I've also been their fan from the beginning.
On my Tower Record point card, the first time I used it was on September 9th, 2008, which is the day I bought their debut single.
One of the big reasons I enjoyed their music was the amount of effort put into their videos and photo shoots. I mean, GIRL NEXT DOOR was an amazingly well put together album.
But Avex can't keep spending money on a group that isn't returning a profit. If anything, they had a 2 year contract that had very specific details about their budget and once that contract ended, it's probably much different in terms of how much money they will have spent on them.
I mean, all of their first several videos were shot abroad... LA, Czech Republic, Alaska, NYC...
While I'll still follow them, I seriously have to keep my expectations low...