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During 2000... 2001... I started getting interested in anime, manga and animesongs.
When I was 11 I made friends with 2 otaku sisters and they slowly started to brainwash me into jpop. :B During 2002 they burned me some CDs with random jpop tracks from big acts of that time... Hikki, Ayu, BoA, some 90s Namie tracks, ELT, etc. I completly felt in love with Hikki and BoA, and really liked the Namie tracks... I found Ayu stuff to be ok, but not really interesting.
During 2003 I asked them to burn Hikki's discrography to me (easy, just 3 albums at the time) and I started to dig deeper on jpop, reading about the singers and stuff. This time I discovered Ayu was the anti-Utada and all the "perfect princess" girl vibe she gave me turned me off... Also, her singing on A song for xx (the track a site recommended) sounded like a dying cat, so, meh.
I started downloading her stuff from times to times on Kazaa, together with stuff I liked better like Hikki, Hitomi Shimatani and BoA... When I went for her videos, some stuff was pretty amazing, like Rainbow (her first video I loved) or Because of You... Some just plain sucked (Seasons video, or her changing outfits during Dearest)... But I didn't really see much depth on her... and then I read about her themes being deep, the website citing endless sorrow song and pv... The song didn't make much for me (damn ~gone with the wind version~ from hell), but once I saw the video and listened to that version, she got me again.
Those friends of mine downloaded AT03-04 and I got curious to watch it... It was during a time I was really interested on watching concerts thanks to finally discovering Madonna's Drowned World Tour... And I got REALLY impressed by her as a performer! This time, at least as a performer, I was a fan! Too bad her music sucked :B I kept following her for her live performances while liking a song here and there... AT05 made it pretty clear to me she was one of the best performers I would ever see (funny now I dislike this concert), and after liking most of (miss)understood singles, I couldn't really stop listening to the album once it was released. There was the time I became a fan of Ayu the musician. Now I like most of her music releases.^^
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