Do you remember your first impression of Ayu?

[xLuna&1LOVE]

I was immediately a great fan of her eyes and hairstyle.
For me she was totally perfect: a beauty, a model, a singstar.

However.. my mother thought she was just a digital-character (after she watched M)
She said: ".. That's a puppet. Not a human"
She still thinks Ayu is so westernized.
But okay.

[thinkingoutloud89]

I hated her...I tought her Music was lame lol....but to be fair...I didn´t even listen the tracks I got to the end. Then I heard STEP you....It STEPped up to my favorite song immidiatley.....and very slow she grew on me...now she is one of my favs...

[ren'ai]

I heard about her in 2003 from one of my friends who liked J-pop. He told me to give her a try and I downloaded Catcher in the Light (only one I could find) and thought that was a complete song... I thought what is this? It's boring.. I don't like her voice...

And then throughout the years, I never understood why people liked her so much! Till another friend sent me HEAVEN and I fell absolutely in love, especially after reading the lyrics. I realised she's a great artist with amazing lyrics
To this day, I really only prefer her ballads, rockish songs and not the happyish ones like Blue Bird etc.

[mikecavs11]

i never heard of her before, but then i saw the momentum PV on tv , and it just caught my eyes and ears, then i started to download the songs from Secret and then other songs, and concerts. JEWEL was the song that really got me into her and rainy day at arena tour 2006 made me fall in love with her performances

[Larisa-chan]

Yup... In 2001 I was just getting into jpop, and the first artist I really liked was Hikaru Utada! I wanted to give other jpop singers a try, so I looked up Ayumi Hamasaki on Napster (LOL) and downloaded Poker Face.

I thought to myself... "this is the worst voice I've ever heard! How can she be popular?" And I didn't bother trying other songs, because I just couldn't tolerate her voice and I thought the music in Poker Face sucked, hahaha. But then some of my friends told me to download Evolution, so I did, and wow... what a difference from Poker Face. It still took me awhile to get used to her voice, but I absolutely loved her music when I listened to other songs from LOVEppears and DUTY. (I am... wasn't released yet, but I did listen to the singles like Evolution!)

The rest is history. <3

[micster]

First reaction .. hmmm .. Probably something along the lines of

'YES PLZ. Oh her musics good too but YES PLZ ON TOAST'

[emi♡]

I was really impressed with her music because it was unlike anything I had ever heard before.

When I saw how deep her lyrics were, I was hooked.


And then I was in shock that she was soo incredibly tiny lol

[Chandrachan]

I saw a Visee CM with Ayu sitting on the moon - she looked gorgeous and cute

[AyumiBest]

I remember. I disliked her. I heard many negative things on her so I was convinced that she was a bad person. (I was easily convinced back then)

Soo yeah...XD

[asmAyumi1992]

I first impress her when watching my first watching of her perf dancing Trauma. She looks very adorable and very very very very cute! I can't make myself off from my desktop for watching the perf over and over again.

[extepan]

when i first knew about her, it was back in I AM days, her most glorious era. i thought she looked really beautiful and trendy.

[Polyrhythm]

I was like...who is this screechy-voiced beyotch to be compared to Utada all the time....I was young. I was hikki crazy. I was obviously....overly biased. Well, it didnt help that of the first 3 videos I saw of Ayu, 2 included her forgetting the lyrics and one showed a rather bad TV performance of UNITE!....yeah....but how could I live life hating Ayu? I found out she's really amazing and I really regret some of the initial judgements I held

[rakeru]

in 2003 i heard Dearest on Inuyasha and i thought she was a total nobody, a minority artist who was brand new. where in the world did i get THAT? i hadn't listened to jpop before, i guess. so i downloaded a couple songs, and one day saw her CD in an anime shop. i bought I am... and was hooked for life.

[Keiichi_JPU]

I've known about her for a long time. I got into the Japanese (entertainment) culture a couple of years ago, but I was so intimidated to find out who everbody was! There were (and still are) so many artists!
So instead of actually listening to some songs, I made an immediate judgement of most artists I saw. I thought ayu was a barbie doll, kuu was a wh0re and hikki was boring lol how could I ever be so naive.

About 3 years ago I downloaded some of her songs (some eurobeat remixes of TO BE and Trauma, and the original evolution) and I liked them so much I couldn't stop listening! Then I found out about her other music (My Story, I am..) and I became a fan!

And I also became a huge hikki fan when Ultra Blue got released
"barbie doll" and "boring hikki" and they're now my biggest obsessions

[tomiko8]

"Jeez she should just stand there her voice THOSE HIGH NOTES my ^&()&*^*(& (shes a singer)" to this day i dont remeber what song it was but i got a headache, lovely start it was

[Andali]

i saw her as the background of an anime midi/mp3 music site. I thought, who's this, and listened to Inspire which was the most recent and I found it at Divine Ayu and literally thought "what is this awesomeness!!!!" and so here I am now, lol

[neuteka]

At first I thought she was one of those stuck up, annoying, overrated type of jpop artist that everyone was obsessed with just because they were obsessed with anime or something. I listened to some of her songs ( The ones that my bro downloaded, he used to really like her) and I thought " She's pretty cool" and then later on I found some other songs of hers that he downloaded, and I really liked them;I listened to STEP you, and then I started to really like her; then I found a website called "ayu wonderland" from someone on deviantart, and then the obsession began!

She is now my favorite singer!

[panda87]

it was when my brother went to japan summer of 99 and got her "boys and girls" single. it was the one where she was in her bikini top and mini shorts and i thought, wow, she looks like anime, almost alien!!! but i was drawn to her unique look in comparison to morning musume, which my brother got a live concert vhs of too. ayu seemed unique, different, and her music was really addicting for it's composition and also for the fact that she wrote all her lyrics. i was very very impressed of everything about her--her looks, her music, her unique, steady voice that was addicting as well, and lyrics...

so yea. i thought she was the coolest. then my journey into j-pop/rock began that very summer. *sigh* i feel so nostalgic now.

[ハート〜ブレーカ♥]

my first impression on Ayu wasn't good.. lol
I heard her song "Beautiful Day" and hated it lol
but now I love her so much ^^

[ren0210989]

what i first saw/heard from her was fairyland PV, it was after it was released, sometime in October 2005.
i was in a rush that day, but my friend gave me a DVD with some animes and a few Ayu PV's. i played fairyland's first minute and tought Ayumi Hamasaki was a BAND!!!!!!!! and tought, when will the rest of them start to sing
later i put all of the 5ish PV's of Ayu on my playlist and re-watched fairyland. i tought she was really skinny but liked her music. as the songs changed, i really started to LOVE her music, and was hooked for life on her^^
later i found out she sang Dearest from Inuyasha, a song i liked for quite a while