilet? lol

If I remember correctly it was a bath with bubbles and so...

yeah I think it was a bathtub of some sort too

I tried that once, it's really uncomfortable cuz u keep slipping and hitting each other. <_< Also I'm picky about water temperature so... lolll

Hm.. I remember he took photos of both? One was of the bath, and the other was the shower with the window in the background.

Everything she has ever done since maybe RAINBOW. Ayu breathing too loudly causes people to go into meltdown mode.

Then I probably only saw one ( or I only remember one )
Thanks for clearing that up though : o

http://twitpic.com/63m683

The tweet Ayu made... and then Mannie replied apparently saying "the memories..." or something.

Obviously Ayu is a pure holy virgin goddess!!!!! Arm flailing at your lover is the only love allowed!!!!

The bath comment was funny. Mannie seems to like oversharing... there were things in Super Mannie that nobody needed to see. Their twitter love did get a bit cringe though lol

I would not say so. Leslie's target group were obviously gay consumers in general plus the 500 copies of "Super Mannie" sold more or less exclusively at gay shops.

I've been out of the Ayu scene for too long to know what crazy things happened after, say, 2007, but...

Ayu releasing "less" (there was a time when new singles seemed to fall like rain and had 5-10 tracks each full of remixes. After Free & Easy, that vanished)
Ayu & Manny
Ayu divorcing Manny; enter "new guy" who's much younger than her.
Ayu's "mumbling" in her early years

I'm sure there's a zillion other things I could think of later =]

Correct me if I'm wrong, and don't quote me on this cause it was quite a while ago (keep in mind I've been an ayu fan since 2002 and I've stalked this site for years), but I recall someone sharing a picture they had of 20 copies of sealed kanariya singles, and someone got really upset cause they were genuinely trying to to find a copy of it, and this person casually posted the picture mentioning they had no intention of opening or selling any of their copies.

The first meltdown I experienced here was the release of Bold and Delicious.

So many people hated the gospel sound, the MV was "just her on the back of a truck" etc lol

I think the Sunrise/Sunset covers were amongst the biggest meltdowns I've seen, although we were all pretty mad at the 15th anniversary releases and I still don't like Party Queen :P

At the time I thought it was because of the 'inappropriate behaviour' shown in the Lady Dynamite PV... Or that was the general opinion that went around. I did and do love your site and wish there was something else like it still going!

^

I'm pretty sure Nick was already losing interest in Ayu, then when Lady Dynamite's PV was released he decided to just stop updating (he did describe that as the final reason as to why he stopped). Nice he replied though, interesting read.

Actually, I don't approve of the lifestyle shown in Lady Dynamite either (note: not all gay people have leather-clad orgies in clubs, ugh) but I just take it with a grain of salt and never watched it again lol. If I want to watch a cute, realistic gay couple I'll turn on Modern Family. :9

Yeah I understand that. I just don't think it was phrased well at the time and could be interpreted as homophobic by some people.

^

Yeah, agreed. Honestly I still think those meltdowns were homophobic, not because it portrayed THAT particular lifestyle (I've seen my share of those disgusting gay scenes to broaden my mind) but at least Nick isn't openly dissing gay people which is great. :) There was another website that shut down and wasn't so kind about the matter lol.

edit: I miss having a website that keeps track of all the Ayupan, though. :( That was my favorite part of the website.

It all reeked of 'I'm not homophobic BUT *homophobic comment*'

A bit like when people cross the line with Timmy and the 'weird' comments start appearing.

There are plenty of men who I'd love seeing pose in a raunchy photobook.... Mannie is not one of them. SM somehow enhanced his fugliness betond it's normal levels. The greasy hair needs more brain bleach than his crotch.

Some people are into him though, Ayu obviously was with all the baths :p

Mannie's not my type at all but he seemed like a genuinely nice guy, sad they broke up. ^^;

Don't know if it counts, but I found the facebook post from Mannie's friend the other day after that time when Mannie posted that "don't date psycho people" or something lol

The facebook meltdowns were real.

I think meltdowns started ever since the release of Greatful days.
During MY STORY, INSPIRE was the most targetted song. HONEY made people question ayu's maturity, back then, some intense old ayu lovers were already shifting their interests in music, so that probably contributed to some of the meltdown that happened back then. Also, kuu was starting to rise in JPOP, if I'm not mistaken.

With the title of a song called Lady Dynamite, if referenced to gay people, one can indeed expected a stereotyped video, which was what happened. Before the PV was released, though, I was expecting one of those women power videos like Real me or my name is WOMEN. The LD PV is (very) boring though.

nick at least didn't preach back then. I'm personally horrified with the people stalking ayu to preach :laugh

I remember that lol

I think that's just Mannie's humour though as he and Ayu are still FB friends I think and he's never said anything else on the topic.

Mannie and his puns....... :D

party queen and all songs in love again that not included in both singles.......:p
The preview from the new album sounds promising though.....let's see what will we get next

oops one more.... all things like manny, timmy and maro .....

The song by itself isn't really about gay people, to the point it was the girl power performance during AT10...

And the PV, really, there are people who go to clubs like that... If I'm not wrong the pv was even recorded at a gay club of the gay district of Tokyo using the usual people who went there... Calling it a steriotype bothers me considering she was actually recording it on the actual place with the actual people who have that live style.

^

That's not entirely true. That 2-chome club isn't always like that, obviously. Clubs with people like that usually have them on drugs and with dark rooms for sex. It's creepy. But yeah, it was recorded in the actual club, but with everyone in outfits and with the dancers. In fact, the drugs and orgy scene is why Japan banned "dancing" (I kid you not) and "dance-like movement" from all the gay clubs in that area. Maybe they should do the same rule in London, lol.

So in a sense it is actually stereotyping. Most gay clubs (and in 2-chome) aren't like that. You have to find specific, dark ones for leather parties like that, and even then she should've included sex all over the place in the videoclip. Instead we get a PG version of an AIDS infested area, lol.

Having said that I don't take the video serious lol, but just my 2 cents. :9 Ayu can have good intentions but be a bit stupid about how she does it lol (Lady Dynamite, feel the love, etc.)

Timmy. Eyes, Smoke, Magic ("OMFG I HOPE IT'S A FULL SONG AND NOT AN INTERLUDE. Oh, Timmy produced it. Oh, it's a jazz song. OMFG I HATE ESM SO MUCH!!!")

^ I don't think ESM is a jazz song, that's how I'd qualify the next LOVE.

By the way, the largest meltdown TO ME was the SS~LiA~ and Party Queen covers.... Much disappointment...

Mannie liked a link I posted on Facebook today about how domestic violence against males is normalised compared to against females and I admit I did come here to check if someone had taken it out of context and posted it saying he was calling Ayu abusive or something.... :innocent

That meltdown with the "psycho ex" post was pretty funny. Maybe we should have an AHS awards category for funniest meltdown in the future :P

I told people back then when "LOVE" and "again" came out that those were obviously singles and some stubborn fans replied "LOL, no! They are mini-albums, period", therefore they kept insisting on Avex fake-declaration for I don't know what reasons.

It was so weird because anyone could tell that they were singles right from the start.

He called Ayu a psycho? I think I read this somewhere how he said that about Ayu on twitter? Man I really missed out a lot.

Now you are the one stereotyping...

I don't think Lady Dynamite was supposed to be realistic XD it's a music video guys, not a documentary!

Didn't Mannie post on Twitter saying the divorce was a lie too? Or something like that.

That was fun.

Mannie was certainly just kidding. He played with Ayu's appalled fans and enjoyed their reactions. He never was married with Ayu, it's likely that he's not even into women, so...

I know the song isn't about gay people. The PV is. And since the title of the song is Lady Dynamite, with a PV about gay people, I would expect something of the sorts. It's a stereotype because not all gay people love leather or party like that. The PV was meant to be fun, but the things that have in common are all as one, like a stereotype. Almost everyone is gay, almost everyone is in leather, almost everyone is partying. To me, that sort of defines a stereotype even though it probably was not intentional (or was).

Maybe it was leather night at the time of filming?
lol

So, unless she releases a PV about gay people exploring every kind of way gay people can live, she will be dealing with stereotypes, even if she is representing groups of people that actually exist. I'm pretty sure people around here would be far more confortable with a pv filled with a bunch of straigh-like gay guys... But it's not like those take nearly as hard from society as those who actually have the same life style of those from the video...

And about the song lyrics, the lady dynamite from the title is Ayu herself telling people that promote hypocrital views society has to fuck off... Saying the song title makes clear the video would be stereotyping is like judging a book by it's cover.

I don't even understand why her dancers were in leathers in the first place. They looked out of place or like they were there specifically to join the others in the lifestyle there.

Except there wasn't anyone else there wearing leathers :shrug and we didn't see anyone else in any kind of *sexual play party* behavior. So why were they dressed that way? Probably novelty.

But I mean it just looked like Ayu dancing at one club. She didn't even go to multiple ones lol

lulz. idk. All I found out is that Ayu and people here don't understand leather clubs/dungeons/public play spaces, or drag and costume clubs.

I don't think she was stereotyping gay people with the setting, but I think she may have been stereotyping when she just assumed they should wear leathers instead of other costumes.


And I'll just say. Not all leather clubs or public play spaces include full on sex. However, many of them have regulations for safe sex, biohazard materials, and against drug use. The sex that goes on there is safer than the sex you have at home oftentimes.