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I'd say that's ENTIRELY likely. For a few years early on in her career it seemed like she could do no wrong, and now it seems like she can do no right. I think it's a combination of things...
In part, I think people began to have very high expectations, perhaps unreasonably so... She had a long streak of time where she seemed to give everyone around her age (give or take a few years) in Japan EXACTLY what they wanted in a pop star, because she was lucky enough that that's what she happened to BE. But once she stopped being that thing, people got pretty harshly critical because they were disappointed. Meanwhile if she'd never been THAT pop star, she wouldn't be attacked quite so much.
I think also in part, she stopped being herself. Well, that's not quite right... She put on a facade of her own design and her own choosing. I do think that facade is reflective of her own ideals. But she DOES put on a facade, and it's based far more on ideals than reality, which is a problem. Most of us put on facades every day. Not a one of us is as devoted to the company we work for as we pretend we are in front of our boss, for instance. We'll pretend a friend's one insensitive action towards us doesn't bother us all that much, while secretly we imagine punching them in the face. That kind of thing. But those facades ARE based on who we really are. Like maybe we're not THAT big a fan of a company we work for, but we do love our jobs. Or maybe we're upset at a friend, but we love them and we know the anger will pass, so we see no point in saying exactly what we feel when we're at our most passionately pissed off. We wear these masks weighing the pros & cons of wearing them, and they're masks that are easy to wear.
Ayu, by comparison, wears masks with as much glitter, feathers, and fabric covering them as possible. She doesn't want ANYONE to see what her true face looks like, because if someone criticizes the shape of her nose, that's an attack on HER. If we attack the feathers, it's not. (I'm still being mostly metaphorical here lol)... To be more concrete, if people criticize her dancing, she can feel like "It's okay, I'm not naturally amazing about it anyway." But if she moves naturally while singing, then when people think she looks weird or goofy or if they don't understand how she was feeling in that moment, then that's an attack on HER. A dance routine isn't her, an outfit isn't her... but idiosyncrasies and movements and such ARE her.
So whenever Ayu has any control over what the public sees, they're gonna be things she doesn't consider to be intrinsically part of who she is. 'Cuz criticism about anything that she considers truly part of HER, that seems to be a bit of a berzerk button for her. This is why she acts like a drama queen, and this is why she freaks out & leaves twitter when her writing is misinterpreted one too many times.
And I think it hits her much harder probably because she went from being really insecure & anxious when she was younger, to suddenly being praised & lauded all the time, and then suddenly losing that. When she was young she had thin skin and curled up into a turtle shell to protect herself, and then she was getting all that praise and felt like maybe now she could finally be comfortable being who she was... But then (around the time she realized how many fans she had outside Japan if I had to guess) she realized how many pairs of eyes were really on her, and she quickly internalized how vulnerable she still was. And that's about the time when the battle between "I wanna hide" and "I want everyone to keep praising me" began. Her self-worth is based on people's reactions to her. She's HAPPIER when she's praised for who she really is, you can see it happen - when she's being herself AND being praised for it, the joy is palpable. But people do criticize, which means it's safer for her if we react to her glittery, feathery mask. So she leaves it on most of the time.
She's trying really hard to regain that praise & adoration but without showing too much of herself, and I think she's walking a really really awkward, rocky tightrope trying to balance the two. But in my opinion it's like she's chasing two rabbits - on the one hand, showing people exactly what she wants to express; on the other, showing people what they want to see. The end result is that she puts out a sort of clumsy creative purgatory that's neither here nor there. The lyrics are there, the performances aren't. The ideas are there, the execution isn't. The diligence is there, but the planning isn't. Cuz when you chase after two rabbits, you're not gonna catch either one.
She still puts out very high quality work, but it's frustrating to know it COULD be better if she was more self-aware - examining her true strengths & talents and honing them, and teaming up with people who understand her and who bring out her best qualities creatively - as opposed to self-conscious, you know?
As far as the whole moving to America thing, I'm REALLY glad you brought that up because I think it's a great microcosm of what Ayu's had to deal with psychologically for, honestly, probably a good chunk of her life. Ayu's got some ideals as far as the role of women in society, how open people should be about their feelings, the pursuit of one's dreams, and moving forward that are seemingly very un-Japanese. But at the same time, Japan is her home, it's where she always lived, it's the language she is best at expressing herself in, it's the culture and people that she knows. Life there is far more strictly regimented & scheduled than in America, but Ayu's personality has never been such that she's happy living life that way. It seemed for all the world like America would be a better fit for her personality. And honestly I think it may be. But again, she has to walk that line between living her life and doing her job, and doing her job meant going back to Japan because it just wasn't good PR for her fans to feel abandoned or betrayed. I truthfully don't think that her fans feeling that way is her problem, but she's REALLY big on taking personal responsibility for her image, so she made it her problem and moved back to Japan.
I think fans & critics & society & even her staff are all pulling her in multiple directions, and she's insecure and trying to be a people pleaser, trying to be everything to everybody. And the result is that she's gotten very watered down over the years. It's very clear, pure, clean water that half the time she distills herself - she's not gonna settle for dirty tap water, lol - but it's still water.
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