^How beautiful you are had a succesful drama tie-in and Party queen had that bra cm...

Still, neither lack of promotion or song quality, japanese people are just tired of her...

^ I think her sale keeps declining steadily but PQ dropped too suddenly

Yes it's a fact ! but in Japan it's not current to release an album without at least one physical single in it before !
Tired maybe ! but if you look at Aiko which is super popular her last album sold less than Party Queen ... I think her musical style don't match with the current taste of people (except fan)

Well, the mini album FIVE had the HUGELY popular tie in of the Tales game.
That helped to boost sales tons.
Party Queen also had the CM and a small tie in with HBYR.

But if anything it shows just how ties in can help... ASB really didnt have one and look at the difference in sales. And now LOVE, which I has the game tie in... but the hype just isnt there like it was with the first game... nor did she do a live...
Nor do i find this song as exciting as progress...
there are just so many factors into why this is not selling very well. It's selling good, but not as good as it should.

^ I think ASB is the biggest mistake in her career

I agree ...

I'm not expecting any of her 15th anniversary releases to chart exceptionally well. Without a huge break between releases, and no promotion she's not really building up any hype. I think her breaks between releases have helped her in the past, but this has been one of Ayu's most active years. Treat for the fans, not the charts. Remember that people.

A successful drama tie-in? Really? I consider Hana yori dango, LAST FRIENDS and Taiyou no Uta to be successful dramas. Not really sure if the drama hbya was featured in was nearly as successful as those.

But yeah it's most likely that they are simply tired of her and not interested.

If I remember it right, the drama received good grades, it wasn't a huge hit, but was very well received...

As it was aimed to older people (30's and older) than usual for western jpop fandom (12s ~ 30s) it obviously reached a different demographic than the one u r used for her.

Ayu needs to pull a Mariah Carey.
If MC can flop just as hard, if not harder, than Crystal Kay (i dont know of any comparable people. moral of the story is that MC's career took a NOSE DIVE) and come back to the top, so can Ayu.
But I'm just talking about 2005's The Emancipation of Mimi. Not about her 2012 flop Triumphlop (Flop Em).

People should stop to act as if releasing a hit was a concious decision, like "tomorrow I will release a song that will sell 4 million copies!1", unless u r already on the top (Ayu isn't), it's not that simple (and even if u r already on the top, a single can always flop).

And please, don't let Ayu take the Mariah road! She got it right with TEOM and after that started releasing the same song over and over again, just like she did on the 90s ¬¬

?

it wasnt as successful... if I remember it averaged 12-13 million.
which is pretty good... it was way better then her last one, lol.

But what if Ayu were to relive her late 90s-early 2000s era?

Those songs worked during 99~2002 for a reason: They fit that time. Trying to do the same thing again would just make her look pathetic, desperate, runned out of ideas and the release songs that would already born old.

Crystal Kay??

If ayumi wants to be popular she has to dress the part, act the part, and do a song along the line of an idol (which is what is in right now), which has no meaning, depth, substance, soul... everything that ayumi is not.

Many tale fans won't buy this LOVE because pierce DLC
They are expected to get nice costume like Utahime from Five but...it's just pierce that not nice at all even almost of them love "Song 4 u"

^ i will save that hurt it...
theres no reason to get that DLC... they should of had a set of ayumi costumes or something...
Can you imagine fighting in a boss battle with one of ayumi's HUGE wedding Dresses... lol

i think...promotion (in terms of marketing, tie-in, performances) is the key to good/better sales. It's all related. Sometimes, appealing to the general public widens ur audience, rather than just targeting on a specific group of people. Yes, there's just no hype build on this...but then again, I think Ayu doesn't even bother. She's just giving music to her FANS.

i think this too, she is at the point of her career where she just wants to make music and be damned if it sales or not.
Not saying she wouldn't kill for another million seller, but its just not a top priority now.