^ It's true. The video really isn't as scandalous as most people would have it. Max Matsuura, as much as I'm not sure if I particularly care for him or not, said nothing horrible, and the terms "very fat" or "very ugly" were never spoken. He said she was chubby, and that's it.

As far as Avex pushing their artists, even when they aren't selling well... that's because producing artists costs millions of dollars (or 100s of millions of yen). The company ONLY makes a profit from their initial investments if the artist releases like crazy and sells well. Whereas most companies would just drop an artist if they flop, Avex's philosophy is to fabricate something of an image around them, squeeze as much out of them as possible, and then let them do whatever they want until they have new artists to make up new revenue.