Haha, my friend pointed this out to me earlier today...
Ayumi was mentioned in the November/December 2005 edition of XY magazine, a gay teen magazine in the U.S. There's a little section in that issue called "in my room" and some dude has a poster of Ayumi's A Ballads on his wall and he says "The poster is of Ayumi Hamasaki who is the Britney Spears of Japan, but not as sl-tty."
Anyhow, I thought it was funny, lol, although I was annoyed that he compared her to Britney, but oh well.