This. I feel it's always been obvious that there was a romantic element to their relationship, at least early on. It's apparent in her lyrics and the photos of them clearly kissing in the late 90s.

Exactly... What's left of her career is really getting poorly handled. What a mess. This plus Pei. She doesn't have enough bad press already. I hope it's the sign for new music :rolleyes

wait whut? are all these for real?

this

Damn, I didn't know about their relationship until now but I always knew there was something more behind the lyrics of some of her old songs but thought I was just reading too much into those lyrics lol.

And honestly, I like the Max/Ayu pairing. They don't look bad together in those pics that were posted on this thread. :D

The author of this book said “Ayu wish to deliever her feelings to fans in this new era of Japan after her 20th anniversary” in a TV interview. Well, I believe fans do want new music rather than revealing such gossip which already two decades ago.

Simple plans are always the best.

I think it was pretty obvious they had a romantic relationship for some time. I'd love to see them married! :( I even think Max/ayu is much bigger than Nagase Tomoya/ayu.

^Yeap. I don't think anyone ever believed on her potential at the same level he did..

Ayu was always a very fashionable and social teenager though. Add that to her appearance, and it's no wonder someone like Max would go through the trouble of getting Ayu to a national audience.

Let's compare Suzuki Ami here. Her entire second album was autotuned to (poorly) mask how bad her singing was. It still sold like 1.7 million copies. She just had the image.

I think Utada had also mentioned something similar to the start of her career, that it was far easier for her to break into music than it would have been for her to do what she wanted to do: be a teacher. She was the daughter of two known musicians. It was an easy cash grab to dress her up and have her bounce around for four minutes in front of a camera.

One thing I'm not sure many of you may have noticed about Ayu's career: the vast majority of it has been centered around her image. Rewatch her PVs. Andrenekoi has made the point before that she's been more artistic in her later years, and I think there's some actual truth to that. A lot of her first 10-15 years as an artist was centered around her beauty, her fashion sense, etc.

So, I genuinely don't think this was a romance thing. I think Ayu was pretty, friendly, fashionable. It was easy to get her popular. I mean, look at how Kuu's career took off after avex told her she was a bop and she completely changed her lifestyle and appearance to be more appealing to people.

This was the first thought I had when I read about her keeping him as “M” in her phone. :/

^^And yeah, the relatable lyrics definitely didn’t hurt her cause, but when you think back to the early ‘00s you bought into each artist’s image. Granted the music market and landscape changed, but I think the lack of promotional airtime on terrestrial airwaves is what hurt the Japanese market the most. You could watch Ayu fool around without Downtown for a bit then watch her performance and think, “oh, she’s funny and her song is kinda good! Maybe I’ll go buy it,” even if you weren’t a big fan. There aren’t as many opportunities for musicians to do that, so they feel a bit more distant than they did before. You felt like you knew the artist, so you’d be more willing to support them.

You once said, long ago,
While stroking my hair,
"When you wake up, there'll be
A nice present waiting for you
By your pillow."
...
When I woke up,
I found by my pillow
A large teddy bear...
In place of Max Matsuura.

Ayumi Hamasaki - Teddy Bear

The funny/weird thing is i'm cool with her dating a fucking 19 year old but thinking of her in a close range age back in the day and Max, make me want to throw up lol But then again, some pics were fishy, so i don't think that is a surprise or a secret to anyone. Also NO they do not make a cute couple, he looks like a troll and she's a queen! NOOOOPE lol

So Ayu is alowing this BS to get released and GACKT is writing business advice books...gosh what are my fave artists doing? What is happening!? lol

I ever thought teddy bear is about her father.
Especially after combining it with Memorial address...
I don’t want to believe that this track is for Max :o

^Teddy Bear IS about her father.

But we can go a little freudian and point out Ayu's infatuation with a man that can be seen as a father figure anyway. :P

Read the book! The content is interesting.

Getting positive reviews from
Japanese fans from
Negative

Can you share some interesting stuff on it with us?

Edit: I read some reviews on Amazon Japan (thanks Google Translator).

Seens like a lot of people bought the book out of curiosity about celebrity gossip and ended up finding Ayu to be a very relatable person and admired the story about a common girl becoming a superstar. I don't think there was any review, even the negative ones, calling it a desperate move or some ridiculous exposition, people who disliked it mostly found it boring :B

Interesting... She may had just resignified the most iconic part of her career. And people seen to be reacting well to that.

https://taishu.jp/articles/-/67463?page=1

There's going to be a Drama/TV series adaptation!

I’m so curious who will play Ayu...

That's good news! May shed some light on her and bring her back in people's interests.