[Album Collection] LOVEppears
 

This one is kinda inspired by Alucard From Hellsing's thread requesting "appears" info. :)

Also, if there are any non-studio-albums (remix albums, singles, etc) you want to request "stuff" for, let me know and I'll see what I have.

I've been wanting to share this stuff for a long time now & haven't had the opportunity. :)

Album Bonuses:
"Hamamsaki" poster (came with the OS version of the album, scan by choyan, retouch by me):
http://img211.imageshack.us/img211/8...yanrjf1.th.jpg
Clip (first-press bonus? promo item? dunno):
http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/649/clipfv1.th.jpghttp://img140.imageshack.us/img140/3...backrn7.th.jpghttp://img140.imageshack.us/img140/1...sidezl2.th.jpg
Phone Strap (promo item?):
http://img210.imageshack.us/img210/8...trapgk3.th.jpg
Phone Card (not 100% sure it's official, but I think so):
http://img210.imageshack.us/img210/6...cardir4.th.jpg

Magazine Ads:
http://img210.imageshack.us/img210/8...neadch3.th.jpghttp://img210.imageshack.us/img210/7...doutjz5.th.jpghttp://img211.imageshack.us/img211/3...adhkhf4.th.jpg

Posters:
http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/8...oon2te2.th.jpghttp://img210.imageshack.us/img210/2...eradwr0.th.jpghttp://img140.imageshack.us/img140/1...earsup5.th.jpghttp://img211.imageshack.us/img211/1...adtwly2.th.jpg

Tsutaya Records banners:
http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/1...ner2qp8.th.jpghttp://img140.imageshack.us/img140/7...nnerux2.th.jpg

Other Promotion:
http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/3...slipoy4.th.jpghttp://img210.imageshack.us/img210/8...playzp6.th.jpghttp://img140.imageshack.us/img140/3...anarrx7.th.jpghttp://img211.imageshack.us/img211/7...siteja0.th.jpg

LOVEppears Promo Cassette:
http://img210.imageshack.us/img210/8209/frontvk0.th.jpghttp://img211.imageshack.us/img211/7906/backsg1.th.jpg

oo thanks!! ah hahaha cassette....feel like so long ago

Ahh, LOVEppears / appears covers are such a classic. That's how I was attracted by her when I went to a mp3 list sites LONG LONG time ago. I was gonna download hikki's Addicted To You, then I saw this "doll" image LOL. I downloaded the song and found out it's really Japaneseesiiiii..

Ahh I can't believe that... less than 1 more year, I will be a person who has been ayu fan for 10 yrs...

Edit: oops! I forgot say thanks to you, Deli hehe..

I'm not sure if this is a CD or something else, because I found the pic on YJA long time ago.

http://img395.imageshack.us/img395/9984/ayuaee4.th.jpg

Wow, I have absolutely no idea what that is o_O

I haven't seen it ever at all in 8 years... the image on there is from the poster that came with the "A" single though.

hm. =\ Now it's gonna bug me. I mean it could be nothing - a fanmade calendar made of previously released pictures. But it could be something interesting, and I dunno! o_O

Haha, the shot of the cassette is funny. :laugh

Thanks again, Deli!

OMG!! thank you so much!! I'm So Into LOVEppears right now!! <3

Thanks for posting! I don't really like the shot but it's cool to see all those promo's anyway. And WAIT is that the A Complete pic? This can be added to the list of "not-so-new" A Complete pics XD

So great for you! :D I wish I could say that but I only discovered jpop 3 years ago.. so I'm a 3-year Hikki fan and only a 1-year Ayu fan haha.

If you've actually been through a release it's way more special than when you just browse back to as a new fan. I definitely feel the "classic" feeling from old Ayu albums, but for you guys it's so much better ^__^ For me only Ultra Blue gives that nostalgic feeling haha. Well also the very first Ayu song I listened to give it, like Trauma, evolution and TO BE.

omg the cassette tapes made me lol.

Yeah, that's the pic that was in A COMPLETE :P At least now we have a decent scan of it (the only scan I had of that photo was like, ABYSMAL quality. It was awful.)

I've been an ayu fan for 8 1/2 years, I discovered her around the time the trilogy came out... so "Duty" really gives me that feeling of nostalgia... but LOVEppears does too sorta, cuz I didn't have mp3s of the whole album before I got it for christmas, you know? It was the first original album of ayu's that I owned... so seeing this stuff is nostalgic for me too even though I wasn't there for the album's release, lol... oh man.

These threads are so much fun. ^_^

haha yeah, I didn't go through her A Song for xx era, and not till LOVEppears/appears released. But I managed to look back to LOVE~Destiny~ time at least. So basically A Song for is the era I can't make common feeling with ayu and the fellow fans. In fact, I never heard any album songs from her debut album. And yeah, whenever I re-listen the old songs or re-watch the old videos, they really bring back many memories.

And technically, half more year I will be a 10 yr hikki fan LOL. Yeah I went into JPop world via hikki in the first place. If hikki wasn't there, I wouldn't discover ayu (well, I was searching for Addicted To You mp3, then discovered appears since they released on the same date). Yeah being their fan suffered quite a few, like the times when Distance vs. A BEST, when ayu fans vs. hikki fans during 2002 - 2004. It's nice to look back, to see how I transferred myself from 19 to now 28. Gosh I'm old... LOL

Yeah I remember vogue-Far away-SEASONS. Even tho overall I like vogue, I don't really Far away, sometimes I still listen to three songs together because they're very unique in her discography. I remember that I didn't know vogue was released till a day later (I didn't really try so hard to search for her news back then cuz I wasn't fully into her yet, even tho I did buy LOVEppears during x'mas 1999). I just knew Far away would be released but I didn't know about vogue... (bad me..). I still remember how disappointed I was (and other ayu fan as well) when the first week sales of Duty was only 1.69 million copies. People was saying like she could compete with Mai Kuraki (well ayu wasn't on par with hikki till A BEST vs. Distance), so I thought Duty could sell like 2 million copies at least on the first week... Because Mai K's Delicious Way sold around 2.1 - 2.3 million copies on the first week (I forgot the exact number).

But really, the trilogy singles really boosted up ayu's popularity.
Oh now talking about that period... it reminds me about her TU-KA cms. So good.....

Those Tu-Ka CMs were great.

It saddens me to see so many people who don't like Far away much XD That was the song that sealed the deal & made me a fan actually - it was just so unique sounding... beautiful & kinda "sparkly" but still dark. I had never heard anything like that before, I loved it so much.

That was the first ayu single I downloaded, which was quickly followed by vogue (both from oshima mp3). The HAL's Mix of vogue was like OMG awesome to me. And I was NOT a ballad person at the time (still not a huge ballad fan), so I really didn't like SEASONS at all... but its grown on me over the years in a big way. It's still my least favorite of the trilogy, but I still love it.

I do remember the anticipation, waiting for what the "SEASONS" cover would look like. Obviously it was just gonna be the same photo, zoomed out, but how exactly? That was going through alot of our minds. I remember seeing speculation at AYUppears that it might be the other half of the torn picture.

You bring back so many memories for me, bluegie XD

Looking back, Far away (as well as vogue) is a really unique song from ayu, and I love how she connect three different vibes into unison.

Oh my... I can't remember but was Oshima a place for showing links for downloading mp3s from different sites? Or was it just a mp3 site?? I forgot but it sounds so familar... and I really think it's a really important site back then. Ahh I miss the days when mp3s are limited and you really need to rely on an important site that grouped all the links together!!

Oh and the covers, LOL. I didn't know that the covers would be linked as well. When I first saw Far away cover I was like, "oh my, it's lame and it's just a real picture of vogue". Then SEASONS came out and it was a wow. Oh and I remember that oricon website renovated during that period. It was pretty ugly in the beginning (... the first time I checked oricon was to see how many copies of Addicted To You being sold on the first week). Oh and I do miss those 300,000 limited edition singles from ayu. This tactic made those singles quite special (appears, kanariya, Fly high, AUDIENCE, Daybreak).

Hmmn.. I think I visited AYUppears before as well.. Can't remember exactly what it was tho...

"Jpop Mp3" was the site with the different links (to places like oshima and mikemike and rie)... oshima had its own uploads. It was my big source of mp3 links that actually worked :P~ It had a black background. And I remember when hitomi's "Love Life" album came out, they like... put a mosaic over the cover cuz it was semi-nude XD that cracked me up. But yeah, it was haaaaaaaard to find mp3s back then - I used napster most of the time.

And I didn't know what Oricon was yet, back in those days... not sure when I learned about Oricon, but it didn't take too long. I never did see the old version of the site, was it bad? XD

And it's depressing about the 300,000 limited singles... cuz like, ayu doesn't even reach 300,000 copies too often anymore. Ayu should do like, a 100,000 copies limited single. That'd be interesting :)

And AYUppears actually still exists, it just hasn't been updated in ages... some of the content doesn't work anymore, but it'll still bring memories back, probably :) http://www.geocities.com/yuka_best/main.html (when the "new version of AYUppears" dialog comes up, click Cancel cuz version 3 doesn't exist anymore. :P) I'm still immortalized there as the 88888th visitor! XD It's the pink graphic of ayu doing the "ssh" face with a smile, under the main navigation. hitomi-x/CREA always did graphics for her milestones (alot of sites did back in those days... I miss that ^^).

Oshima... black background... but did it have olive/golden color as well on one of the frames in the site? Hmmn... I totally forgot about that. I just knew there was one really famous mp3/video site back then during 1999 - 2001, and I visited there quite often until the owner closed the site.

Oricon looked quite ugly in 1999 (I didn't know what it looked like before). They renovated the site in 2000 and it looked really really nice. THEN the renovated again on the first day of Distance vs. A BEST. I really remember that. I was like, "what?" when I was gonna check who won the first day...

So the owner of AYUppears was "rika" rite? Then I think I've been to that site before.

tnx for the pics Deli!!

OMG i LOVE to read your storys! you 2 have like the best convos on AHS xD
i'm an Ayu fan for more than 3 years, but i didn't have internet so i wasn't really interested in the whole sales and detailed Ayu info as i am today. i would always go to my friend (Diana from this forum) to get Ayu .mp3, PV's and performances xD

i remember when i first heard Ayu's fairyland in September 2005. i was in love with her music ever since ^^
actually Diana gave me 7 of her PV's to get me into her music (fairyland, GAME, INSPIRE, My name's WOMEN, Ourselves, Pride and STEP you)
so after i wached those PV's (in that very order :P) i was tottally in love with her music.
i would listen to those songs every day, and they were the only ones i had for a very long time, until Diana burned me her CDL04/05 and my story AT. that's when i heard Ayu's other stuff^^ luckaly for me she soon burned every album/single she had for me so i would listen to the songs played at those concerts like all the time.
i was pretty much bored with all the songs that we could see every day at MTV and VIVA so when i heard Ayu it was so refreshing~

anyways when Diana told me Ayu will be releasing a new single (Blue Bird) i was soo hyped xD i remember seeing the PV for the first time on her cellphone i was immediately in love :luv2

so that's pretty-much how i got into Ayu :D

thats soo cool thanks so much

You know... she mighta gone by rika at some point. I do remember she changed her online name a few times, I only remember her being called hitomi and CREA.

The post-2001 design for Oricon is the one i'm most familiar with, the most recent revamp isn't as intuitive, and I'm not as interested in rankings as I was back in the day, so I don't go to Oricon too often these days.

But Jpop mp3 and Oshima mp3 were the two sites I went to most often for files back then, and I DO remember Oshima had a different design back in the day. After they died we got gkcombi.com, which died when bittorrent became the big thing, and then Kyo Music City's old non-forum website version kinda picked up where they left off.

How do I remember trivial things like this. XD