Omg, she's slaying the charts! :D I hope she'll get another #1. This album deserves it♥

Chances are pretty good for a #1, and I sure think it deserves to top the charts :heart

I'm happy for the sales, but I need to see how the sales will go during the whole first week
I need promo and magazines *sorrynotsorry

They're very good at picking the quietest weeks on oricon!
This seems to be the quietest week of the year? She may have one of the lowest selling #1's again this year.
It's clear that they aren't ready to give up her number ones :D
Very curious to see the soundscan numbers for this one!

After letting the album sink in a bit I don't dislike it as much as I first did, but I'd still put it in her bottom 3 albums.

I was listening to some of her old albums again a few days ago and I've gotta say that those are her best ones.
Without your love, Take back, Rain, Hands, Maze... such amazing tracks!

@Xianghua thank you! No problem ^_^

wow I hadn't realised there was such a drop from JAPONESQUE to BV... Even though there have drops since Kingdom (except for UNIVERSE, I guess the BEST helped sustain it). Still, great numbers for WOML

Has anyone ripped the Live DVD already? I wanna see it so bad!

Thank you, I knew I was checking JPS everyday for something but I forgot why, I was thinking that I already have the album and it's too early for Ayu and just couldn't remember what's missing xD

I'm still concerned that the 2nd day drop will be pretty big for WOML. I wonder if it will dip to around 10k or less?

Also, do you have a slightly bigger image of this, Corvina? It's kind of hard for me to read. Thanks for posting though. I love looking at the numbers.

Bon Voyage came out two years after JAPONESQUE, so I was not surprised at a sharp drop, but the fact that BV only sold 1/3rd of what JAPONESQUE sold... that was the shock to me.

Sure, here you go. It's from Baidu.
Was at work the whole day, so I just copied and pasted fastly the first time, sorry. Going to delete the other post.

http://imageshack.com/a/img911/2426/fBoZ4U.jpg


Btw, did somebody watch the LINE broadcast today?
As I was at work I couldn't.
Over at Baidu people are saying over 90,000 people watched! o.O
Is that true?
If so, I hope that all of those are actually buying the album, lol.

Great 1st day sales! Hope it gets #1 :)

I just found love for Unmei (reminds me of a mika nakashima ballad but I can.t remember which one). Those guitar parts give me chills. The chorus is a bit dragging but its okay.
Also, I also gave another chance to Candle Light and its not as bad as I previously thought. Its just that I always overlooked Black Cherry because of its huge amount of cute songs.

Happy to see the album is doing alright in the charts! :)

I am sooo happy to see that "WALK OF MY LIFE" is already doing so great on Oricon!!! I'm even happier knowing that today's first day sales are even higher than "Bon Voyage", her previous album, first day sales. :) That totally means kuu's just improving in sales! Go, Kuu! :D Here's to one very successful week on the charts!

So, after having a few songs grow on me, it turns out I only dislike 5 out of 16 tracks on the album. Less than I thought. However, its still a decent chunk and the songs I do like I can't say are her best. Except Dance in the Rain. Its still perfection. Possibly my new favorite Kuu song. Sorry Hana.

Anyway, still waiting on that Live DVD rip. Hopefully its uploaded to a streaming site.

This album is definitely not her best but I'm really happy to see it selling well regardless! So surprised too that its first day outsold Bon Voyage's :O

I hope its second day also will be not dropped more than Bon Voyage :P

I'm glad she's at #1. I didn't expect to see her so high, guess it's thanks to 15th anniversary. Congrats Kuu-chan!

Anyway, I'm listening to the album now. It's actually pretty good. I honestly didn't expect to like it at all, I even thought about canceling my iTunes pre-order at some point but I'm glad I didn't.

speaking of goodies, did anyone ever upload the fanclub disc from bon voyage? let's party volume 2?

my copy has left japan via tenso! :D still waiting to have it in my hands to listen to it. all this discussion has me on edge! hahaha

^ I'm not sure if it was uploaded here but I do have the concert in my HD

I don't like the album but i'm glad to see Kumi improved her first day sales.
I hope she will be able to keep this constance.

my copies have already been sent from Japan :heart

My copy arrives tomorrow!
This will be the first time Kumi Kehova has ever been sent to me in the form of a preorder :O

I hope the Blu Ray is good quality though

Second day sales are under 3100 copies, she's at #4 now, I think her first day sales came from pre-orders and cheap sales boosters like music cards.

She may be able to keep the weekly #1 if everyone else has very poor sales this week.
I'm not very pleased with the promotion for this album, it's too quiet for 15th anniversary promotions.

Oh my, that's a big drop...

music cards are no longer counted i thought? has that not come into effect yet?

Ouch. :(

And yeah, music cards do not count for Oricon anymore

They still count, they stop counting them the first monday next month.

Yup, she's at 4 today with less than 3100 sold.
But the difference between BV and WOML is just around 4k after two days.
So I guess it will sell as much as Bon Voyage in the end.

WOML is at #3 for its first day on recochoku.
Though some of her old albums are charting as well.

recochoku album daily 03/18
#3 WALK OF MY LIFE
#12 Best ~third universe~ and UNIVERSE
#30 Black Cherry
#39 feel my mind

http://recochoku.jp/ranking/album/daily/

I expected that cause there is no promotion in effect

I'm not surprised this happened as there was no promotion at all. I know some people will say she's doing a lot of radio and online promotion but it is useless. No one in Japan listens to radio and articles/interviews online won't make anyone buy an album. Absolutely useless promotion. The LINE performance was a nice idea but it won't provide any boost.

Also people will say that she has posters everywhere but the pictures that have been posted are from one store only. I haven't seen any displays in any of the Tower record twitters that post online. However because it's very likely that she will get the #1 with this album I'm not too mad. I just hope that once the tour is over she will promote on all the summer specials which provide a good amount of exposure. 100 radio interviews will not do a single thing for her if no one is listening.

I'm not sure how much avex can give them budgets. ayu has pretty much the same if no less promotion for her new albums (and ayu has no tie-ins this time as well at all.) I'm not sure if it's because the artists themselves don't want to promote or if it's avex's budget and hardships to find them good deals.

Ayu performed at the Music Station Super Live recently and Colours also got a lot more promotion in streets and stores compared to Bon Voyage. But even just ignoring that part of it, performing on TV doesn't need a budget so I don't know what Kuu's/her team's thinking is. Some people will say that TV doesn't have an effect on sales but it helps to at least keep the artist exposed. The way Kuu has promoted for the past year has only been geared toward her fan club. At least Ayu is trying to get the attention of the general public by performing on TV with gp friendly songs like Zutto, Last Minute and now The Gift is good exposure as well. WALK OF MY LIFE (the song) really could've helped Kuu carry this project well if it had some TV lives (especially Music Station) but they didn't bother with it at all.

^ your theories and comments are guesses out of the blue. are you living in Japan? do you now how big the promotion is? there are indeed shops, stores, posters and even trucks which we can see on official pictures. Moreover, it has nothing to do with the exposure but rather the opposite. i think she was overexposed to a certain limit so that she lost a lot of popularity and there is no way that she gets her fans back buy just doing what she does, but I dont even think that she is aiming for that atm.

we all now that TV exposure isn't needed (Namie) and that ayus one or two performances were mostly not even in her promotion span so you can't compare that.

All I can say is that Shibuya and around are not all Japan ... They can placarded the face of Kumi & Ayu everywhere but the effect is zero for the rest of Japan and further everyday there there is a constant parade of trucks and displays from a lot of different singers that the people of Tokyo must not even pay attention anymore ...

What they need is tie-ins but it is a vicious circle to get one ...
They just need to continue to work hard and wait for the nostalgia born among people ... When you have been popular like that one day or another there will be a demand maybe in 5 years or 10 years. I am convinced of it !

Nostalgia will make people buy best albums and old albums, it won't make them interested in any new material.

That isn't necessarily true. Akina Nakamori is a good example of this. After a period of lower sales starting from 1993 to 2009 she was able to return this year and get her first Top 10 single in over 21 years. Her best albums in 2014 sold over 160,000 copies and counting and her recently released cover album also went Top 5. What mizuki said is right.

I guess Kuu just aint aimming for high sales and hit songs but rather please her fans this year, so she won't be bothering wasting tour rehearsals for TV promotion...

That's true but the next releases can benefit from the great sales of a best album I have a lot of exemple ! Time will tell (lol utada)

I never said that she can't bounce back, I said that nostalgia alone will only make people buy best albums and old albums.
When I feel nostalgic I listen to old tracks, not brand new ones.

You don't know how many billboards are there for kuu's release and ayu's release because you are not there and everywhere in Tokyo every day. You can't say ayu had more billboards.
Besides ayu sang Last minute only on TV and its less promo friendly than Zutto (I think she just could choose between the two and she chose Last minute).
The fact that she sang it once on December on TV doesn't mean she has a better promotion for the album nor it made the single sell better than previous year. Since ayu has no TV performances for the album+ TV performances at least on the 5 last years never help (or helped ayu or kuu) sell better. It didn't translate to sales.

Also this was no for a competition for who has more promo, it was to empasize that both don't really promote much like in the past and they barely get tie-ins and endrosements (ayu even less since last year).
You can't say kuu has less promo than ayu since it's not true and it seems that they are at a point where they get the same promo and do mostly the same stuff.

And The Gift gives her exposure to ayu outside of Japan, not in Japan itself just for the record.

I'm sure that her sales in Japan won't increase because people will start to have interest in a singer that is popular in Taiwan or other chinese speaking countries.

They don't do things to increase sales/maybe they don't have much to do in order to do so, but they do stuff because they want to do music and perforn and to keep their fans up. They are no namie present state anymore (and yet they are more active than her).

Whoa. I've seen pictures and have heard things from people but that wasn't my point. I didn't mean to make it a competition. I just meant to praise Ayu and her team as they are doing things right at the moment and making good choices at the moment imo.

Well as much as it seems they do, I think that our girls are not in a position where a lot of promo will do much (that's maybe why avex don't do much) but we can't really know what's going on with it because we are not a part of their teams lol.

I wonder when the live from the FC version of WALK OF MY LIFE will be uploaded. I'm stocked to see it!

Well, talking on promotion and Summer festivals, I don't remember this being posted here (sorry if it was), but Kuu is already confirmed for MTV Zushi Fes, to be held from 07 to 09 of July :) (it is not confirmed which day Kuu will be there)

Yaas I wake up and Kumi Kehova arrives! The album sounds good so far and I've changed my opinion on Dance In The Rain. It's not as bad it was last year. I love the piano.

Are you sure? :o I can't find anything about it

I saw it on French Fans Page @ FB :P

Doesn't it flow so well with the intro, which ends with storm and rain?
I really like that part.

Anyway, here are pics of the normal booklet from the FC version in comparison to the big First Press one:



And here's the menue of the FC DVD:
http://imageshack.com/a/img537/2213/rdyxPR.jpg
http://imageshack.com/a/img537/7372/0gUTFa.jpg

And those two pics are from the BluRay menue, if I got it right (should be in the booklet as well):


Thanks to kinot on Baidu for the pics

So, are the 3,100 copies her official 2nd day sales? That's a worse drop than even I anticipated.

Oricon doesn't show the numbers outside the top 3, but the release at #3 sold 3,107 copies meaning kumi sold under 3,107 copies, it could be under 3,000.

I like the pictures from the Walk of my life shoot, I think she looks better every year.

Yeah I was really surprised in a good way!

It also flows well lyrically - the intro ends with the line "You wanna know what I've been through" and then in Dance In The Rain she deals with loneliness and misery and how to make it through.
Well, it seems to end there lyrically and is just picked up again with WALK OF MY LIFE at the end.
But I guess that is what she aimed at.
Giving a thematically frame for a pretty much experimental sound for her, for something she wanted to do personally.
And that's why DITR and WOML are the promotional songs for the album.
Even though they don't represent the whole album very well in style, lol.


And btw. I really like the lyrics of Lippy, it totally grew on me as a song.
Cause you could actually see the song being about an outgoing female and how she's perceived (hint at Kuu herself or her image?):
http://shinitakashi.blogspot.de/2015...py-lyrics.html
And I still have to take a closer look on Sometimes Dreams Come True, it is about dealing with the dream being a singer..

The same happened to me. When Dance In The Rain was released as a single I hated it but on the album it just makes sense. I still don't love it though.
And Lippy rocks :) I'm glad that the lyrics are dealing with fame : "I'm down for the bad remarks, yeah, right/ But I'm really very shy". For an artist, it must be very tough to deal so often with bad critic. I mean, critic in the sense of analysing and choosing what to like and what to not from a singer's whole work is one thing but simply hating for no reason is something else. Artists are humans too, its just natural that it will affect them.

Wow. I guess my original guess of sales may actually be close to accurate then. I originally thought maybe 40k overall, but it looks maybe closer to 50k because of the super high first day sales.

Makes me wonder how Ayu's numbers will look...

Kuu made a track by track review for the album in one of the new interviews.
And Lippy does represent herself pretty well and that's why she picked it as the first album track after DITR.



(and yeah, it's from Baidu again -_-)

^ lol it defintely is from baidu :P
I guess that's another plus to Lippy tbh. I love the drum n bass of the song. I'm just a suck for the drums or any percussion and this song included percussion and electro. I think it SLEIGHS! It's like what point by perfume was trying to be but its not as cutesy so it's better.

I know a lot of people don't like this album but I really like it. I've even grown to like Hotel. And Money In My Bag is now an inside joke with me and some friends. Kumi really served for me with this album. I'm really impressed.

I really like the booklet of the first press (which I got), I can't wait to hold it in my hands.

I also love the menu for the live dvd, I love releases cover art compilations.
So it hopefully means that someone will upload the live soon!

Some promotion in Shibuya

I'm falling in love with Driving all over again!

I remember when it leaked, and I was at a friend's sisters house for New Year's eve. I managed to download the rip on their computer and nab someone's USB chord to transfer the song to my iPod. Ran to the garage where I danced to it over and over again throughout the evening. I had a few pair of glowsticks and we busted some of them open and as I danced the green neon liquid splattered all over the floor beneath us. It was if dancing atop the stars. Best new year's eve EVER.

That FAT beat. That GRITTY bassline. That THIIIIIIIIICK sound, and those ingenious layering techniques! And seriously, that fucking BREAKDOWN! OMG. O-M-G. O! M! G!! Shit gets real badass right there! FOREVER SLAAAAAAYED!

I can get lost in this song. It transports me; mercilessly snatches my soul from the confines of skin and body, elevating my mind to a level I never expected to reach! Truly unprecedented. This is a wicked mother fucker of a song, no matter which angle you look at it (NOT simply because it's Koda Kumi), and that's why it deserves endless praise and glorified recognition.

Do yourself a favor and get yourself a sick pair of headphones, close your eyes, and just analyze; let your mind explore the depths of this masterpiece and you will discover a new appreciation for this piece, and the gift of music in general. I'm truly and utterly thankful that this song was conceived exactly as is. I often think about how many different steps are involved in producing a piece of music - how many elements are at play, how many DECISIONS have to be made... So when a song such as this is delivered in such a way that just does EVERYTHING right, I'm so unbelievably grateful. So appreciative. So full of envy and mad respect for the people and/or person who took the time to get it all right. These are the moments, these are the experiences, these are the feelings that make me happy to be alive. And THIS is the reason MUSIC is the closest thing to heaven on earth.

:luv2

Wow one of the lottery prizes is to talk to Kumi on the phone! :O
I'd ask her if she likes her eggs fried, scrambled, or boiled.
Oh and her opinion on ton katsu.

Today she rises up to no.3 with 1938 copies

I guess she sold around 2.5k yesterday then... Do sales go up a bit for the weekend?

This is so random, but Kuu launches an energy drink for her 15th anniversary to be sold in departement stores! xD

http://imageshack.com/a/img907/8061/PgSU19.jpg

http://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000...000009817.html

And she's going to sing the National Anthem of Japan at the opening ceremony for the Hanshin Tigers baseball team this month in Osaka:
http://www.nikkansports.com/baseball/news/1449307.html
She did it the first time in 2008, hence the picture.

Gotta make that money, Kuu. We all know Kenji isn't...

That energy drink looks so weird with that pic HAHAHAHA They should have taken a picture from the Like It PV

that's great news!

she looked horrible in 2008 XD

I hope Kuu will have magazine shoots, also, maybe she should create instagram account. surprisingly, but insta gives really good promotion and appearance in magazines could keep her relevant

I guess she doesnt have an instagram cause of Koda Gumi, the pics she posts are the same artists usually post, only we're paying for them...

That hair and her style in 2008 were both terrible. :(

I hope Basketball performance may be on-air widely enough to recall Japanese People “Hey, This is Koda Kumi, She is our pround diva and she still sing very well”. Fighting Kuu!!!

Ps. I love her performance in 2008, simply, not too effort but really perfect

Oh you can buy the drink at the Donkey in Shinjuku, Roppingi and other select ones. I don't think its department stores but Donkihote only.

2008/2009 was a bad year for her, but she got over it.

I loved her black hair though, and her cheesy smile.

Well, yeah, I think the whole "rotting amniotic fluid" bit kind of set it up to be a bad year.

They took away her doctors license so all's good now.

That's obviously what I was talking about lol. I think everyone on here remembered how bad it was for her.

@Delicious n Bold. She would be the most energetic doctor.

Lmao, could you imagine her telling someone they had a terminal illness?

I can't even imagine Kuu as a doctor tbh. A kindergarten teacher fits her personality better. :D

She'd need to do well in biology first tbh

I laugh-snorted aloud at this.
hahaha

Kuu will be performing at Kyocera Dome (37,000 capacity) for the KANSAI 2015 SPRING & SUMMER COLLECTION on April 12th!

http://rhythmzone.net/koda/news/detail.php?id=1020379

Yay, more performances!

The guy rapping in HOUSE PARTY is David King, her former background singer from UNIVERSE Tour, Eternity live s.o. ( He's credited in the album booklet)
Seems he's coming back for this years tour! :D
I do wonder, if Brenda Vaughn is coming back as well?

Omg, a dome performance? I'm ready for that epicness~ :heart

Is there any trace of the FC Concert Online?

I'm gonna be writing an extensive review for this album as soon as I can! I'm really excited tbh

Edit: I have to listen to the album in the highest possible quality on my end before I attempt this. I'm doing it once tonight and I can say that only lippy is the one song that sounds like loud noise.

At the FC are Dance In the Rain, Ai wo Tomenaide, anytime, Ningyo-Hime and I'll be there :love

Ouch!! burrrrn!!! :roflmao :roflmao :roflmao


I must say, I really like this album. Didn't expect to from the previews.
Wish the introduction was longer; and I really love "Lippy"

The only songs I *really* don't like are Fake tongue and LIFE so GOOD!! (sounds really annoying...)
Solid effort, this deserves more sales. It is much better than Bon Voyage imo.

It shows that she took singing lessons, some parts of songs seem rather difficult to master. I also think it's great that it is mostly a high energy album.

@Corvina Even tho David King is credited, I don't think it's him. The voice is the same from the demo, and it's probably the other guy called Tiger (he is also credited in the song).

The MUSIC FOR ALL, ALL FOR ONE footage is out on baidu. This is the setlist that was aired (the songs that were left out the footage are in italic)

01 POP DIVA
02 BE MY BABY
03 Shake It Up
04 D.D.D.
05 Lollipop
06 Dance In The Rain
07 you
08 LOADED
09 IS THIS TRAP?
10 Poppin' Love Cocktail

-ENCORE-
11 Lady Go!
12 め组のひと

I wouldn't mind if she stopped singing "POP DIVA"...

Booooooo they left the best songs out of the footage :<

THIS.

why would they leave out lady go?! why would they do that?!?!

I couldn't tell what songs were italicized. lol it's too subtle. I had to quote the post to see where the [I]'s were. lol

They left out DDD. damn

Anyone knows the sales for the weekend?

It can't be more than 40k

Yeah, I'm surprised she continues to sing Pop Diva.

It's on JPS :)

Who are these people? Have I ever seen them?

Also, the first picture in Kaled's set... Where is it from?

So far sales look like this:

Day 1: #1 - 30,912
Day 2: #4 (#3 place sold 3,107)
Day 3: #3 - 1,938
Day 4: #4 (#3 place sold 1,591)
Day 5: #5 (#3 place sold 1,483)

Total: 32,850 + ?

Sales must be somewhere between 35k~38k

So Kuu sang more songs in that Music For All concert? Damn, looks like Megumi no Hito got scrapped. Man, that sucks. I love that song.

Oh. My. God. That is absolutely shocking to me. I honestly would have never expected that a popular artist like Koda could have almost 80% of sales take place on the first day of release then next to nothing afterward.

I'm sticking to my guns that this album will top out in mid-45k to 50k range, if it even gets that far. What's sad is I bet this album will stay in the Top 100 for maybe 3 weeks.

Do we have any clue what the Japanese reviews were for the album? Do you guys think a bunch of people bought it on the first day, said it was really bad, so people just decided to not buy it after hearing others' bad reviews?