the person that passed away...
 

So, we know that someone important in Ayu's life passed away at the end of October/early Nov (right before HEYx3 recording).

Then, she has alluded to her in "untitled ~for her~" and with a message at the end of the GUILTY booklet.

The Japanese fan community is saying that the person that died is 豊田夏来 (Toyota(?) Natsuki).

According to here, she's a person that has been a close friend of hers since her debut. She appeared in the "For my dear..." video.

Thoughts? Is this the person?

yeah i saw one distinct co-actress in the pv...the girl with a bun on her head?

Man that'd be really really sad~ listening through the album really makes me feel so emotional towards Ayu.

Great album

I have no idea what she looks like. lol

More on her: Ayu and she lived together for a long time before.

Do you know how she died?

OK. If you look at the bottom of this page, it should be her at the bottom.

I don't know how she died but I remember reading somewhere that it was suicide (but I think that we can only say it's speculation at this point).

oh...that is really sad...:(

That would agree with the part of the lyrics that say, "You decided that day to walk alone, on that endless journey, over the clouds and towards the sky" etc etc. If that's what happened, I feel so sad for Ayu.

Oh man, I hope it's not suicide. Because you know? Lots of people who have close ones who kill themselves BLAME themself for not realizing their pain, and feel GUILTY because they weren't there to prevent it. Tough thing suicide is, because it only hurts the ones you love, not the people who did you wrong or whatever. This album's merit shot up like...by a million for me. I hope the real news comes out, so there's no more speculation :(.

Unfortunately, I doubt we'll ever get an official announcement or whatever. The closest may be Ayu mentioning how a person important to her has passed away in her concert (perhaps after singing some songs from GUILTY).

yeah, i agree. i doubt very highly that we'll ever hear anything more official on this matter. :(

It's probably for the best. Such things really aren't our business anyway. But that would explain a lot now. =\

never knew that that woman was ayu's close friend before..
i thought that the woman who owned the peach john was the closest friend..because she seems to be everywhere with Ayu..

i also hope it was not suicide...
gosh this album is really deep!!!

yeah there is a lot of story behind this album...her friend that died and then her breakup with tomoya...

I didn't know that Natsuki appeared in the "For My Dear..." PV.

I wondered if it might be her... So sad.

How heartbreaking :(:( My heart goes out to Ayu... and that song is now ten times more sad than it previously was.

you see, I said GUILTY is a good album :)

ah, i never watched for my dear PV before, but that is really sad~~

That's sad :(

how do u know that?

It's written on many Japanese websites (of course I would never know for sure if this is true).

ahhh icic thanks

Ah.. I love the SOng "untitled for her". It is such a sad song. The Lyrics are greate. But.. befor, I don't knew, it was for a friend, who passed away.
It makes the song more sad. (-.-)

at first i thought that song was for ayu's obaachan...then i just realized that her friend was not so long ago died..

Well, the song 'Wishing' was written for Natsuki.
I feel sorry for Ayu.

really sad. Ayu feels now so alone without a friend and a Tomoya...

i finally understand the story behind this "GUILTY" album...anw its really sad hearing all these...hope ayu will get over it soon~

is this the woman? :( Poor Ayu.

http://ayu.no/images/For_my_dear_PV_ayumihamasaki.jpg
http://ayu.no/images/For_my_dear_PV_ayumihamasaki1.jpg

It's really sad!

i really love how brave n strong ayu is...i can tell that shes really lonely now...and i really hope that shes really happy n had get over those sad things when shes laughing n smiling on those recent tv shows..and not doing it for the fans bcuz she wan us to know she had get over it...

and ayu really have the best lyrics ever...she expresses her feelings n emotions well...

moreover the person was about the same age as ayu... it's really feel terrible when you have a friend that is of the same age as you who died suddenly...

hmm.. that woman was not older than ayu? because seeing the link that was given by someone else on the previous page.. she was born in 1976...

and i really didn't know that Ayu had her as the closest friend because i had barely seen the pics of Ayu and her..
mostly were AYu with that mika noguchi~

Natsuki is two years older, yes, but I think what hanabinokisetsu meant is that they're close in age. It's only two years, not twenty or something.

I didn't know Natsuki was a model(?). I thought she isn't a celebrity.

yeah this is really saddening! i feel ashamed that i feel that ayu's lyrics are always talking about the same thing. Now i noe that the song is actually meant for her and how the whole album of GUILTY was constructed.. i feel that GUILTY is a good album!!

Yeah :( I think it was a suicide, or at least the lyrics of untitled~for her~ seem something like that... But I'm impressed how Ayu pulls herself together, we all know awful it is/would be to lose your best friend.
Though she doesn't seem to think she has "lost" her, just that she isn't anymore physically there with her. :)

I wonder if the "SPECIAL THANKS" section was taken out because she couldn't bear to write all those names down... without her name in it? D:~

[Natsuki is in just about every album booklet except GUILTY in the SPECIAL THANKS at the end]

Even more background about Natsuki from masa's translation of ALL NIGHT NIPPON:
So, in a way... Natsuki "broke through" to Ayu early on in her career? :O

I think what happened was that Natsuki was the first person who some sort of "wakes" ayu up...

Yeah, I agree.

I feel for Ayu, RIP to Natsuki.

i think this to be very true...in which case, I am so sad for Ayu :( untitled ~for her~ is a very important and deep song too...

I think we should all support Ayu, this is such a tough time for her!!!

Nice find truehappiness!

Honestly, thinking about this almost.. makes me want to cry (I'm such a sap, god). Is it weird that I kind of think people see Ayu--or other major musicians/artists--almost as if they exist in their own world where these things can't happen to them? Not that *I* think that, only that it seems like the Ayu we see and hear in PVs, concerts and on albums is somehow distance from the Ayu beneath it all, like there are "two" Ayus runnin' around. I think she shows this a lot in her PVs, most particularly the sad ones and especially in Together When... the outward Ayu waiting for a taxi cab ride to leave, while the "darker" Ayu is left feeling broken and in pieces.

It's actually really.. really heartbreaking to think about it. I'm remembering a message Ayu wrote (I believe it was for TA a while back?) saying that when she sat down to listen to GUILTY all the way through she actually started to cry. Makes me want to give the poor thing a hug. :(

Aw..i dont know who it is but I feel sorry for Ayu :( Glad she made song for her.. and I was wondering who it was for

I think that is very likely. If you go to Masa's page and read his translation of her first All Night Nippon appearance, she talks a lot of Natsuki. Basically she was Ayu's first friend after coming to Tokyo and first person in her life that treated her like Ayu thought a family member should be treated.

I guess I was right, though... when you think about how Ayumi's mother treated her, the loss of Natsuki is even worse?

OK. Just to also clarify and say that this is what is being spread among the fan communities. None of this is confirmed. So for all we know, Natsuki is running around in Tokyo screaming at the people in CD stores for not buying more GUILTY...

Were there any obituaries or news stories posted around the time she supposedly passed away? Does anybody know?

oh my. I read that ALL NIGHT NIPPON thing last year for my assignment on ayu's music, and I had wondered what had happened to Natsuki. To hear this is really saddening. I hope it wasn't suicide......

I know! Man if I was a japanese fan and heard about someone close to ayu passing away, I would've scoured the internet and newspapers for obituaries trying to connect them to people she's talked about. It's hard for us because there's a language barrier, and I know it's not our place to be curious over this, but ayu put these lyrics out for us and for herself, to tell us she's hurting. I think we just want to understand her pain a little better, to better connect to her as fans in a more personal way, not the 'kawaii ayu' we see on her tv spots. Not only that, but there are some people in the thread who've done a 180 on liking this song through seeing who it was meant for. I think we just want some answers is all.

Reading through that All Night Nippon and believing it's Natsuki who passed made me so close to tears though.

There aren't any news articles on her because...she's not famous (well in the showbiz sense). So, no, if she did pass away, there's no official word.

I didn't know it was her who appeared in the "For My Dear..." PV. Thanks, you learn stuff every day!
But I'm really sad for Ayu now, she mentions her A LOT in that All night Nippon broadcast indeed, and they seemed extremely close :(

EDIT: Random (as the MF link available at AHS died some time ago), but if somebody wants that All night Nippon in audio format then get it here: http://www.sendspace.com/file/9u7gb0

^Thanks! I didn't know an audio rip was available...

I didn't even notice that women in for my dear PV before..but she certainly looks A LOT different from the person at the bottom of this page http://www.mishii-list.com/mania/05.html - she supposedly set up MATERIAL GIRL? My Japanese is not very good..but if she did I guess she must be very closed to Ayu since it's one of her favourite/endorsed brands few years ago.

i'm so sorry to hear that......if it was true, then ayu ..... T__T

There are 2 women(3 if ayu included) in For My Dear PV, one of them has already been posted by Maxker in the previous page of this thread, but i don't think that's her.

And the other one is this women:
http://eneabba.net/ayu/video/videocl..._My_Dear32.jpghttp://eneabba.net/ayu/video/videocl..._My_Dear36.jpghttp://eneabba.net/ayu/video/videocl..._My_Dear37.jpg

source: http://eneabba.net/ayu/video/videocl...or_My_Dear.htm

This is her latest pic from your URL above:
http://www.mishii-list.com/mania/images/05-10.jpg

Now, i think that's her.



Btw, Zemus, i never know that All Night Nippon had the audio rip, thx so much!!

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! i really wanted this file, but when i requested it, nobody replied! :3 aaaahhhhhh, the young ayumi! i miss her ;___;

If it is true that her friend died of suicide.. that just gives so many new shades to some of the songs on GUILTY. Namely the title-track and (don't) Leave me alone. For some reason, after hearing that, (d)Lma really started to strike a chord with me when I hadn't really connected with it before.

This would also be another connection between Ayu's GUILTY and Kelly Clarkson's My December. Kelly also lost a friend to suicide this past year and wrote at least one song (Haunted) about her, though I suspect that a couple of others hint at it in the lyrics (One Minute, Hole). Weird, all these similarities in their albums/lives.

As someone mentioned before, I can only imagine the turbulent cycle of emotions Ayu has gone through... guilt being one of the big ones.

EDIT: When I read this on the page, it seemed kind of cold. I got so caught up in the artistic side of things, I forgot to say how bad I felt for both Ayu, having to go through this and for her friend, having to go through something so bad that it would drive her to end her own life. I'm sure Ayu feels the same as I do, wishing she had known and that she could have been there just to give her a hug and reassure her. :(

the 2 pics u have there they are different women, their head shape isnt alike, they both just have a fringe, but they do look quite similar...

but i think the woman Maxker posted on the previous page is the same woman as the later picture, except she didnt have a fringe back then

^ They have the same nose...

Another observation: if you look at the last page of the GUILTY booklet, she says how the album is dedicated to someone special, etc etc, 1976-2007. Natsuki was born in '76 according to the link that was posted earlier.

QTmashi: they look exactly the same so I have no idea why you say they are different people.. o_O

thanks for the all night nippon file..never knew it existed..being a 8 yr fan of ayu o_O

Yeah, i kinda agree.
IMO, those women look alike in the 3 pictures. Plus, they look like they're wearing the same shirt. :innocent

look here!!

Favorite Authors: Natsuki Gin'iro

http://www.jpopmusic.us/Ayumi_Hamasaki.php

I don't know...

oh? that Natsuki is a writer?

i don't know... isn't her last name Toyota?

This is so sad. It makes me feel really rotten. I hope Ayu gets through this alright.

Thanks a lot. That's very kind of you.
Zumus, you are mu hero.
I have been searching for this file for ages.