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Reading these opinions and preferences is angering me inside... Lol.
If anything the ballad version is what sounds watered down to me. The original has much more "flavor", and the way the arrangement and composition progresses as the first real chorus kicks in is pure bliss. I don't think it sounds cheap at all, it just sounds a little more light-hearted and charming.
I feel the ballad version is so dreadful, probably because it takes away everything that I love about the original so there is nothing left for me to like. It really is like a 180 degree turnaround. Plus, as a stand-alone ballad I really don't think it's that good. She has had much better ballads and of course Ayu has stronger ones as well. If I wanted to listen to a good ballad by her I'd listen to Be My Last which has a great arrangement as well (I find it exudes the same feelings that RAINBOW by Ayumi exudes). Or even Deep River or Simple and Clean are much better candidates for top-notch ballads. For me, the ballad version seems un-natural; as if they just took a song that was perfected in it's vision and tried to turn it into something it wasn't naturally meant to be. That's just how I feel when listening to it (more like immediately when it starts 'cause I turn that crap off).
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