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I very much doubt that what overseas fans think will affect how the release does in Japan. At the moment, both the limited edition and CD+DVD are in the top 15 on Amazon.co.jp (#7 and #13 respectively) which is pretty good considering the releases ahead of her are like... AKB / Masaharu Fukuyama.
I would say that this so called negative judgement of the mini album is about the norm for Ayu releases. Love songs and Rock'n'Roll Circus were received surprisingly well I thought, with few people hailing that they were the worst albums of her career. It's interesting how different opinions can vary, but for now I think it's a mix of being desperate for new Ayu and not getting what you might want to hear from her.
I think that the insertion of collaborations into this album sort of ruined the 'groove' of FIVE. beloved and progress are both so very much Ayu-ish songs that I think if they had not included Why... and ANother song, she probably would have had a much stronger mini-album in people's eyes. But since essentially half of the album is made up of collabs and almost every track is of a 'medium' feel, it doesn't really feel right.
As for 'fierce', if you think about this as a 5A-side (which would be classified as a mini album in Japan anyway), it's pretty well balanced at the moment with one fierce/powerful track and a few other genres mixed in there (mostly ballad/midtempo though). If she were doing a full album, I think we would've probably seen some more upbeat tracks mixed in. Personally, I would've liked to see a summery track on the album but I'm happy with what we have so far because I know that eventually she is going to do something upbeat, so why be disappointed that it isn't here right now?
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