About alan and Japan, I really wonder if she would do better outside Japan :/
I mean, I showed her to some of my Japanese friends and they didn't really show any interest on her. They even said that she had a really strong accent when she sings and that was annoying, also that her lyrics and music were boring, or just meh.
We (The outside World) pay more attention to alan than the Japanese, and all the "good" sales that alan had so far is thanks to the magic of AVEX, nothing else.
EDIT: LOL then we wouldn't have to buy her expensive AVEX releases and just walk to a music store and check her out in the Indie section
wouldn't that be cool *-*