[Andrenekoi]

Originally Posted by Bigtop

I agree with that. Things have really changed over time: when she was at peak back in 2002, the time that her consecutive #1 streak broken with Daybreak early on in the year and then restarted with Free & Easy back on April, there was not much of the digital music revolution; now, this is 2010, which is eight (and a half or more) years later, with the fact that she's aging, she's not at her peak anymore, some are getting tired of Ayu, and the digital music revolution that Ayu is part of while Arashi's popularity is increasing but with Johnny's no-digital-sales policy (especially when their releases are actually distributed through Sony Music Entertainment, and a combination of Johnny's policies as well as the dispute between Sony Music and Apple/iTunes that prevent the releases of Arashi as well as other Sony Music artists, such as ikimono-gakari, Mika Nakashima, miwa and SCANDAL, to be sold on the iTunes Store worldwide), it seems that Ayu is facing tough competition. Even though with tough competition, it seemed that Arashi's "Dear Snow" single was released on a week when Ayu was not releasing a single, and it seemed that the Arashi team and the Johnny's management may have respected Ayu in some way to allow her to break Seiko Matsuda's consecutive #1 record (by a female artist/any soloist). Ayu's #1 singles (crossroad and L) that she has achieved, along with Ayu's reiteration to fans that were thinking about if she would be retiring, saying that she's not retiring within the foreseeable future, proves that Ayu is still viable to the Japanese pop market and will STAY for years to come, maybe possibly a decade or two, or even three. Maybe she could become the "next" Seiko Matsuda! We'll just have to see with the long-term, but it's only October 2010 already...

I would prefer her to be the next Matsutoya Yumi over her being the next Seiko Matsuda any day of the week