I really enjoy the song and while it might be 'basic', it does not follow Ayu's usual structure (guitar bridge -> quiet singing of the chorus before repeating the 2nd chorus etc). That felt very refreshing to me.

We even got upbeat stuff on Trouble. Even if most of Ayu's discography is lyrics focused, there are those tracks the lyrics are so central the melody and arragment are used more as a background sound meant to not distract you from what is written than anything else... This song and The way I am are both produced with that mindset.

And that's fine... Those won't be on my repeat list, even because I don't speak japanese, but they tend to be the moments she is being more open and transparent about her feelings, and that serves a purpose on her body of work.

I keep listening the song everyday since it's release, guess I was really missing new material lol I feel good with this song, ayu knows how to deliver emotions with her voice, always gets me!

Btw, after a full week on spotify Ohia no Ki has reached 61.880 plays, and 880.769 views on youtube.

''The way I am'' had a good melody and I simply adore the lyrics. I think the arrangement was even a bit too much for the song, it could have been softer (like Who...) and I think I would have liked it better and would have been more fitting. I still love the song for what it is.

^ I would love an studio recording of the a capella version of The way I am

- translated by tenshi no hane

This was from the 15th anni. TA issue and I was wondering how she'd answer this regarding Ohia. I assume it'd be like "I needed this to be in Japanese, there is no way it would have been made any other way" if she had to.

I can't speak for others who are disappointed in the song, but I know for me, it is purely Yuta's arrangement that ruins the song.

And yes, you can argue that the decision lies in Ayu wanting the arrangement that way, fine, but that doesn't take away from the fact that the arrangement is the single thing that ruins it. The cheesy chimes at the beginning and end, the synthetic instruments, the melodrama of it all. I love Ayu ballads, but they continuously get worse every time she releases them nowadays.

I don't think people want a song about her child to be some weird, quirky pop song, but this could have been so much more poignant with even just a simple piano, maybe an acoustic guitar to touch on the Hawaiian influence? A million other directions this song could have gone in, arrangement-wise, without being "weird" and still retaining the softness and beauty of a ballad.

^Most, if not all, songs popstars made to their children I can think of are cheesy as fuck. It's not a big deal tbh.

I think the problem that a lot of people have is that it has sort of been the default sound even though she hasn't really released much at all just in general since she's only been touring in that time, it's all that people have had to go on since TROUBLE so between this, aeternal, The way I am, there's a thirst for something "different" but personally I was just happy something new actually came out. There'll be other new songs it looks like soon so it's not like this is all that's coming.

I think the song is lovely, I like the melody and the lyrics are beautiful, but I agree with all of these:

I'm a huge Yuta fan so maybe that's my blind spot when it comes to her ballads, but I think someone here said it best (can't remember who, sorry!); I think the point of this song is to let the lyrics shine. The arrangement being something that ayu is the most comfortable with kind of fits in this case, in my opinion. Creatively, I agree, the song is not the greatest thing ever but that's not something I would personally care about for a song like this. I think lyrically, it's classic ayu at her best.

Listening to the song, I still get a warm feeling from it and I like it more every time it does come up. Her vocals feel smoother than some of the stuff that was on TROUBLE.

I'm glad though that Ayu is typically able to satisfy different parts of her fanbase with various tracks but sometimes you just can't please any of them but for the people that do enjoy most or all of it, it's even better!

I strongly feel that the sense of fandom-community would be a lot more pleasant if we stopped having this divide between “the Grateful Fans” and “the Perceived-as-Hypercritical Fans”. This is probably more of a comment on Stan culture in general though. (I wouldn’t know because this is the only forum I’ve ever spent any degree of time on.) It’s so funny how human beings find ways to splinter themselves even in an increasingly thinning Japanese pop music forum dedicated to one nostalgia-act.

All these years later I’m still nonplussed af tbh.

I think it's just a difference of opinion in most cases. Some people like it, some people don't. It's not that complicated. If you don't like it though, that doesn't make it so that the people who do like it have invalid feelings toward the song.

Ohia no Ki is at #14 in its second week with 5,819 copies sold, bringing its total sales to 10,871 so far.

Had it been released a day later it would've debuted in the top 10, but definitely not top 5. Nevertheless, it was released a day early and I'm just glad it managed to climb up a few positions. :)

The fact that it's pretty easily available on YT seems to be affecting things and it's where people are listening to it. It has about a million streams at the moment.

I agree, that's what I meant by predictable. From the first cheesy chimes it wasn't hard to guess how this would continue. At this point, her ballads add nothing to her catalogue, on the contrary, they weaken it. Therefore, I would prefer no song at all over something that just reminds me of percieved 100 bad and weak other ballads.

This one in particular I feel does add something. There's a maturity here that typically isn't in the ballads made in this fashion and lyrically it's new ground for her as a topic.

Listened to this several days ago, but didn't get a chance to post my thoughts.

Well... the lyrics are a nice change, of course, she now has a new subject matter to write about lol Very sweet

The music itself? Completely forgettable for me!

Her ballads on the last few albums were impressive! Last minute, Out of control, Walk, Mad world, Breakdown, Sorrows, Shape of Love, The Way I am are all superb tracks and stand hand in hand with her classics.