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Originally Posted by jean-baptiste
After seeing what Ai Otsuka's hiatus did to her...I'm very skeptical about Utada's selling records out the ass. Of course, Utada is a record-setting, music history making icon so there's obviously more hope for her. But still, she's not above the current state of things in music. She will be effected too; SINGLE COLLECTION VOL. 2's sales (which were 6 years ago!) show this.
Nonetheless, 100K would be amazing, anything more would be a dream come true and would prove the power of "Godtada," as she's called around here. But I don't think she's exempt form anything ayu, Kumi, or anyone else is subjected to. Namie even had her crazy second peak and the decline in sales is also evident for her.
With hikki it could honestly go either way. So only time will tell. (Pun intended, lol.)
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Ai Otsuka and Utada are apples and oranges. Ai's biggest selling album was 800k, Utada's is 7.7 million. They're in different leagues and make different music. So, I don't think Ai's hiatus and comeback (which were not promoted like Utada's) is any useful to judge Utada's comeback, as long as Universal continues promoting Utada.
With the statistics for NEWS ZERO and Totonee-chan breaking records for annual news viewers and morning drama viewers in the last 15 years, I think Utada's comeback is not going to be overlooked. She's had probably tens of thousands of tweets with the comeback hashtag, so she's definitely got attention on social media. She's doing this smart. She just needs to keep going forward.
I said 500k because Utada is still Japan's daughter. A lot of people were saying million selling was impossible when she did HEART STATION in 2008, mainly because Koda and Ayumi couldn't top 500k. But Utada not only pulled 1 million in sales, she sold more than 100k over ULTRA BLUE's sales.
Utada has staying power and influence, so expect a new album to be a big deal, especially if she invests promotion and creativity in it the same way she did with UB and HS.
Edit: I should note that I've checked her website at all hours of the day and she's always got at least a few dozen tweets coming from fans with the hashtag, fresh and new. So, I think the hashtag campaign and the tie-ins, and general interaction with media has helped. Ai Otsuka's comeback wasn't this organized or promoted.