Ayu's Pachinko Debut
 

It seems our Ayu will be following in the footsteps of other celebrities, such as Koda Kumi, and is releasing a pachinko machine.

It's to be titled "浜崎あゆみ物語", or "Hamasaki Ayumi's Story" and it's planned to be released on July 3rd.

On May 24th, the company producing the pachinko will be introducing / discussing the details at a meeting for pachinko dealers.

http://www.co-koei.co.jp/public_html/

After this meeting it's expected that the story will hit major news sites.

More details to come!

Edit:

5/12/11

Ayu has stated through twitter that she is in fact releasing a pachinko machine, and that the videos were filmed with her dancers and Kishidan's Ayanocozey Show (aka DJ OZMA) around the same time that she was doing NEXT LEVEL Tour.

Which means this really has been in the works for awhile... haha

Original tweet:

5/13/11








* Pachinko:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pachinko

Haha, I wonder if a pachinko machine is really necessary!

Thanks for posting, but how lame news! :tipsy

wow. AYU's really powerful~LOL

Thanks that's nice xD

is now a good time to release pachinko machine? I remember that they were protesting the opening of pachinko shops just recently bcos of the amt of electricity used....

meaning? What is pachinko machine?? Story??? She will make a new life story of her?? Sorry, I'm confused :confused

EDIT : Okay, just knew what is pachinko.. But why "Hamasaki Ayumi's Story"? How they can feature Ayu and Pachinko?

what's a 'pachinko' anyway?

this dampens my spirits... :(

My least fav places in whole Japan pretty much... But oh well, good promo... :/

Oh dear... Not the pachinko slots this time...

That's really odd.
A Pachinko? Seriously?

it is a game :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pachinko

so that's what it is... Are they just gonna slap ayu's face on those machines or something?

It'll be really cute if they can get ayu's personal participation in making it. Imagine you winning the jackpot and hearing ayu's voice go "CONGRATS!!!!! :heart"

I was actually gonna post this a while ago but I thought it was a rumor! Apparently it was scheduled for April... guess it was delayed? Seems like an Ayu slot machine has often been rumored but never come to light till now~

From 4/30 or so:


Can't wait to see it!

Basically, she'll be the theme for the machine with music/her image and so on. It'll be amazing, haha.

Actually I find it very cool :D. If I will go to Japan, I'll get a try to Ayu's pachinko for sure :laugh.

Oh, so it must be so awesome! If only I could go there =_=

Pachinkos are pretty popular....
Aya Kamiki, which is a not very popular artist, just had a song in a pachinko machine (only one, not her name even featured on the machine) and the song raised its popularity on recochoku

I feel iffy about this. Someone told me it's pretty much only for artists who have lost popularity. :(

I don't think it's really an indicator of popularity or not since there are some big properties out there with pachinko/pachislot [pachinko+slots] machines. Not necessarily individual J-Pop stars though, haha. I mean if you look at Ayu's career right now, does it really look like she's lost her popularity?

I suppose pachinko doesn't exactly have a good connotation to it though... (probably due to the smoky atmosphere of parlors and the possibly-run-by-yakuza cash out shops)

See this Akina Nakamori article about her second "wave" of pachinko machines. Comments are a bit harsh.

Trailer for Akina Nakamori's pachinko machine:


I imagine Ayu's will have a few Ayupan? And wow, TRF has one too! But they've kinda... not had much luck in the later half of the last decade.