[Charts & Rankings] The Official Oricon Thread ~A ONE~

[Miichan]

Of course they care about sales, they wouldn't promote at all if they didn't care at all, but they aren't obsessed with keeping a #1 streak or breaking records.
Like for example Kumi keeps releasing her albums on the slowest weeks of the year to get #1, I don't think we will see that from Ayu, at least I hope we won't.

Ayu's popularity in digital sales got a great boost last year with ridiculous comeback of A BEST with its cheap price.
Ayu is currently #1 and #2 on Recochoku albums, A complete also jumped back up to #49.

[KuuXAyu-fan]

Originally Posted by Miichan

Like for example Kumi keeps releasing her albums on the slowest weeks of the year to get #1, I don't think we will see that from Ayu, at least I hope we won't.

It's funny how you always bring Kuu down or try to make her look desperate all the time. I agreed with you on some things earlier but I started noticing you have nothing positive to say about Kuu (besides liking her remixes) while everything Ayu does is alright. If anything Ayu/her team were the ones consistently obsessed with #1 singles and albums and always tried to find the best weeks possible for her from about the 90s up until 2013. Meanwhile in Kuu's peak she barely got any #1 singles and got the majority of them after her peak passed by luck.

Kuu has never been a priority for Avex like Ayu in the past or present. (a more fair comparison is Ayu vs Namie Amuro) If she gets #1 albums now it's pretty much because she got lucky. On the otherhand Avex has always tried to promote Ayu as much as possible and specifically found the best weeks for her to release her singles and albums in until about recently.

[Bigtop]

Originally Posted by KarenPang

2nd day - #4

http://www.oricon.co.jp/rank/ja/d/2015-04-08/

Fell down to Southern All Stars (last week's release) for the #3 spot. Ugh.

Originally Posted by JinHamasaki

Fukuyama fans = older Japanese ladies (>35) with higher disposable income, and more interested in physical copies
Hamasaki = Younger fans, less disposable income, more interested in obtaining whatever is cheaper and more mobile (iTunes, Chaka-uta)

Fukuyama has always been a SALES KING anyways.

Oricon really needs to include digital sales to really be representative of what is sold, but instead they removed concert venue sales and Internet sales...wtf

Seriously, outdated business. This is ridiculous. What's wrong with Oricon?

But, yeah, you also have to consider about this 'aging' Japanese population, and the fact that older Japanese ladies are more familiar with CDs than digital music compared to the younger fans such as the miwa fanbase, that may be a good reason why...

We're glad still that Ayu's dominant in the digital music charts, it's just that the Oricon physical charts are now more dominated with 'late-model' artists (such as Masaharu Fukuyama, Mr.Children, Southern All Stars and B'z) and idols (e.g. Johnny's, AKB48) for various reasons, such as more people would be interested in buying physical releases for 'late-model' artists, you usually can't find Johnny's releases on digital music outlets such as iTunes, and AKB48's handshake/general election tickets, all those reasons that make their releases #1...

...while Ayu - have to agree on that, could be younger fans as well (I'm actually a bit surprised ).

[JinHamasaki]

Originally Posted by Bigtop

...while Ayu - have to agree on that, could be younger fans as well (I'm actually a bit surprised ).

For sure, just look at who attends Ayu's concerts compared to the people that go WILD for Fukuyama. The fact that Ayu is #1 and #2 digitally means a lot. There are probably lots of closet Ayu fans

[//ABEST]

Originally Posted by JinHamasaki

There are probably lots of closet Ayu fans

LMAO

[Miichan]

Originally Posted by KuuXAyu-fan

It's funny how you always bring Kuu down or try to make her look desperate all the time. I agreed with you on some things earlier but I started noticing you have nothing positive to say about Kuu (besides liking her remixes) while everything Ayu does is alright. If anything Ayu/her team were the ones consistently obsessed with #1 singles and albums and always tried to find the best weeks possible for her from about the 90s up until 2013. Meanwhile in Kuu's peak she barely got any #1 singles and got the majority of them after her peak passed by luck.

Kuu has never been a priority for Avex like Ayu in the past or present. (a more fair comparison is Ayu vs Namie Amuro) If she gets #1 albums now it's pretty much because she got lucky. On the otherhand Avex has always tried to promote Ayu as much as possible and specifically found the best weeks for her to release her singles and albums in until about recently.

I have no memory of trying to 'bring kuu down' all the time, I'm a fan of her after all, I wouldn't put lots of time into following her if I hated her immensely. I used Kumi as an example because her sales are close to ayu's, I could use AKB as an example with their thirst for #1 but they are a million selling idol group using handshake event tickets to boost sales, not exactly the best comparison.

I'm aware of Ayu's team trying to keep her #1 record for a long time, but I'm not talking about what happened years ago, I'm talking about her promotion and sales now. I'm sure they knew Colours and A One weren't getting #1 from the start, while rhythm zone/team kumi puts some effort into looking up when to release Kumi's albums. Kumi's team probably isn't putting effort into getting #1 singles because they know she sells more albums and concentrate on that.

I apologize if some things I've said have offended you, I may be a bit rude when I'm tired.

[KuuXAyu-fan]

Originally Posted by Miichan

I have no memory of trying to 'bring kuu down' all the time, I'm a fan of her after all, I wouldn't put lots of time into following her if I hated her immensely. I used Kumi as an example because her sales are close to ayu's, I could use AKB as an example with their thirst for #1 but they are a million selling idol group using handshake event tickets to boost sales, not exactly the best comparison.

I'm aware of Ayu's team trying to keep her #1 record for a long time, but I'm not talking about what happened years ago, I'm talking about her promotion and sales now. I'm sure they knew Colours and A One weren't getting #1 from the start, while rhythm zone/team kumi puts some effort into looking up when to release Kumi's albums. Kumi's team probably isn't putting effort into getting #1 singles because they know she sells more albums and concentrate on that.

I apologize if some things I've said have offended you, I may be a bit rude when I'm tired.

I don't know tbh. Personally I think Kuu's team/RZ isn't smart enough to do something like that but we'll just have to keep our own opinions on that matter I suppose.

I also apologize for my outburst as the same happens to me when I'm tired. I'm just really use to seeing some Ayu fans pick on Kuu whenever they can and just got tired of the consistent comparison between them for the past ten years.

[ayumisrael]

Originally Posted by KuuXAyu-fan

It's funny how you always bring Kuu down or try to make her look desperate all the time. I agreed with you on some things earlier but I started noticing you have nothing positive to say about Kuu (besides liking her remixes) while everything Ayu does is alright. If anything Ayu/her team were the ones consistently obsessed with #1 singles and albums and always tried to find the best weeks possible for her from about the 90s up until 2013. Meanwhile in Kuu's peak she barely got any #1 singles and got the majority of them after her peak passed by luck. .

Originally Posted by KuuXAyu-fan

I don't know tbh. Personally I think Kuu's team/RZ isn't smart enough to do something like that but we'll just have to keep our own opinions on that matter I suppose.

I also apologize for my outburst as the same happens to me when I'm tired. I'm just really use to seeing some Ayu fans pick on Kuu whenever they can and just got tired of the consistent comparison between them for the past ten years.

KuuXAyu-fan, I wouldn't reply to this message if I wouldn't see the words "luck" and that you will hold your opinion up.
Rythme Zone (which is an avex company) have proffessionals to do the job of finding a release date to release where it's best! It's called "analysts". They are a proffessional company and they know what to do regarding strategies, marketings etc. You can't say they are not smart enough to have analysts, especially after what they did with kuu all the time (since 2004) and another great example would be EXILE. They very much know what they are doing, and each date kuu released an album, they chose it extremely carefully, Karenpang's post above is just an example, just don't let your love for kuu make you blind of these things, kuu doesn't work since day 1 in her own independent company where she doesn't know anything or don't have budget for promotion or marketing. No one gets anything by luck, even though ayu and her had some competition from time to time for their #1s albums or singles.

Originally Posted by melissalove

her concerts venues aren't getting smaller for now, but her tour dates are.

She has more dates than last year (even though it was a really short tour), but the fact that this tour was meant to be 18 dates and is now 22 is a great sign. Also she tours more than most other artists in Japan, popular or not.
Just in 2012 she was the top solo artist with most attendants for that year.

Originally Posted by Zeke.

A company will invest less and less in an artist if they don't provide enough income to garner a profit. Of course sales are important because it means better opportunities and resources invested from within the company (to things like tours, etc.).

I mean, one could make the argument that the poor attention to proper mixing and less time/resources spent in fleshing out the layering in arrangements and compositions is because the company just doesn't see the benefit of spending the additional time/resources when sales just continue to decline regardless.

From a business standpoint, it just doesn't make sense. (Although it's kind a double edged sword cause how can they expect sales to pick up otherwise?)

Besdies sales which avex probably know how ayu would do, people always seem to forget that she still does great money for avex from touring, goods, endorsements (when she gets), tie-ins (like Step by step) and sales/digital sales. ayu probably has a good budget but besides a minmal promo, or promo that ayu agrees to do, it doesn't seem they bother (both ayu and avex) with more than what needed. That's how it looks like anyway. I'm not sure if the tours are great enough to pay for everything+pay for the next stuff promotions but it's probably a lot of money. If seiko sold just a few thousands for a long time and had a budget for her arena tours, so can ayu have budget for her stuff. Even if it's promo and not tour related, question is how much promo they believe she needs and how much promo she or them want for her.

[KarenPang]

A ONE reminds steady at #4 on the 3rd day of release

http://www.oricon.co.jp/rank/ja/d/2015-04-09/