[waterballoon]

I've not watched the other PVs, but here's my take on Microphone:

So I think the running themes for Microphone are "Appearance & Reality" and "The controller of your life is you".

So like, I think we have seen a lot of models and situations throughout the video, like the guy dancing out of the box, the sisters, the assassin, mad woman screaming into the megaphone, the janitor, the solider, the family... everything appears normal and stereotyped, but I think many of these situations were shown to have "shocks" or unexpected twists.

Like the janitor who turned out to be a dancer, or the solider who turned out to be a screaming woman... I think it's that message of "what appears to be is not the truth"... especially at the scene of the family where Ayu's "sister" is actually a dude... it highlights the message of "Appearance & Reality" even more.

Now, there are various transactions throughout the video, where a finger sorta swipes the screen in an iPhone manner; it appears there's a controller for many of the things happening, in particular the one scene where the finger controlled the drag brother to knock into Ayu and caused a fit; there's this "Who's this person controlling everything?" question in everyone's mind, which appears to be the Ayu walking down the catwalk, since she managed to crush and thrash all the various scenes, it seems like she's the one who's controlling everything, which explains the twists in the PV; she wants them to be like this.

This also brings up another point; where Ayu sort of tells us that she could be anyone in the scenes - a janitor, part of a happy family, an assassin, a clown, a mad woman, a good sister, a solider... anyone, but she chose to "thrash" all of that away in some way because she has decided who she wants to be - herself; that singer strutting her stuff down the runway... it feels like she's saying "This is who I've decided to be, and who I want to be."

In a way, she's controlling her life by choosing who she wants to be, no?

So, at the end we see everything moving backwards and it turns out the whole PV is like a video played on a player, and the one watching is the Ayu in Slt.

This reminds me of the theme/concept of Slt - girl power. We've seen so many shocks and twists in Microphone, but ultimately who's the one overseeing and watching everything? It's Ayu; a woman. I think this emphasizes the fact that women can control their lives as they want at this era, which explains the whole video player thing.

Another emphasis on the "women control their lives" was the scene with the family; where Ayu decided to stand up for herself and out of the table - we can see the rest of the family had that "omg wtf is she doing!?" face... I think it's a stereotype that girls can't do what they want; that girls can't control anything; it's like the Ayu in the table is saying "screw all of the stereotypes, I'm doing things my way, as I want it."

So yeah... I think the Microphone PV shows the concept of "Appearance & Reality" and "Controller of life is you" pretty well, and I understand the connection to Slt... I think it's like women control their lives, much like how Slt Ayu controls and watches everything that goes in Microphone.

One peeve I had was... the finger that swiped everything was odd. it wasn't the finger of Ayu in the runway, neither was it the finger of Ayu in Slt. it looks random, which doesn't provide any solid connection, which bothered me. lol I wished the finger would be like the one of Ayu in Slt so it would be cooler.

Just my 2 cents, and sorry if it's too long. it's been ages since I've watched an Ayu PV and had so much thoughts running through my mind