Artists that were influenced/modeled after Ayu?
 

Expanding on my post in the Anything Goes thread.

So I've recently come across a few artists (the ones that came out around 2001-ish) that had very similar visuals to golden-era Ayu, like these:




I was wondering if y'all can think of anyone else who were inspired by Ayu at the time?

Rina Aiuchi was heavily influenced by Ayu and is still fan of her until today ! She even did the Ayu's challenge on Tiktok :)

And AYU even left a comment with Emojis in the comments of the MY ALL TikTok :love
Rina is just starting once again with new music

^That's great to hear!

Yaguchi Mari, one of Morning Musume most popular memebers commented on the book released on 2018:

— Would you have quit the group had it not been successful?
Yaguchi: It’s possible. I might’ve thought to myself to move on to the next thing in life. But the truth is that the group let me experience so many things I’d never gotten to experience before. I was having so much fun. We’d get to do collaborations with, like, Disney characters… I’d get to be close to Hamasaki Ayumi who I so admired…

Source: http://wotaintranslation.com/2019/08...-yaguchi-mari/

Also, Yaguchi is the one who did the infamous impersonation of Ayu's TU-KA CM

You can tell also her looks were heavily inspired on Ayu, this is an exact copy of one of many ayu iconic looks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZMBmuEyiLU

Also this is Yaguchi Mari going to an Ayu concert!
https://i.imgur.com/f5zsZmp.jpg

While Nami Tamaki had alot of influence from other sources, alot of Ayu-isms can be seen. Her vocal style is very Ayu and her song Result rips off the UNITE verses.

^Oh it really sounds like UNITE! even the sound effect just before the chorus

Halna is always the 1st girl that comes to mind.

The Chinese girl group S.H.E. sounded very Ayu-ish in some of their music.

I remember hearing HΛL's ending song for Hikaru no Go (I'll be the one) and thinking it was ayu because HΛLNA's voice (especially her vibrato) sounds very similar. I guess it made sense because HΛL wrote a lot of songs for ayu but it was still surprising to see her inspire their vocalist this much :)

holy shit you're right! :laugh

This song produced by HAL could easily replace BLUE BIRD in Ayu's discography

Ai Otsuka was very compared to Ayu during her peak, but this may be just because they were both big female soloists. This may be an unpopular opinion, but I do see a strong Ayu influence on some Koda Kumi stuff. Not enough for Koda to be considered an Ayu clone, still... In some sense, I feel like every Avex soloist from the 00's, after Ayu was already Ayu, were styled to at least look a little like her, like Hitomi Shimatani and Alan...

Koda in this one gives me strong Ayu vibes:


If I remember it right, she even had the same composers:


Her, but also very influenced by Namie


Sound-wise, not very much, but visually:


The scenes in the pink outfit almost looks like an Ayu parody:

This one emulates Ayu down to the body language.

Alan came to mind. Diamond sound just like M/momentum/missing missing identical twin.



And the koto part that is used prominently in the opening of sakura modern is also used in the breakdown (but speed up) in Green. :D

this girl from avex sounds really Ayu-ish as well.
https://youtu.be/HCyVKuIZKBM
Sounded promising back then, but turned into a flop.

Only as a singer--she gave up around 2018 on that. Thankfully Hitomi Kaji has turned into a very, very successful model. (Here's her current instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kaji_26/) She's in high demand for fitness and fashion.

It’s so fun to see the influence she had on the entire pop scene.

I miss her short hair. It was really flattering on her.

I feel like some of the songs posted here are not from singers that were inspired or influenced by Ayu, but rather are doing songs that might sound like "Ayu inspired".

Goto Maki's YOU is reminiscent of Ayu's Together When or rockish ballads, imo.

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5n28if