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Originally Posted by js_surrealism
Correct me if I'm wrong but it seems like fans who want to buy the physical release (with all the freebies and stuff) won't get any of the 'new' music (i.e. the acapella tracks) which will only be available on the digital version, which seems silly.
The very least they could have done was to throw in some unreleased footage somewhere somehow. Maybe a DVD of the recent TA tour. Even Utada Hikaru's anniversary version of First Love had unreleased tour footage accompanying it.
I don't disagree with blatant cash grabs but there are LITERALLY SO MANY WAYS to do it better...
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SERIOUSLY. And maybe it's unfair to compare this to "First Love" but it happened such a short time ago, and was so full of great content that the parts that were rehashed (like the remixes that appeared on singles) didn't detract from the set's value.
The "First Love" book was this huge nice hardcover that included a TON of old rare photos and behind-the-scenes reports & info. Considering how much A BEST era "making of" photos & content aren't available on TeamAyu's website anymore, this book would have been a great place to reproduce that old content, and yet so far we've been given no indication that those sorts of things will be included (although I'd imagine the "A BEST" wallpaper photos - which are from the making of the CD cover & CM - will probably, hopefully, be there).
It was awesome to see reproductions of ads, flyers, and concert passes in "First Love". It's really hard to find magazine ads in decent quality for Ayu's older singles so it would have been awesome to learn A BEST had some of that stuff here.
"First Love" had those demos, so early mixes or earlier recordings or the TeamAyu preview track would have been SO COOL to include here audio-wise... It's already upsetting that only the digital release gets the vocal tracks.
The inclusion of Hikki's first tour was a HUGE bonus on First Love, and I have to admit, the fact that this A BEST reissue doesn't include Secret Live at Akasaka BLITZ is a huge blow to my anticipation of the release. I'm holding out hope for a 20th anniversary release of some sort that includes at least some footage of it (because honestly all I can figure is that there's no surviving footage of the concert at this point), but it would have been such an awesome addition to this.
Not only does the A BEST set pretty much ONLY include one thing I'm interested in (the book), the inclusion of both DVD AND Blu-Ray (OH MY GOD SERIOUSLY WHY DO THIS. WHY.) makes it way too easy for even the biggest fans to classify it as a lazy cash-grab, which is a reeeaaalllly big issue from a PR standpoint, especially such a short time after the 15th Anniversary LOVE/again/LOVE again content duplication fiasco.
And the t-shirt seems lazily "designed" and probably won't fit me anyway so that's not a selling point for me at all.