[Andrenekoi]

@orbitalaspect What Japanese people will or will not think about Ayu actions is both none of our business and a little too much for us to try to pintpoint in a country with 126,8M people. Neither will she be loved by all, or most, or even half of those people, neither should she try to be. Utada's First Love is the best selling album in that market and it wasn't sold to 10% of that population.

Ayu as a public figure was always controversial to some extent, from the topless album cover back in the end of the 90's, to pretty much every single time she was way too much for what they expect from an ideal woman, something she is doing one way or another since the begining of her career. Besides those who jumped on the train when she was big, and left once the was past her prime, her career was never really designed to appeal to someone with much of an idealized image of what their idol should be.

In that sense she has lived and acted more as an artist, testing the bounderies of her own culture, and had been far braver in doing that than her peers.

Her iconic status is safe. Seiko Matsuuda was VERY scandalous for most of her career and she still is an icon. And it's just natural younger generations to know her better for her gossip than for her music, as she didn't released a big hit in a while.

We can say Utada, for example, played her cards better in a market point of view. What also means she isn't singing about several stuff she clearly wanted to, considering her USA releases. We can say Namie also played her cards better, but Namie admitelly was following trends as a way to keep the public coming back until her retirement date arrived.

Ayu wants to be free to express what she wants on the way she wants. Freedom is even a huge theme in her body of work, and on her case, being free will also be scandalous a she herself deviates from the norm of her own culture and already did before she was famous.

Calling her culturally unaware, when she released a full album and tour about this subject not too long ago, or even questioning her mental healthy (WTF?) is really fucked up.

I don't like to mention Chibi-Chan on my posts because I even blocked her. But someone who prides herself on being a feminist questioning a woman's mental health because she is giving her middle finger to how patriarchy wants her to act on her own society totally rubs me the wrong way.

Edit:
primavera♥ is like the best person to ever exist on this forum and God bless, we need her xD

Also, Ayu doesn't frequently sings about breaking the rules, true. She usually just go there and break them.