ayu's a mum of two now
i can understand if she needs to stop
3 months to the news is really tough ><

I hope it's not retirement. I actually think it's awful to post a somewhat cryptic message like that and let people wait for 3 months to see what it is. At least say it now. Like many, I haven't seen her live yet either.

It would be really weird to retire after 23rd Monster is basically an affirmation that there's no other life for her. Even (NOT) Remember you seems to be kind of an affirmation of that. But she's also not a native English speaker, so it could sound more dire than it is? But the post about making up her mind seems also kind of scary, though it could be related to (NOT) Remember you?

She always seemed to have the attitude that she'll sing as long as people would listen. Or at least as long as she wants, I guess. Nowadays she doesn't even have the crazy schedule she used to anymore, so even if recording the latest album was taxing, she can release the next one anytime, even in 10 years. Might her hearing be so bad, she can't tour anymore? I wouldn't mind if she'd become a recording artist, who releases an album every few years.

I really think we are all over-thinking it? I personally don't read any retirement related thing in this message. Well I don't read Japanese so that must be it haha.

Yes her insta post was kinda cryptic... And I also feared she would stop. But we all know that she likes writing this way and dramatising things a lil bit.

I don't know, putting and end to her career right know just seems really off to me.
Unless there was a decisive element that affected her personal life very recently (health issues?), I feel this comeback hyped her to do more than less.

Maybe ayu wants to say that this album will be the last music she created and after that she will concentrate only on lives.

I hate the fact that we need to wait 3 months until we finally find out what is going on. That is not the exciting waiting. Maybe ayu was overdramatic with her post and will make it more clear after the flood of "are you going to retire?" messages at TA.

Oh, also "my first and last big news will also be announced on that day" may means that first and last big news at this year. Maybe it will be another try to make Asia Tour.

The album Remember you probably implies that "Remember ayu".

That's kind of what I was hoping for, as well, but I'm quite certain Ayu knows what she's doing here..

It's been years between Made in Japan and Remember You; for an artist who previously/consistently produced a full album yearly, it would be really anticlimactic to have waited for this long to have this album released, only to announce soon thereafter she's retiring.

This whole issue has me thinking and analysing now. Until the trouble she had making the album, she seemed so excited to make music. We might eventually look back and think there were lots of signs, but so far I don't see many or any even, other than her recent messages. Of course we can't know what's going on inside her, but from the outside it seems like it went from "business like usual" to "oh no, retirement". You'd think a decision like that would have a proper build-up. She wrote she "made her mind", omitting the "up", so I hope something just got lost in translation.

On one hand the whole thing doesn't make sense, on another other interpretations might seem farfetched. A dancer I think wrote about the last live of the Asia Tour, then Ayu corrected that amids concern. Why do that, then announce retirement mere months later? Could she announce that she'll retire on her 30th anniversary? But there'd be a lot of other big news until then.
Could she perhaps mean marriage? It wouldn't be the first time, but it'd be the first time while having an extended family.
Does having children actually made her able to leave Matsuura behind for good, so she's going to leave avex?
It wasn't that long ago that she did voice training and said she wanted to make a new Hamasaki Ayumi. Is she going to reinvent Hamasaki Ayumi again? No elaborate concerts anymore?
But how does any of that qualify as "last big news"?

Maybe she needed to produce one more album because of her contract. A lot of Western artists also have contracts that contain a certain number of albums that need to be released.

Tbh, why everything here thinks she is going to retire?

The big news from Ayumi Hamasaki can mean "I am leaving AVEX and starting my own management."

I always figured Ayu was more western minded in regards to her career. Retiring, especially as a woman, is very Japanese. Sure it happens in the West too, but generally speaking, people don’t “officially” retire that often. They just work on multiple projects and release things here and there. But disappearing like Namie or Momoe or Nishino Kana, that doesn’t really seem like the Ayu I’ve watched all these years.

Things can surely change, but at this point I’m still being optimistic.

this could be one way to find out. I'm guessing if she does mean to retire, then the flood of messages and questions won't make her break her silence. But if she doesn't, she will clarify (or at least say something like "I'm not retiring!") to allay our fears.

If she were retiring, I really don't think she would announce it like this.
I personally think it's something else completely and we will get clarity from her within a few days or a few weeks because like Aderianu said, if TA members are fearing about retirement too, I feel like they will message her a lot with questions to the point where she won't be able to ignore it and will need to clear things up with a message.

If it is retirement, it's kind of a bad and weird way to announce it in my opinion.
I feel like it's not something she would want to drag on and on and make people wait for. But we will see. If she does retire soon I will respect her decision. I wouldn't want her to continue doing something that no longer makes her happy. I can't even begin to imagine how physically and mentally draining her job is, not just with now having kids but her hearing limitations.

I saw a lot of JP fans saying that it doesn't make sense since she wouldn't want to sour TA's mood after 25th anni, so it's probably something else... maybe she is hopping to her own label?

Because it's not only "big news" it's "last big news". And if I personally hate talks about how ayu will finish her career, that was the first thing I was thinking about reading it

It could be many different scenarios:

- She won't be able to tour anymore because it's leading to her losing her hearing in full.
- She's going into a indefinite hiatus in order to fully enjoy/devote herself to her life as a mother of two.
- She's retiring.

And I think the retirement is the last option because I just don't see her (or maybe... I'm just refusing to believe it) taking that drastic decision.

Honestly, I do not get the impression she's announcing her retirement. Everyone is focusing on the "last" part of her English Instagram post, but the phrase is "the first and last". 1) the post is in English. We all know she's probably semi-conversational at best in English. She definitely knows more that most Japanese pop-stars, but she's nowhere near fluent, so she might not realize how dramatic that phrase sounds. 2) "The first and last" can mean "the greatest" or the "biggest", "one announcement to trump all announcements", type of thing. So, yes, she's going to announce something big, but it's not necessarily retirement. 3) We also need to look at her TA message. It's very positive and sweet sounding, not at all the tone of someone who is about to end their decades-long career. We all know that Ayu loves performing and making music. It's unlikely that she's going to retire Namie-style. If she stops it's because she HAS to stop. I could be very wrong here and just trying to stay optimistic, but I don't get the sense she's about to announce her retirement. Hopefully she'll make a clarifying statement at some point, otherwise we'll just have to wait until April lol

I always find it very funny how Ayu fandom always take whatever she says to the most tragic interpretation

Considering her historic, this could pretty much be something completely stupid like a 25th anni calendar or some shit like that.

Yeah, I'm thinking and hoping it's something more like this. I honestly can't imagine Ayu retiring. I feel like she'll be like Seiko Matsuda, just endlessly performing. She loves it too much.