Kumi always was in controversy, people love or hate her. The image of ero kawaii/ero kakkoi was something new and fresh and people discussed about it a lot, she was present all the time. I think that helped her a lot to become popular.
But it's true the whole image took her where she is now.

but honestly cutie honey , juicy , taboo , but they all was ero kawai and they was great

i dunno why she leave her ero kawai :/

sometime i said her sales wise because of scandal and sometime i said because she leave ero kawai style who made her popularity

but the problem sometime i think kuu can't choose a good song now just by luck :/

see the post below :

yeah I think it's definitely avex that pushed her to do that , I can somehow sense that she wasn't happy with what kinda crap that avex pushed her to do which's terrible

there's always 2 sides of a coin . The good part's that it strengthen her popularity very well & the bad part's well , she corrupted the new generation of Japanese girls more or less or another :laugh

frankly I'm really glad that she decided NOT to do that anymore because how much more can she do ?

Because it can get to a point where people are only buying her CDs because of the image that she portrayed & not for the music

I can't believe the sales for OW&C I'm in shock...I thought it would be better because a majority of the songs I could never find anywhere aside from a few and I'm one of those picky people where I need a certain artist's music to be 320kbps.

hmm kuu isn't that good in ballads to be like ayu and utada kuu act ero kakkoi very well lol just guess if she go to enka style xD

but lol she look so innocent this days lol

kuu really need a music that can make u enjoy with song and this her problem in her ballads we need somthing effectable like yume no uta and enjoyable like Tsuki to Taiyou

well, some of the stuff she did could be classified as soft-porn xD I mean, the bottle in juicy was so explicit and some of her dance moves at the beginning were like that too.
It was the idea of "sex in your face", and the good thing was that she acted like she enjoyed it.
A positive part of it is that, well, Koda did implement cool things into J-Pop, like homosexuality (BUT, Ima Sugu Hoshii and TABOO show it, and I think that homosexuality was never shown on Japanese PVs before, so that was good, we do exist too right? xD)

she also was some kind of symbol for the progress of women: she portrayed the idea of "if you have it, show it" and in a country as male dominating as Japan, that was a good thing, to try to direct her image towards strong, independent women.

I´m happy for her now that she is able to take more control over her career, although I prefer old Kumi more, she seems happier, and that´s what counts. But please, no more ballads :tired xDD

i wished she sings ai no uta with juicy or shake it outfit :roflmao

^ that's so odd!! XD

lol that reminds me of when she sang you at a-nation 2006 in that tiny green outfit... singing outside in the middle of summer about winter. she even made a little hand gesture when she sang the word for snow.

since i got into kuu back then, i totally agree. her look in 2005 and 2006 was beautiful. it got bad in 2007, but last year during "TABOO", i finally loved her look again, lol. she needs natural long hair instead of weaves and extensions :P

Aww..she looked so cute!

..Does anyone know why she won't perform JUICY?

as she is now, i can't see her performing JUICY.

she did perform it at a-nation 2006 as part of a medley (or so i've read) but that was never broadcasted. i agree she looked the best in 2005-early 2007 (before she chopped her hair off) and the difference it made to her appearance was extreme, i think. the short hair makes her head look a lot rounder, and with bangs like for MOON promotion it was even worse.

i don't mind her hair as it is now like in faraway, but the spikey mullet look isn't flattering for anyone.

the extensions and wigs are good while they last, but i'd prefer something permanent. :laugh

4 more days until TRICK tour kicks off, i'm really excited. :luv2

So wait a minute, I'm a bit lost...
Kuu ditched the sexy image??
That'll ruin her.
I know that sounds horrible, but it was what she was known for. And controversy brings sales, period. I'm already fearing for her sales.

I don't know if she has just yet...but her new songs are DEFINITELY not sexy like her older ones. She's like diluted the hell out of it.

I personally like her new stuff...but...well...for me, I think I would like her to do stuff like Driving and make it awesomely sexy...

I definitely don't want her to go down the Rock path and pull a GUILTY on us. For kuu? Ew.

yeah everyone misses the old kuu. i really don't know what happened to her, when did she start dating her boyfriend? that could have something to do with her boring image nowadays. wasn't she single when she was at her sexiest?

It's also the music style that changed.
songs like BUT and TABOO are considered sexy but not like her older ones like JUICY, SHAKE IT or Hot stuff, and BUT and TABOO or more dance while JUICY and Hot Stuff and SHAKE IT are R&B.
Her sexy songs changed to dance-ish (and kuu to less sexy).

I do agree with the last line, I don't want kuu to go rock since it doesn't really fit her.
Pop dance and R&B are the best for her.

top 50 album 2009

*6 *,379,255 **1,472 TRICK / 倖田來未 09/01/28

good to see TRICK's still selling

If she's going to keep selling 1k+ for a few weeks consistently hopefully she will outsell Ikimonogakari's album in the top 50.

top 50 singles

23 *,*74,014 *74,014 It's all Love！ / 倖田來未×misono 09/03/31

27 *,*65,657 ***,*** stay with me / 倖田來未 08/12/24

It's all Love ! 's 1st week sales has outsold the whole total that's of stay with me which's great

great.. hope TRICK can break 400k :yes

What's going on with Kuu and her sister?

lol Temmy you're not missing that much on anything

the last few pages of the thread were discussing about her past ero kawaii days & on whether should she revert back or not

That would difficult for it. But TRICK TOUR might help selling it.:lech
Wiki says that avex reported sales - 500k.
I found it strange that there was never sales reported by avex for BEXT ~BOUNCE & LOVERS~.:yconfused

:yes hope the tour helps.. it's a good album..
don't trust wiki anyway.. :laugh

Lee^Chan it just dawn on me that it's KODA KUMI on your set :thud because i had thought it was not KODA but khloe kardashian

haha

it's really Kumi on both her avater & set

the avater's a screenshot from the It's all Love ! PV while for her banner , it's from the faraway PV

When is her tour gonna kick off??? I cant wait to see tracklist n costumes!!!!

Yeah me too!:lech

I know that everybody's LOVE Black Cherry from all her concerts, but mine three favorite are:
1. first things
2. secret
3. Dirty Ballroom

I can't say which concerts are my favourites, I love them all, it's hard to decide. There isn't a concert where I just like all performances, have my favourtites in every concert.

But my favourite performance of all times is Ima Sugu Hoshii from Best~Second Session~ tour! :yes

My 3 favorites are:

1. Live Tour 2005 ~first things~
2. secret limited live
3. Live Tour 2007 ~Black Cherry~

I hope her outfits'll be better than Kingdom tour :dead2

for me it will be

1) Live Tour 2007 ~Black Cherry~ (very entertaining to watch . I love the movie interludes they're so cool & she kept me very entertained from the start to the end)

2) Live Tour 2008 ~Kingdom~ (ditto & the guy in the movie interludes is HOT with a capital H *drools* :laugh :bchuck)

3) Live Tour '06 Second Session

the only good one in Kingdom was the arabian one. i still have nightmares with that horrible "candy girl´s dress from the alps" that she wore during It´s A Small World D:

I understand you! And the rap outfit at the end was totally ugly!


I feel like I saw the worse tour aesthetically pleasing.

If you should suggest me the best tour. What will the one be I must watch absolutely?

Live Tour '08 ~Kingdom~ because of that hot guy in the movie interludes which I can't help but staring at him everytime the interludes came on the screen :roflmao :rofl

jokes aside , that was really good but to me nothing still beats Live Tour '07 ~Black Cherry~ , she was awesome at the beginning of the show :luv2

I'll really not be surprised if you just watch the screen with the hot guy and you don't watch the other part of the live^^


Ok I take a note of black cherry tour. I'll wait other opinions before to choose!

lmao luckily there were only 3 or is it 4 movie interludes in the Kingdom DVD or else @_@

It's all love 5#

good kuu chan !

Hmm... even though #5 seems good but the sales is very bad :X

#3 only sold 2182.
Nowadays sales drop like crazy during second week. sheesh

:roflmao who's that??


my fave tour is still Black Cherry..
i can't decide the rest... i always enjoy watching her concert..

edit: btw, who's going to her TRICK concert here??

I'd go with either the Black Cherry tour or the Second Session one :yes

BTW: I didn't know, but YA is selling last year's tour goods if anyone wants any.

Click here

Black cherry tour is in the top of the list^^ I think I'll watch it!

I loved the Best first things tour. The part in Butterfly where she takes off the bottom part of her costume half way through the song was my favorite :luv2 The only other Kuu concert I have seen is Kingdom :(

So not counting those two what would you say her best concert was? I'm thinking I would like the best second session one the best cause thats my fave Kuu album but other opinions would be good :yes

-oops yoake just asked that question before me :eek

Black Cherry's tour is a really good one to watch when you're not too familiar with her tours because it's a special concert where she did a lot more songs than she normally does. all the songs on the second disc except like 3 were done for that show only. i think the only ones she did at every other one were BUT, Ai no Uta and walk.

Kingdom was really good vocally, but it can be boring if you're not a fan of her ballads or sugary pop music. that tour made me love Himitsu, i loved that performance.

BEST ~first things~ was a great one too. the setlist is full of great songs and the performances are fun, and it really made me love TAKE BACK.

BEST ~second session~ wasn't as good. it lost a ton of steam after the first few tracks and didn't pick up for quite a bit until Love goes like... where she just goes crazy with the ad-libbing and it's kind of hilarious. then she wears that beautiful butterfly outfit with the Mariah Carey-esque wig which was.... it was. the encore was really good, though.

Secret First Class Limited Live is worth a watch, too. the budget wasn't nearly as high and it shows through the stage and the simplicity of the performances, but her high energy and singing/dancing makes up for it because she has awesome stage presence.

she said in that one interview she hopes to betray our expectations in a good way for TRICK's tour, and i hope she can do that. there's potential for a lot of good performances.

Don't worry about that^^

also if you ARE a fan of kumi's ballads, the second disc of Kingdom tour shows her singing all the songs off the "Song Menu" which are you, Rain, taisetsu na kimi he, tsuki to taiyou and koi no tsubomi. she starts with acapella for all of them and then it's joined by acoustics. it's really nice. her vocals are perfect but she has one of her backing singers help her and i don't like that.

when the girl is up next to her on stage during Rain, she's like crying uncontrollably. :laugh

..I need to watch the Kingdom Tour.

Too bad I haven't found an mp4 version of it.

Yeah me too. This is the only one concert I still have not seen and do not have in my collection on DVD. And I cannot even buy, 'cause of First Press edition which I want is sold out everywhere. And yahoo auction is pretty expensive...:headache

have you tried Amazon Japan ?

http://www.amazon.co.jp/KODA-KUMI-LI...9347537&sr=8-1

it looks reasonably priced to me cos I'm assuming that you don't want to go for the OS press

I heard the Kingdom Tour was a little boring though..is that true?

It was boring for me...since she stuck all the cool songs upfront...and then had a sea of ballads...

I still love her pole dancing though.

When it comes to her Kingdom tour, everything was WAY more prettier than her Black Cherry Tour.

not really cos of that hot guy in the movie interludes that kept me entertained :laugh :roflmao

jokes aside , I like it but slightly lesser than Black Cherry . I like the segment when she picked someone from the audience & doing a particular acoustic which's really cool

yeah, Kingdom Tour was quite boring, too much ballads.. the coolest parts are the pool dance & the HOT guy like Karen has mentioned before :roflmao

:roflmao

seriously why can't the guys she picked for her PVs be as hot/handsome like that guy in the movie interludes in the Kingdom tour DVD ?

damnnnnnnnnnnn

UHQ Driving Hit's promo pic:

http://www.news2u.net/incidental_dsp...d=NRR200947354

Credit: News2U

Nope I don't like a lot of her ballad. The most are pretty boring for me!

Kingdom tour had a lot of potential, and wonderful stage and effects, and she sang very well, but the song selection and the costumes ruined it for me. Too many ballads and from Kingdom, she excluded Aisho and BUT (well BUT was included in a medley, but that was like 30 seconds of it xD) and I was very disappointed with that. Still, she had amazing performances like Under, MORE, FREAKY or Wonderland (although I hate the song and the outfit she wore, the screen thingy was pretty cool)

And when she picked someone off the audience was love ^^

That's exactly what ruined Kingdom for me as well.
The customs looked cheaper than cheap, kuu's hair wasn't good and the song selection... ugh.
Too much cute songs, the ballads are too together and she could sing some more interesting ballad than others and more interesting pop songs than others, this is her worst tour to date. =\.

~first things~ 2005, secret live 2005 and then Black Cherry 2007 are the best by far.

Whoa! I completely forgot about amazon.co.jp! Thanks a lot!:D
And, yes I'm collecting Japanese versions only. I will try to order from them, because I have never ordered from there before...

Thank you!! SHE LOOKS GORGEOUS!!:luv2

I liked Kingdom concert a lot myself but I agree that there was too many ballads. My personal favourite might still be Black Cherry concert. I really adore that concert and the interlude movies. Kuu looked awesome. <3 I also like dirty ballroom a lot. Even if it's ruined with all kinds of effects the tracklisting is still one of the best ever. I like also her other concerts such as Live in hall, second session and first things. I still haven't seen secret live but I'm working on it as best as I could. I've seen a few of her performances from that concert and I liked them all. I really wanna see this secret first class live from start to its end. <3

I love all of her tours! Black Cherry has to be the best though!

I can't wait to see what outfits she'll have for TRICK tour. If they're like the booklet and tour pamphlet, that'd be love <3

I really really want her to sing This is not a love song and Hurry Up!!! XD

I want her to perform Driving , I would be annoyed if she didn't do so . That song's just too hot for words :luv2 & it should have gotten a PV

she said recently that she was having trouble with the dance to driving because of stiff muscles.. so driving will def be on the tour :)

Does anyone know if BEST ~BOUNCE&LOVERS~ was limited to 400,000 or 300,000 copies?

cherrim your set is gorgeous :love

from wiki:

Best: Bounce & Lovers

* Released: March 14, 2007
* Limited Edition: 300,000 copies

Thank you very much x2! ^___^

TRICK Tour starts today!!
i'm so excited!!
i hope we can get the tour tracklist soooon!!!

Yeah! I hope we will get tracklist soon! I cannot wait to see it!!:love
I hope I won't be disappointed with it! :innocent
Even though that Black Cherry is not my favorite concert tracklist was awesome! She sang all the songs from the album!:thud

I really hope that she will perform a full version of TRICK during her tour , she should :luv2

I seriously don't think anything tops her Cherry Girl performance in the Black Cherry tour!

I gotta agree with you. I love that performance. :yes

Here's a pic of a bus outside the concert:

http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/n...0164561413.jpg

Can't wait to see the setlist & outfits... :D

^ OMG LOL, she looks like such a geek, i love it

Cool, thanks for the pic, LuverofLuv.

I can't wait to see the setlist and outfits also!

whoa. i didn't know ayu is also starting her next level tour at april 11th. same with Kumi

hoping both tours will be awesome <3

Official A-Nation site got updated:

http://a-nation.net/index.html

Cool, thx LuverofLuv for the info.

I like the colors they use for this year's a-nation. Looks pretty colorful.

thanks luver! you're fast!
the a-nation looks really goooooddd!!

uhmm... where's the tracklisssttt???!?!?!!?!? not yeett??? *getting impatient* :lech

Tokyo Girls Collection performances... Really love the TABOO outfit... :luv2

TABOO / BUT:



It's all Love!:

NeeeeW GoooooDS !

http://i43.tinypic.com/25g5lxv.jpghttp://i40.tinypic.com/kcb0jr.jpg

http://i40.tinypic.com/2r3z1wz.jpg

Source: Negi@JPM

luver :shughug the performance was awesome!! and i also love the outfit!!

the cup with kanji written on it :love

They sure are keeping up to date with all the circus/clown/checkered prints for the goods which's real cool

& I saw It's all Love ! just now being played on MTV Asia in the afternoon :luv2

Hopefully I can see faraway getting some airplay real soon

Gosh I love Kuu's body <3 XD Thanks for the performances and goods!!

The tour setlist isn't out yet?

More pics:

http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/n...1537645099.jpg
http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/n...3733232842.jpg
http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/n...2481787464.jpg

Credit: Mixi & JPM

I agree, the outfit is great as well as the outfits of her dancers.

I agree again, her body is awesome!

And thanks Twinkle for the tour goods update, like them.

Can't wait for the setlist!
I'm sure someone will post it tonight.

I just love those perfomances and the goods are beautiful. ^^

Thanks Luver!
It's great, she sang indeed all songs from TRICK! :luv2
And it's not devided in parts like in the tour before.
Really nice!

EDIT:
And Shake it?
Love, love, love this setlist, tour seems to be awesome, very sexy.
Waiting for costumes and maybe some videos!

On this blog it says she sang the Driving Hit's remix of Ai No Uta (I love this remix) and Sora remix... And, it says she had 10 costume changes?...

Source: http://yaplog.jp/koda93kumi/archive/11

love the tracklist , it looks very solid :luv2 & just like what Corvina said , it's great that she did all the songs on the TRICK album :yes

& woah 10 costume changes ?! O_O what a sight

Oh dear, I envy all people who are able to go to this tour now! XD
I have the feeling it could become the best tour she has ever done.

According to the blogger Kuu did a large quantity of dancing troughout the whole concert and she sang That ain't cool completely in english!
Great spoiler alarm, only read this blog if you realy wanna know.

Woahh! I love love love that setlist! All the songs from TRICK + SHAKE IT?! OMG I love you Kuu!!! Weird she done Bling Bling Bling inbetween 2 ballads though!

On that blog.. I think the person says she sang Introduction full?! oh please please let that be so XD

Ahh I can't wait to see pictures

wow great setlist :luv2

i'd love to hear the Kuu only version of TAC :yes

Yeah, he says that! :yes

^ aweeesome!

I think Kuu held back last year with Kingdom cuz of the whole scandal thing and yet it still turned out great. With this tour she's going to go all out :yes

aww misono didn't join her sister D: and I wish that SOULHEAD performed with Kuu on D.D.D like how Mr. Blistah joined her on Candy for Dirty Ballroom

Nonetheless, this concert looks a hella fun. I wanna watch naaaao

BUT is again in a medley?? why, why whyyyyyyyyy

but well, it looks better than Kingdom -_-