Kalen Anzai cast as Ayu in the drama adaptation of "M 愛すべき人がいて"

[attractive nausea]

Originally Posted by SunshineSlayer

Honestly, when Ayu debuted, she did indeed sound stupid. It was part of her persona. Her pattern of speech was so slow and nasally. I always thought it was a bit of an act though; Kalen plays it as though Ayu was like that both on and off camera.

Yeah I've seen that when she debuted people thought she was dumb because of how she spoke and behaved lol

But the facebook page AyuTrollada_Oficial posted yesterday a bit of the Ayumi Hamasaki Special VHS that was released in 1995 when Ayu was an idol. You can see Ayu speak about wanting to help people through her celebrity.
HERE

I don't understand japanese at all, but she sounds far from stupid here, and she was only 16 years old at the time. That's crazy.
Also, she was such a beauty.

[SunshineSlayer]

0

Originally Posted by attractive nausea

Yeah I've seen that when she debuted people thought she was dumb because of how she spoke and behaved lol

But the facebook page AyuTrollada_Oficial posted yesterday a bit of the Ayumi Hamasaki Special VHS that was released in 1995 when Ayu was an idol. You can see Ayu speak about wanting to help people through her celebrity.
HERE

I don't understand japanese at all, but she sounds far from stupid here, and she was only 16 years old at the time. That's crazy.
Also, she was such a beauty.

So while she speaks relatively slowly in this video (I've seen it several times before over the years) and she does still have a silted cadence, she sounds more mature and natural than she did a couple of years later in Avex and doesn't speak in a super nasally tone and speak at an absolute snails pace.

Granted, this is still a video trying to sell her as an idol, so I'm sure there was at least a little bit of a cute act going on here.