Ayu wishes good luck to Mao Asada in Vancouver with an autographed CD!
 

Someone from Ayu's staff was apparently there to present her with the signed You were.../BALLAD, which was signed "Mao-chan, ganbatte in Vancouver!"... so sweet! Also, apparently a lot of news articles that mentioned Mao also mentioned Ayu in them, haha. (see article at bottom of post) And it's a bit random, but Mao was at Ayu's 10th anniversary concert two years ago, and visited Ayu in her dressing room during a-nation '05! Cool beans.

http://i47.tinypic.com/2iixv95.jpg
Mao reportedly listening to Ayu's You were... / BALLAD on her iPod before going up to skate. **she did not hear Yu Na Kim's score apparently because of this**

Translation from Misa-chan:
The news of figureskater Asada Mao (19) winning the silver medal at the Vancouver Olympics has excited even the entertainment world. Singer Hamasaki Ayumi (31), who knew Mao to be a big fan of hers, sent an autographed CD to her just before the games, with the words of appreciation "Thank you for your courage and passion".

The presence of her love for ayu helped Mao to achieve the silver medal.

According to insiders, Mao received an autographed copy of ayu's new "You were.../BALLAD" CD just before the games from an ayu staff. On it was the message "Mao-chan, good luck for Vancouver". Mao was said to have treated the CD as a good-luck charm.

Hearing the excited crowd's thundering after Kim Yuna's performance, Mao listened to the tunes ayu gave her just before her own performance to calm herself down.

ayu, who was watching the games on TV, showed her appreciation with the words "With no end in sight, just like a lasting forever, these 4 years have passed by like a dream in just the blink of an eye". She also added "Mao-chan, who has accomplished such big things in the past, what is she thinking of right now?"

The 2 share a strong bond. They met in August in 2005, at the a-nation event in Nagoya. Ever since visiting ayu backstage then, Mao has attended more of ayu's lives countless times. When ayu lost the ability to hear in her left ear in January of 2008, Mao's personal words of encouragement were leaked and managed to reach ayu herself, "I wish for her to stand strong, and continue singing".

During the same year, on 9th April, 10th anniversary live performance, 12,000 audience members sang "Who..." as a surprise for ayu, moving her to tears. Mao was in the audience as well.

This time, ayu's support has helped Mao win her silver medal. ayu, who is looking forward to meeting up with Mao after her return, says "I really really look forward to the day when she comes back to Japan, with a brilliant smile on her face". She also added, "I thank Mao for her deep passion and courage to not give up!!"

Sources:
http://sankei.jp.msn.com/entertainme...0701000-n1.htm (Article in post)
http://www.chunichi.co.jp/chuspo/art...702000131.html
http://www.daily.co.jp/gossip/articl...02744199.shtml
http://hochi.yomiuri.co.jp/entertain...m?from=related

Random article that summarizes the article here:

aww that's sweet if it's true~ i wonder which song she's listening to...

oo very interesting. that's so nice and thoughtful of her.

That's nice of her. :)

If it's true, that's so absolutely sweet of Ayu! :D I hope we can get some kind of confirmation on it~

I love your footnotes about how "trout" and "sweetfish" equal Ayu. hahaha Google Translator is so funny.

Aw, I hope it's true, that's so sweet and totally something Ayu would do! :)

thats so nice...
that footnote sweet fish reminds me to her fish lip..

Ayu is so nice. :)

wow...that's cool and touching!

I watched the metal event...Mao didn't look happy after getting the silver. She did well though...too bad she made a little mistake.

hope it's true ^^
it's really nice to hear news like this :yes

awww she's so nice ^^
LOL at the trout and sweetfish XD

that's the nice thing Ayu'd do ^ ^ i hope it's true

I remember seeing her in the same Weider CM as Ayu!

Yeah, I already knew Mao was a Ayu fan through wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_Asada
(Go to # 5 Public life and endorsements)

I was watching it live last night, her performance was really moving, all 3As Mao jumped were very marvelous!! ok, she did win silver medal and that's GREAT~~ CONGRATS YUNA AND MAO!! Good luck for next World Championship!! by the way, I don't think Rochette deserved bronze though, Mirai was much better than her.

oh maybe Ayu also was watching final by tv and supporting her~~
Can you imagine that? xDD

I wonder if Ayu will comment on it? She was really into the summer games in 2008 with Usain Bolt, but maybe she's too busy to watch...

That's really nice for Ayu to do that.

I actually wanted Mao to win but YuNa was just to much. Overall they all deserve their medals.

Oh God, I hope not. The Olympic posts from then were the most boring blog posts Ayu has ever made. :no

I wonder if Mao will choose some Ayu song for the gala tomorrow,
would be so COOL ^__^

That's so weird, I was just thinking Ayu should do something like this in the shower five minutes ago 0.o lol

that's very nice of ayu, how sweet...
listening to you were.../ballad probably calms Mao before skating

She's the ONLY skater I happened to see, and she's an Ayu fan. What a cool coincidence!

Nah I love it! Very sweet indeed!

This is great! Ayu should do this often :P

Haha, I expecting the same thing :laugh

how cool... I want an autographed single too lol

That's so cool! That must have been a huge boost of confidence for Mao. Ayu's so touching. ♥

I'm curious now... do we know of anyone who has used an Ayu song to skate to? That would be interesting.

That's amazing! I thought Mao's routine was the most interesting, and I so envy her now. XP

^ Yeah, it really was. I thought hers was more powerful than Yu-Na's too, especially with the song choices. If only she didn't make those mistakes :/.

Anyway, that's really cute. I'm kinda surprised though. I thought she'd be listening to Arashi or some other boyband or something, but AYU? Now I'm liking Mao a lot more xD.

She also really likes KAT-TUN and was asked about how she'd go on a date with them or something by newspapers if given the chance. But I think she likes Ayu a lot more than she likes KAT-TUN, haha.

^ ...I had forgotten about KAT-TUN. Why'd you remind me? XD

Aw she's so sweet! and Mao Asada has great taste in music/ballads!

Mao and I are alike, we both love Ayu and like KAT-TUN! ;)

I don't know but I always thought some interludes are great music for figure skating. It would look great. Or some of the songs from MY STORY classical. Or Free & Easy, that would be cool, with the audience suddenly falling of their chairs. haha...

thats nice, it would had been nicer if ayu gave it in person instead. go and cheer her

wow that's very interesting! thanks for the post!

Ayu is really a nice person.
She always surprises me with her kindness.
thanks for the article

Yeah i am pretty sure she is a fan of Ayu based on what her wiki page states. I almost wonder if Ayu had to get permission from Avex to give a signed copy of her You were/BALLAD single to her?

^Why? I mean, it's a gift and avex shouldn't care about presents that Ayu gives to others. You make it sound like she's property of avex and cannot do even the simplest things on her own without asking them first.

that's sweet of ayu~~~

I think Ayu is just so sweet!! Knowing Mao Asada is a fan of hers and then sending that as a form of good luck, I think that's a lovely thing to do. It really shows that she keeps track of a lot of things and is ready to send a gift to them to show them she supports them. I think that's wonderful.

Giving out free cds doesn't bring any income towards the company. I'm not saying that it isn't a gesture of good whill because it certainly is.. but Avex is a record label, the only thing they care about is how to increase their profits at the cheapest costs possible.

That's so sweet! Thanks for posting. :)

Now THAT would be awesome. :laugh

The random article says the same thing in summarized form.

Thank you! Added to the first post.

Awww ayu is really sweet for doing that! =D

So nice of her. ^^

Mao was absolutely beautiful... I was totally enthralled by her performance. :O She's sooooooooo good!

How sweet! That's really, really nice of Ayu! *.*

Good luck to Asada-san!!

So sweet that she's Ayu fan *.* I couldn't watch that figure skating competition, so big time difference between Canada and central Europe, damn >,<

that almost made me cry..its so nice to see them being so supportive of eachother

reading the article posted by Misa chan,i'm so touching by the strong bond between Ayu and mao chan,how she's really supporting Ayu,and that we know our Ayu is very down to earth person indeed! she's really really nice! <333

i envy you Mao chan lol,

Thanks for the translations Misa-chan! And the thread itself TrueHappiness.

Wow reading this was really cool, such a nice thing. I wonder how Mao-chan got to meet Ayu back stage at A Nation? Nevertheless Winning a silver medal is a big grats to Mao-chan =D, but to also get a signed CD from Ayu too =], must have been very unexpected. After reading this, it seems like Ayu treats Mao-chan more as a friend than a fan, this article is really sweet.

If anyone did miss this clip or wanted to watch Mao-chan's Performance. Someone has posted a short 3 minute clip on youtube, Thought I'd share with you all.
The youtube "audio" is added onto the video though, wish it wasn't there.


Little bit off topic

Sports News, Reporter posted an article about Mao-chans results. I thought it was quite a harsh title… Don’t you think? In this article it says about how Mao-chan said herself that:

Sources : http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/sport...sp005000c.html

Awww that's so sweet :3 she's really kind to support Asada!
Thanks for sharing & translation

wow, that's so sweet of her! @_@

wow so sweet!! They have to be good friends!! After a-nation 2005, Mao appeared in Ayu's "born to be..." PV so they already had a nice friendship by then ^^

It's cute =3 she could dance on you were or ballad x3

ah,that girl was her?? i didnt know that and she was still young at that time :P

@ Ayu_ready that's what i thought too XD

ooooh that is so touching!! being a Ayu fan now progressed to friendship.. n with that autographed CD as an encouragement.. aww~~

She really was in BTB PV? OMG I must re-watch it XD

sweetie

is it she? :D
http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/157/clipboard02j.png
sorry for that play button, but I don't have this PV on my comp. it's from secsecae's Multiply site! ^^'

just to share it here from this site :http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/02/25/l...ng-free-skate/

quite interesting how they describe the final round of that event,here where they mentioned Mao chan with the Ipod which i guess she's listening to Yw/B ^

Aww, that's sweet of Ayu. :D

I just read this over at Arama lol

THAT IS JUST SO SWEET :''''') I loved reading that Mao listened to Ayu right before her performances. I love hearing other people's stories about idolizing Ayu and such :D

LOL. Shows how easily amused I am, I enjoy the thought of watching the audience jolt simultaneously at Free & Easy. XD

I doubt she would have asked, even if she was supposed to. :P

How sweet of ayu <3

No, the people who were in that PV were from an acting school in Japan, I believe.

Ah that's really sweet! haha :D

sweet news :smitten

awww that's soo sweet of Ayu :D

I saw her win the silver medal... or lose the gold... she wasn't too happy when they announced the score ;)
but she was still amazing ^^

Mao was stunning. As was Kim Yuna. They were both quite graceful.

I think it's kinda cute how Ayu sent her a CD. She seems like a genuinely kind person.

i think mao did a better job :S

Aww that is sweet of Ayu! I was proud of Mao! I really did think that Mirai did a wonderful job and was sad she didn't get the Bronze. However, I think Joannie did rather well too.. and my heart breaks for her even still..

i saw her performance on tv! she was awesome... too bad she only got silver~~~ nice to hear ayu is tuned in to the olympics toO!!　

this is handsome

I would have loved it if Mao had done an Ayu song for her performance...I have watched the skating almost every night it's been on here and I love it xDD

Maybe if Mao is present at the next games she and Ayu should do some sort of sponsorship...I think that would be immensely popular considering how much everyone I know has been watching these games!

AW, how sweet! If I knew I would get to meet Ayu if I were an ice skater, I would have been ice skating a long time ago...:P Just kidding.
I love both of them though, so having two such people meet is awesome!

that's really nice of Ayu, i really wanted Mao to win!!

but it's kinda weird listening to some sad songs before skating...

Hm, I guess. It's only speculation that she was listening to YW/B.... she possibly could have been listening to WE WISH according to some sources.

Who knows, ballads are soothing to listen to before a tense event...

Ayu and Mao were together in the same CM for Weider:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6y...hamasaki_music

How nice of Ayu. So much for people saying that Ayu isnt popular with the young crowd.

Somewhat unsurprisingly, I find some really young teens (boys and girls) who are fans of Ayu on ameblo. She really has fans of all ages. Apparently, this is really obvious at concerts...

Well when she was growing up, ayu would have been at her height of popularity. So it wouldn't be unusual for someone her age to like her.

Yeah you can see parents bringing in their kids to her concerts, a few concerts where you can see kids holding Ayu stuff or things they made, it's really cute... But thats when you see kids growing up loving ayu their whole life.

This is really awesome! It's just nice knowing Ayu does things like this because it makes me smile. :)

http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/7130/1yqno0.jpg

LOL

This is so nice from Ayu. :) These kind of things really shows that she really cares about her friends (I'm assumin that Mao is indeed her friend). It's so admirable. I wish I could do the same. <3

Aww what a cute idol-fan relationship :D

I actually get teary eyed when I see that on DVDs. I love seeing these little kids jumping at Humming 7/4, or singing, or waving the fans or something they've made. I think it's just so adorable, and to me, it really shows that she's loved by a lot of people of sooo many ages!