Your forum people are going to run around spreading ridiculous rumors that she (Ayu) was stripping and ripping her clothes off. I'm not such a huge fan of Ayumi musically, but I don't support spreading horrible untrue rumors about a person. =p
Anyways, the story-line (as I was told from the STAFF

) is that a very wealthy high-class society have these hidden dark secret lifestyles, where they go to underground auctions to partake in the bidding of human specimens. Not just any human, but more like outcasts, freaks, people with special abilities. The setting is made to look like an underground circus freak show. The high-class society people live this lifestyle in secrecy, thus the masks and long dark robes to cover their true identities. They were NOT cheaply thrown together mardi gras masks, although I am sure mardi gras played a part in inspiring the artists who created these masks.
Each mask had a certain image being portrayed. For example, the two guard-like men standing on both sides of the stage wore masks that resembled the japanese tengu demon. Some of the masks looked like tengu, some only covered the mouths and resembled the bottom-half of the demonic-like samurai masks used to terrify their enemies. Others were very elegant and mysterious which covered the entire face, some michievous and beautiful covering only the eyes. Each mask had a lot of effort put into making them, and you could tell so by the quality and craftsmenship. My interpretation of it, is that the masks represents how this society was, ugly, beautiful, mysterious, disgusting, terrifying. There were some masks that looked like tiger faces. So many. So please don't go around saying I told you, or even gave you reason/inspiration to run around telling people they were crappy mardi-gras masks. I respect the artists who put time and effort into making those masks.
About the storyline, as I said, people were being put on sale, and we, the buyers, would make bids on these people. It resembled a sort of freak show where the buyer goes home with the winning to do whatever they please. Some examples of some of the oddities on sale, an akihabara otaku - he carried bags full of mechas and anime, toys, manga etc. He had the entire otaku get up - flanel shirt, pants pulled up to his chest held by a belt, a lime green bandana rolled up and wrapped around his head, big glasses. And he ran around like an idiot, it was SOOO embarrassing. But I'm pretty sure (as everyone else) he wasn't acting. He was the real thing haha.
There was an aero-acrobat, she spun around in a gold hoop suspended in the air, doing tricks and things to amaze the buyers.
Ayumi Hamasaki was also on sale, thus the pole dancing. I didn't say she was stripping, I said pole dancing. She danced using the pole. She did this to say to the buyers, "Buy me, look what I can do." That's what these people, the auction goods, were doing. They did their tricks to tell the bidders "Buy me."
There were two undercover police officers who tried to bust the operation and they got discovered and caught, and they were humiliated and also put on sale.
This part I am unsure of, but someone mentioned ayumi had to do something with the two undercover police officers trying to turn in these people. But I can't say anything 100% on that.
There was a woman in red, who resembled a prostitute - washed up and used woman, wearing sexy lingerie. She had very washed up make-up, running mascara, screwed up lipstick, etc. We were told to act as if we had no interest, some people smacked her with their money. She wanted so desperately to be bought by someone, she begs the crowd to buy her. Then finally, a buyer goes up on the stage to buy her off, and she is taken home on a chain and leash.
There was a fat man, who ate in front of the camera, like a glutton. Just gulping down food, throwing it everywhere (it was actually kind of disgusting.)
We're told to show interest at these sales, or disreguard them, humiliate them, boo them, throw our money at them. We are the buyers, and we have no regards for money. We are wealthy, and the humans for sale are nothing more than items to us, for us to buy and do whatever we want with.
The person in charge of the selling of these people was an over-weight clown, who was made to resemble a circus ring leader. Top hat, cane, etc.
The cage part, Ayumi is in the cage, with an expression which I interpreted as "Let me out. I don't want to be here." At first shes looking down and around, and she bursts into singing inside this cage.
Anyways, this is pretty much how OUR shootings went. The shootings that had to deal with the parts that were related to this, ran from the 25th - 27th. ( This is what I was told by the staff.) I didn't ask if there would be any shooting for other scenes. Just they were there for 3 days in Kaihin-makuhari at that location filming that part of the PV. That's all I can tell you about that. The worst of the days ran from 10:40 am - 4 am so people had to sleep over night even for this shoot.
Whether all of this will be in the PV or not, the hell if I know. PVS, movies, shows, etc get cut so much, so maybe they will say "alright this was a bad idea, **** it" in the end. So don't go attacking soysaucestar if none of it appears in the video. I mean, at first, for the prostitute lady in red, they were going to use a really over-weight blonde brazillian woman, then they changed their minds for some reason (I didn't enquire as to why) and it ended up a little more slender russian woman with brown hair instead. And they made this change RIGHT before this blonde brazillian woman was about to go up on the stage to be filmed. So there you go. =p
I got this job because I am a model in Tokyo, and my agencies (yes, I am in multiple ones) finds work for me. No I do not have the ability to help you get into Ayu's next PV

lol.
P.S. Oh yea, and people keep saying the costumes looked cheap too. That's because our costumes were not important. The focus was our masks. And we are standing around a stage, whats seen is from waist up, unless someone went up on the stage. And the video looks COMPLETELY different from the photos I took, tell them to use their imaginations.