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Originally Posted by SunshineSlayer
It depends what chart you are looking at really. If its the yearly single chart, she only made it to 34ish last year - I remember a time when it was unthinkable that Ayu wouldn't have a single in the yearly top 10, let alone top 40. Yearly digital charts aren't that strong for her either. The only chart that she is 1-3rd in is the overall Avex only charts - not a bad thing of course but not surprising considering she had something like 7 releases counting last year. She is still of course popular and already has her legendary status, but its also true that she has been losing popularity as well.
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Maybe it was 34 overall but it was the 3rd best selling by female artist and one of the two singles that outsold that is Thelma Aoyama's which kind of lost her power quick after the smashing success of soba ni iru ne.
For a female artist and after a long time in the industry we can say that ayu is doing a bit of exceptionly well and not just "oh well, decent like everyone".
We also shouldn't compare her single sales and positions on yearly chart to what they were during her peak or 6 years ago to now as sales are way not the same, and she is still one of the top female sellers for female singers.
Also even if she had 7 releases last year (that she was the 2nd overall best selling artist of the year), they still have to sell quite well to reach there since decent for each release is not enough. Even if she had 50 releases they would worth zero if they would sell low or just decently, without a good popularity she wouldn't be able to reach even close, even with billion releases a year. Comparing how she could do that a few years ago just with few releases is futile of course, and so comparing her popularity (even generally sales) to now.
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I think people mention the #1 streak as a measure of her status because of the fact that she is certainly not the only woman who has had a long number 1 streak to maintain. There are several famous jpop women throughout the history of Japanese music that had #1 streaks to uphold and historically those singers always started fading from the limelight the moment they lost their streaks.
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Isn't seiko matsuda the only female artist that ayu's streak still didn't take over?
Also ayu still might get #1s for her next studio albums and even if the streak was broken even oricon posts "ayu has 9 #1 original albums" etc. so it might not be her only thing, sometimes she brings up new achivements like she did with A BEST 2 with coping the #1 and #2 position by the same (female?) artist and such things. Her popularity is still enough to bring her new achivements and she might obtain some even if they are not as amazing as streaks and people still look at them with a good and "surprised" eyes.