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My personal experience with Japanese people (and I've interacted with like a hundred college-aged friends) is that most people think she's cute or pretty and has catchy, albeit easy, songs to sing. They love the songs "Voyage" and "SEASONS" most often and the most recent song they enjoy is "BLUE BIRD". "JEWEL" is also pretty popular and so is "Days". Nothing after that has EVER been mentioned. Even my Ayu fan Japanese friends RARELY mention liking anything after Days. In general, they seem to have a neutral to positive opinion of her. I have noticed that, out of my friends, more guys like Ayu than girls! Same with Koda Kumi.
In California, my non-Asian friends who don't know anything about Japanese pop culture think she's pretty-looking but don't care much for her music though a lot of the non-Asian friends who like Asian pop culture tend to think she looks strange and unnatural like a doll or an alien (these people tend to prefer the more 'Asian'-looking celebrities like Shiina Ringo, Koyuki etc.) I think it is just that Ayu looks very Caucasian-ish and it's not typical of Asians to look the way she does and her look is also more "common" in America.
My non-Japanese Asian friends tend to be polarized in that they either think she's gorgeous or think she looks like an alien haha. It's funny because a lot of my girl friends love how Ayu looks but guys tend to have more mixed feelings. I think it is the negative association we have here with dolls that makes a lot of males not care much for her sometimes overly cutesy looks.
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