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Utada > Ayumi > Namie > Koda
Utada had a good exposure with KH, she algo got minnor hits on the clubs with the remixes of her english music and a minnor movie tie-in (Rush Hour 2). The EVA movies theme also work on her favour. She also has the most western-friendly music among the 4.
People keep bringing Inuyasha to justify Namie and forget Ayumi also had her music on the series. She had it 3 times, actually. When jpop had it's international peak, Ayumi was at the top of the game (together with Utada), so, it wouldn't matter who were you a fan of, you would know about Ayumi, as she (and Utada) were (are) pretty much compared with everyone.
Namie had the same points as Ayu on her favours during the 90's and a Inuyasha tie-in, if you were insterested in Japanese pop music, you would know about her, her advantage works shorter than Ayu's cuz Internet wasn't as common back at her first peak. With her new peak, she gained a lot of fans among jpop listeners that do a fair work keeping her well-kown. I wouldn't be surprised if she took Ayu (and even Utada) spot if jpop wasn't totally eclipsed by kpop nowadays. Fun fact: During the celebration of the 100 years japanese immigrated to Brazil, there was a rumour (that actually reached news papers) that Namie would perform over here.
Most of the time I met people that were aware of Koda's existance without being a Jpop fan, those people liked her videos because she was so sexual it became rxotic on some way. She never had a tie-in with an anime that became big on the USA and videogame fans were pretty confortable with Jade's version. She has that rideous Fergie duet on her favour, but I never saw people (being her fans or not) really being into it.
So, considering what maters to the poll: Namie. Her longer career giver her advantage on places with a lot of people of japanese heritage and she was the face of jpop during the 90s.
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