[Zeke.]

Originally Posted by Chibi-Chan

I talked to a lot of Japanese people about Ayu since at one point or another you're always being asked when you started learning Japanese and why and if you like Japanese pop culture. So I have to "confess" that I'm actually an Ayu fan. They dislike her for a million reasons, but Ayu being anything that comes close to a "party queen" is none of them. No one ever mentioned rumours about her getting drunk, taking drugs, that she had an abortion or whatever. The only thing that come up again and again is her looking fake, having surgery, being a stuck up diva etc. So basically it always comes down to Ayu being unrelateable compared to before and that they lost touch with her around (miss)understood era. And everyone always says things like "back then she was great, but now...".
Furthermore, even though I can't stand this "natural" Ayu thing anymore, I think she does it for one reason: she had a VERY long period of years in which she looked fake as hell in mostly every photo of hers, starting around (miss)understood era. Japanese people only know her as the girl next door or as the fake diva, they aren't able to recognise her face anymore. For example I had the picture with the blue tone she posted as teaser with lyric snippets as background pic at my mobile phone and showed it around. No one believed me it was her. Nowadays she tries very hard to leave her diva image behind her and to be more relateable again, even though I'm not sure if her current tactic works.

How do people feel about Namie? In terms of relatability? Is she judged by the same factors?