[lizzylovesongaku]

Honestly, I do not get the impression she's announcing her retirement. Everyone is focusing on the "last" part of her English Instagram post, but the phrase is "the first and last". 1) the post is in English. We all know she's probably semi-conversational at best in English. She definitely knows more that most Japanese pop-stars, but she's nowhere near fluent, so she might not realize how dramatic that phrase sounds. 2) "The first and last" can mean "the greatest" or the "biggest", "one announcement to trump all announcements", type of thing. So, yes, she's going to announce something big, but it's not necessarily retirement. 3) We also need to look at her TA message. It's very positive and sweet sounding, not at all the tone of someone who is about to end their decades-long career. We all know that Ayu loves performing and making music. It's unlikely that she's going to retire Namie-style. If she stops it's because she HAS to stop. I could be very wrong here and just trying to stay optimistic, but I don't get the sense she's about to announce her retirement. Hopefully she'll make a clarifying statement at some point, otherwise we'll just have to wait until April lol