[Scans] Sweet 2009 September

[GRACE]

Considering Ayu's IMAGE used to be as important as her lyrics and views, it seems a bit hypocritical to revoke that now when she looks like an ugly panda. The fact is, Ayu used to use her videos and her CD covers to show a message just as much as she used her lyrics. A BEST is probably the best example of that.

Her magazine photoshoots were always glam shots in the end, HOWEVER, they never FELT like glam shots before. You always used to be able to look at her face and see a PERSON there, see that the high and mighty singer was actually a person underneath all the subtle brilliance and wonderful melodies. She was just like you and me, give or take a few million bucks and legions of fans.

NOW, on the other hand, all the pictures of her are the same thing. "Look at me I'm pretty~" "Look at me, I'm so young~" "Look at me, I'm Ayumi Hamasaki~" The same depth and value isn't there. You look at these photos and you might as well be looking at a corpse. Her CD covers are starting to do what, even her VIDEOS are starting to do that. It's like taking a HUGE portion of what Ayumi Hamasaki was and DESTORYING it. And we're just trying to look at why and what happened.

Call it shallow if you want, but we're not saying "oh my god she looks awful, her music must suck because of it." THAT'S shallow, this is just a healthy debate over a facet of her career that's going terribly wrong. She was a model, she loves fashion and all that jazz, she should know what looks good, she sure used to. Now she doesn't give a rats ass and it shows. She's taking pictures for the sake of taking pictures, which, could very well have been her intent from her very first photo shoot. I can't say that she didn't always think that way, I don't know her, but I can say it never looked that way until recently. Image is important in the music world, it's not the most important thing at all, but it's something that should be discussed. I mean, we can't all sit here and go "Ayu's so great, everything she does is wonderful, she is perfect." Because she's not, that's what *I* love about her. She's fundamentally flawed and she shows it. If she's letting crap pictures like this of her get published, if she's gone that lax with her control on her image, what's next that she'll get too lazy to bother trying to control? Her compositions? She already stopped composing years ago. Her lyrics? Who knows.

And as a celebrity, as a public figure, your personal decisions are never your personal decisions. They're always going to be met with fan approval or disapproval. I'm not saying she got work done, but even if you asked her she wouldn't admit it. Because of fan backlash. Actions create reactions, that's the life of a celebrity, as her fans it IS our business what she does because it affects the career we're fans of.

tl;dr: Ayu's image is currently imperfect, and as fans, we should discuss it, not push out those who are negative because they're "bad fans" or whatever