ViVi Sept 2012 - Cover
 

http://i45.tinypic.com/2aahugx.jpg

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net...21373365_n.jpg

Aside from the fact that ayumi's face is a bit off , I think other than that , she looks good . Way better than the covers of Party Queen & A SUMMER BEST imo :3

I like the styling also too

WOW I love it! Thanks for sharing!

That smile is GORGEOUS!

I like it. :love

(m)u smile is back .... :facepalm:

woah...

yey for smiley ayu and yey for her hair! omg. I love it.

I wish the summer best cd cover had this make-up.

I think the face is only a bit off because they were unsure as to how much they should photoshop it...but...idk, I think it's a smidgen too much, but they did a good job trying to find the balance.

Oh gosh the nose contouring.

BUT the smile is beautiful and its a great picture! I'm loving her long hair pictures!

Thank you for sharing!
I'll wait for a bigger version :)

It's ok. I share the opinion that something is off with her face in this. Could've been so much better. So Ayu is the Queen of Summer, huh?

love her looks, i need to agree that there is something off on her mouth and nose area...i believe there is photoshop job done...but other than that...love the pic...looks so fresh

You know what's annoying? Ayu trying to be white by wearing blue-effing-contacts wtf :/


but still she looks gorgeous, her nose a bit off but her smile is definitely not m(u)

^um no.

I'm sorry you're threatened by blue contacts.

Maybe you'll get over it one day.

I hope so :rolleyes


What's her natural eye color btw? Hey I'm loving her style here ♥

We all hope so.


I think the better question is "what's her natural hair color".

it's a waaay much better than PQ, new magshoots & ASB, really :)
I like it but there's something scary about her face

although, the make-up seems to be the same of ASB, blue contacts & green shadow
I'm happy about her hair being long & curly

Wow, so beautiful. I love her smile here. :)

Good lord, it's A Summer Best part 2. It looks very unnatural to me...and dare I say it, but I really thought she resembled Paris Hilton in this photo.

@emi I never dared to ask that :laugh


So is the green eyeliner popular in Japan nowadays? I could say Ayu is so all over it, i mean look at ASB lol

Is it amazing/awesome? No. But it's certainly a nice photograph. Looking forward for what's inside. (But isn't September a bit late to promote Summer stuff? :/ )

Her smile looks very forced but I love her hair :heart

Even tho its photoshopped to the hell I like it somehow.

wtf is this, what are u thinking ayu

SOOOOO sick of people always finding something to ***** about. Fish lips? *****ing. smiling naturally? *****ing. ayu walking down the street? criticizing and *****ing. Lol I just can't.

awww beautiful. I love her smile so much ♥

yep something is off but i love her smile. gosh...I could just watch the Ayu in You & Me all day...so beautiful...

Really nice cover! I totally love her hair <3

Looks better than the last vivixAyu cover.
I wonder how she's dressed.
Thanks fro sharing Karen.

lol nope.

she looks like paris hilton

but i really like her smile though

scary
this is the 1st time i said ayu is scary
lol
sorry ayu but i have to admit it's scary
huhuhu...

I feel like the teeth she got are too big for her mouth...
Maybe I just realized it now LOL

I love the styling and everything, but there is something wrong with her face or maybe it's only, because they - once again - used too much PS! :no

It's quite a pretty cover if you don't stare at it too much.

Like I just did. Q__Q

Agree on the fact that there's something weird about the face...looks like the eyes, nose and mouth are modified from the original size and she looks like Paris Hilton....

Too unnatural in my opinion, overphotoshopped. I prefer Ayu's selfcam, as always, without photoshop...

It doesn't look like her very much, but I still love it.

If I stare at it too long, ayu's nose starts to look ugly there to me

I love this one, very summer style :D

i like it she is pretty but her nose is too much photoshoped !

I like her eye makeup!! I'll have to get this issue!!!

LOL

i had hard time to decide this,but i dont think this is bad,i love it BUT... there is something wrong about her face,at first i say it is not really Ayu,slightly different that i dont know where :tipsy

seems they use the same make up like on her ASB, the eye shadow and the blue lens

still love her hair and overall this is good,cant wait to spot this on the shelve soon :yes

the first cover this year I realy like =)

btw why comes the sept issue in august o.O

It'll be out early August, that's how Japanese magazines work :)

Glad I'm not the only one that noticed the Paris Hilton thing! It looks like Ayu and Paris' faces were meshed together or something.

nooo, I don't like it :no

hope inside pics will be better

i LOVE it. the concept is great! love the styling and her long hair! this should be the album cover instead.

Lovely cover~

So horrible OMG she looks like a tranny
Why the **** do they photoshop her that much?

FFS THEY SERIOUSLY NEED TO STOP DOING WHAT THEY ARE DOING. The styling is nice but good godness WTF is this???:shakehead even a blind person would do a better job on photoshopping her than they do... my sweet mother of cows...

PS doesn't really bother me much. Maybe because I don't stare at the photo that hard. Idk. Thank goodness I'm not sensitive to overphotoshopping or I'd never like ayu's photos I guess, like some people.

When I first saw it I LOVED it. And I thought it very much so looked like ayu. Especially since I always thought ayu's nose looked weird, similar to this lol

I really like this cover. I hope the inside pics are as nice. I love the style too, the hair is gorgeous.

Thanks for sharing, Karen :)

I guess its always like that in japan (only? dunno) couse I haven't seen that in other countries. Its April issue in March etc~

Paris Hilton comes right on my mind when i saw this.
but at least, she has wavy long hair and she smiles =))

I think she looks fine.

She looks fun and youthful. :)

Excited to see the rest!

I just think it's funny how no other artist in their respective threads can ever do any wrong, lol (most of the time). But whatever. :)

oh dear lord yeah :D

Her smile looks really awkward... which is a shame because I love her natural smile :c This looks like it's going to be an awesome photoshoot though!

Her hair and makeup and very pretty (loving the flower headband, too!), but holy hell that nose. :tired It looks gigantic and really misshapen. Plus, you can visibly see that they screwed up on photoshopping, because you can see a giant white streak going up and across her nose towards the bridge. Unless that's just terrible makeup they forgot to photoshop OUT.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...ayucover-1.jpg

Seriously this photo would be FLAWLESS if not for the nose. The over-tan skin + harsh lighting emphasize it too, it's just terrible. And it makes Ayu look much older than she is. So unfortunate. Cuz the smile, the flowers, her hair, all SO pretty.

ayu looks gorgeous in this cover! :heart now i can't wait to see the photoshoot. :)

yeah, something's wrong with her nose. she looks older :/

@sugarbasil: though I agree that it's a bit misshapen. I don't think it's too gigantic. I'm pretty sure ayu's nose tends to look that size when she smiles like that.

Jesus I love it! She looks really Western for some reason but I like it. <3

I miss her natural eye color... :cry

Soo pretty and hot :D Love how she's just smiling naturally too. The styling looks lovely too, can't wait to see the inside pics!

She looks like Paris Hilton.

She really does lol. I think it works for her here. :heart

now at least I can look at it....:yes is my sense of beauty f-ed up? lol

^ Your version is way better than the original one.
I don't know why, but her smile on your version looks less fake.
I personnaly think that those contact lenses contribute to her general "fake-plastic-barbie doll" look she has lately... Remove them, then she looks more natural.

@Gabi: No, but I prefer her make up on the original. And her contacts...and even her tan, although it does make the shadowing quite harsh.


I do wish I saw the whole "western looking" thing. She just looks like Ayu to me :laugh It's not like she ever really looked traditionally Japanese. Maybe when she first started.

she definitely looks more Asian and more herself with ur edit. I wonder if they're going for this whole gyaru-Caucasian look cos it's a trend this summer or something? i'm just glad she's smiling naturally and looks really FRESH for once

OMG artcika!! you're a magician! now I love this cover!!! she looks so fresh and young :love :love :love

I'm failing to see how an even more photoshopped picture is better than the one that people claim is already too photoshopped. lol :tipsy

I love her smile here! (but I still don't like its blue lenses)
Thanks ! =)

No, you're right. She often has had a tendency to not look traditonally Japanese. I just find the contacts here to make it moreso like that. :)

Personally, I love the tan and I love the makeup here
___________
@articika: although your version is very nice, I really do like ayu with the contacts and tan :) though the nose looks a bit better even though that didn't really bother me in the first place.

omg I just happened to be looking in the funny screencap thread and saw this:

http://img600.imageshack.us/img600/7...ustourfina.jpg

She has a similar white line by the side of her nose, lol.

Well I toned the tan down quite a bit, but it could have looked totally ok if they just adjusted it slightly bit because now her face looks darker than her body, plus those highlights make her look like she bumpped a bottle of oil or vax on her face. Her make-up & contacts was just optional for me. Tho the pale lipstic is a total dissaster when used with heavy tanned skin makes the line of the lips just dissapear......i dunno....

I think it's a trend, a slightly ridiculous trend lol

well i guess the smile looks fake because of that awful pink lipstic. with more vivid colors and lighter skin you get that freshness in the face and it looks less fake in general.

Agreed. I don't think its nice at all. Her face seems completely flat, no definition at all, and the tan is completely gone (from her face). I suppose that the tanning was to accompany the whole "summer" concept?. Normally I say yes to artcika's work, but this time no.

And the picture isn't that awful to already start making edits from a LQ picture if you ask me.

I like the styling. Now I can't wait to see the inside photos.

This is random...but I have my four year old brother here. I was looking at gabi's post with the two covers...and I said "Which one looks better?"

He pointed to Namie. I lol'ed.

What is her nose?

I hate Photoshop.

lol i really didn't do anything to her face rather than change colors and lighten it up xD i guess the original is not really much of photoshop fail but a fail or light and make-up xD

RayJason: the natural glow of the skin is always nice and trully summerish, but when she looks like a wax figure....I dunno....plus I edited it because i wanted to m it was awful...:innocent

YUKARI: um.... i am glad i'm not the only one weird here xD *high five*

^ haha I know I just thought it was funny :P

I really like this cover! I don't understand so many people complaining about it, ok her smile doesn't seem natural but maybe she'd be too much time smiling and got the face muscles tired or something xD I have no problems with contact lenses while they could feel a bit natural.

If you want to see her natural eye color you can see it here, it's dark brown. And the white is not pure white, like everyone in the earth xD
http://i50.tinypic.com/2m5bfx1.jpg

I just notice she have those "white" lines in both sides of her nose too lol

how come I think her face shape is ps-ed to be similar to that of Nicki Minaj...

Its not just Ayu. Especially in Tokyo, every other girl wears circle lenses and color contacts. Maybe not blue (for example alot wear black and brown-but they brighten their eyes and make them appear bigger), so right now, they have become just another accessory, like shoes or a bag. PLUS she is endorsing SWEET DAYS color contacts. She has to endorse and sell her product by wearing them. She is getting payed to do that. And the white lines on the sides of her nose is makeup haha my guess the white is to brighten the eyes, and to add to the contouring of her nose to make her nose more Western (which is a common thing for any face makeup for Japanese women)

I don't see the photoshop problem people are talking about. She looks fine to me. And doesn't flaws make her more natural? In the sense that photoshopping her eyes dark and erasing her tan and "fixing" her nose make the photo more fake? Doesn't "fixing mistakes" make the photo more fake because that's NOT what she looked like when she took the photo?

^we have NO IDEA what she looked like before they slapped the text over that pic lol and we will never be able to

Ayu looks beautiful. :) I wish the photoshop could be toned down but other than that it's a great cover.

Like the green eyeshadow, not so much the tan though :/

I hope we can see the inside-Pics soon.

Yay, Ayu is SMILING! And not the big, showing all teeth, fake smile, but a REAL SMILE.

Finally.

The nose disturbs me, otherwise it looks great ♥

A little editing goes a long way

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m7...eokpo1_500.jpg
Credits: outsidefishbowl @ Tumblr

Imho, I don't see anything that bad about her nose :shrug she never had a tiny nose. Not a Angela Aki's type of nose lol but it's not that little neither. It looks much more a bad angle and bad light fault, than bad photoshopping. Also, all of your photoshopped pics are gorgeous but to be honest, she looks more western on those than in the original pic.

She looks pretty and her smile doesn't look scary nor like (miss)understood cover imo lol. Finally she look good for once :/. I know everyone has their personal taste and I'm ok with that, but sometimes it seems people wait for a new Ayu pic to scream OMG SO GROSS EW and starting the drama.

It looks like a beautiful cover and I can't wait to see the rest. I keep reading that people think her nose looks off but it doesn't look any different to me.

I believe she's going for what is known here in the US from the 1960's called "hippy/flower child" look/style. as for Paris Hilton...Paris has nothing on Ayu and Paris has been kinda a has been since Kim K came around the past couple of years.

Actually she looks even more western on this one. It's not going the "right way" if you ask me.

For me, it's just the contouring of the nose, and how much they smoothed down her skin. That being said...I can see why people would think she's overpshopped...but idk I think they did pretty okay :shrug

I think the overshopped plastic look just gets emphasized by the tan and the contacts.

...if you take those things out, the photoshopping isn't really bad. This is just what fake tans and contacts look like I guess.

Actually you might be able to because in mostly every Japanese magazine, they have a little textless picture of the cover on their contents page

Well if Ayu wants to look more Western than that's up to her, I'm just talking about the edit they did on her nose makes her nose look better.


Ayu's always had a pretty "western" look since the peak of her career with her Blonde hair and big eye, I don't see how her having Tan skin NOW makes her look anymore "western" than usual, or how it' even news now :/