[Utada Hikaru] You're not Japanese, and she can tell, in her 36th thread!

[ALPHY]

Everyone should start sending Hikki emails from her official website to get her to announce something! I'm so over this wait. Rock'n'Roll Circus isn't going to keep me entertained for very long, haha.

[Picaflor 7/4]

Dear Utada,
"GET YOUR ASS OFF YOUR COUCH, PUT DOWN THE BON BONS, AND START MAKING NEW MUSIC OR WE WILL DESTROY KUMA CHANG!"
-♥

[primavera♥]

^ ahahaha ^____^

that would be the best really.

[JackieRos]

Originally Posted by Picaflor 7/4

Dear Utada,
"GET YOUR ASS OFF YOUR COUCH, PUT DOWN THE BON BONS, AND START
MAKING NEW MUSIC OR WE WILL DESTROY KUMA CHANG!"
-♥

[2]

love it

[gallowsCalibrator]

Originally Posted by Picaflor 7/4

Dear Utada,
"GET YOUR ASS OFF YOUR COUCH, PUT DOWN THE BON BONS, AND START MAKING NEW MUSIC OR WE WILL DESTROY KUMA CHANG!"
-♥

Lol, yeah

[AyUta]

Originally Posted by Picaflor 7/4

Dear Utada,
"GET YOUR ASS OFF YOUR COUCH, PUT DOWN THE BON BONS, AND START MAKING NEW MUSIC OR WE WILL DESTROY KUMA CHANG!"
-♥

Haha, perfect.

[Pieces_of_SEVEN]

I just don't think she is anywhere near motivated enough to make anything.

[Polyrhythm]

Well....she just gave us a tour not too long ago by her standards...and just for the fans too. She needs a break I guess. Break....and then pull off another best selling album of the decade please!

[Keiichi_JPU]

For comparison.. After Utada United it took her 2 months to release a new single. However, this single is Boku wa Kuma, which I guess doesn't really count since she didn't do that much for it. (no PV featuring her, no cover artwork featuring her, hardly any promotion).

Her first proper single was about 5 months after Utada United.. which was Flavor Of Life.

If she follows this pattern we could expect something in July.. But I have a feeling it'll take her a bit longer this time since she's not really into the Japanese "spotlight" anymore.. I mean Utada United was a major Japan tour following a hugely succesful Japanese album, so I can imagine she was all over the news and charts. but In The Flesh was more like a detour. A small tour following a mildly succesful album. (Which doesn't say anything about quality btw!! Love the album and LOVE that I got to see her!! )

But I'm happy with anything that comes before the end of 2010.. even if it's just an announcement or a proper confirmation a new single is coming someday!

[ストロボ・EdGE]

Don't get me wrong, I love Hikki, but do you guys also feel she seems a bit pretentious in her English language interviews?

[primavera♥]

^ i dunno. *shrugs* that could be true. i hardly remember english (or any for that matter) interviews. shes just there and its like. . .yeah. *talks about music and blah. conquer america . . .eventually*

anyhow i agree with Pieces of SEVEN. her music sounds like its an obligation now. just her job to work hard and produce something that sounds perfect. i want that old hikki emotion that hasnt shown through in last 2 albums. like HS was pretty but it was just there. UB was moreso cuz i felt something more there.


oh and if Boku wa Kuma was what she did first (god knows how that placed so well lol.) then she can make a boku wa kuma ~episode II~. hikki gives birth to new bear twins to annoy the hell out of kuma so he commits suicide. then no more pointless (to me whose 15 and not into childrens songs) kuma songs in the future. or they can just introduce kuma to winnie the pooh. *shrugs* (i think i need to slow down on the drugs today)

[AyUta]

Meaning she exaggerates? How so?

[Keiichi_JPU]

Originally Posted by StrawbariSnowAyumi

then no more pointless (to me whose 15 and not into childrens songs) kuma songs in the future.

I'm turning 19 this year and I really like boku wa kuma.. I never skip it when I listen to HS, it's such a cute little song!

Dunno what that makes me.. xD a child, perhaps. haha.

[Zeke.]

Yeah I was drunk once and listening to Take 5, as that is my favorite Hikki song ever, and Boku wa Kuma follows Take 5 and it actually made me feel like a little kid again listening to it. I enjoyed it. Lol.

[Keiichi_JPU]

yes, boku wa kuma is very refreshing after Take 5, which is quite a surreal, almost heavy song. And then boku wa kuma is all.. bright and simple. Simple and clean it really is.

gah this made me remember how perfect HS is as an album. I'm gonna listen to it without skipping tracks until I fall asleep <3

[bluegie]

Originally Posted by StrawbariSnowAyumi

was it really so super competitive? sadly i was like 6-7 yrd old and listened to the Backstreet boys in that era haha. i never saw the point of it. and overall it seemed pretty stupid to have rivalry between a mainly r&b and pop artist compared to ayu. i guess it mustve been painful huh?

My reply is long... so I make a spoiler tag for it..

Spoiler:

Here's the story:
After more than a year and a half of speculation, Toshiba finally announced hikki's 2nd album in the early Jan. Everyone in the hikki world was super excited since it took her long enough to release a new album (we were not used to her release pattern back in the old days). Then a day or two later, avex suddenly announced ayu would be going to released A BEST on 03.28.... wait that's the same day for Distance!! (And avex was really good at promotion. They released the first cm of A BEST as they announced the news. The one with pink lights making the A logo ). Then, the war began immediately between ayu and hikki fans, while the ayuhikki fans wondered why their beloved artists did that. Then the hype was a bit down in Feb. Everyone was speculating who would win in the end. The hype went 10 notches when the day was near, especially when avex did the countdown cms for A BEST (wow they're one of the best ayu cms ). The fans were scolding each other again as "ayu sounds terrible!! her voice is pitchy!!" (from hikki fans) and "hikki's fashion taste sucks!! her songs are overrated!!" (from ayu fans). In my heart, I wished hikki to win the chart since I became her fan before becoming ayu's fan, but somehow I felt so bad to see ayu losing. You know that is torturing.

To answer your point. It wasn't about what genre they were. Hikki was the top artist back then, and ayu was rising up to be another top artist. I think avex made that plan to test ayu's power and popularity. Ayu became really popular after LOVEppears but her selling power wasn't a guarantee until SEASONS (vogue and Far away were, while decent, not selling great during that era). Duty pushed her to the top, but she was still just one of those top selling artists. If avex didn't initiate the war, I dun think ayu would be linked to hikki since hikki was like the "god" of Japanese music around that time.

So this A BEST vs. Distance war created several records. The most important one is that both A BEST and Distance sold over 1.5 million copies on the 1st day, while Distance ended up selling over 3 million copies on the first week (new record). A BEST sold around 2.9 million copies as well. That's a freakin' selling power for both.

And for another question. If you've seen ayu's 2003 (or 2004?) documentary, you can see how crazy the promotion was. You can practically see ayu and hikki's billboard everywhere in Tokyo (especially ayu). They set up many temporary stands for selling cds all over the places. Ayu was practically on countless magazine covers (more than 10+ at least), and avex attacked the buyers with ayu's materials almost every month (evolution in Jan, ayu-mi-x III in Feb, NEVER EVER + A BEST in March, Endless sorrow in May, UNITE! in July, etc). Not to miss the ads and cms floating around (TU-KA, VISEE, Beauty Clinic, and Panasonic after mid 2001, etc). Oh and the Dome Tour. Yeah, it's hard to ignore ayu during that moment. That was really the golden era of ayu and hikki. While hikki's selling power was promising (heck, yearly album+single no. 1 in 2001, yearly no.1 album + single no. 2 in 2002, single no. 3 in 2003, album no. 1 in 2004), ayu was popular in another way (fashion queen... ayu desu; nail queen... ayu desu; magazine covers... ayu desu; plus yearly album no. 2 in 2001, 2002, and 2003; yearly no. 1 single in 2002, and she was guaranteed to have at least a spot in top 5 yearly singles).

Originally Posted by Polyrhythm

...lol...YAY Distance is #1 this week! Yay...then next week....WTF....it's #2....but YAY A-Best is #1....and next week....YAY again Distance is #1 again...but poor Ayu....ZOMG 4th week Distance is #2 again wtfx. LOL. Win win situation for both?

To be honest, I still dun understand how the heck ayu got weekly no. 1 on the second week. She had only ONE day no. 1 during the second week (first day on the 2nd week). The rest went to hikki (6 days no. 1). So when the chart updated and A BEST was the weekly no. 1, I was very surprised by that. But I was glad, because both hikki and ayu got weekly no. 1 .

[Polyrhythm]

Distances record...the first week sales one, I never really understood. Wikipedia is quite vague. Did it set a record for just Japan or the world?

[Andrenekoi]

Originally Posted by ストロボ・EdGE

Don't get me wrong, I love Hikki, but do you guys also feel she seems a bit pretentious in her English language interviews?

I do... and on her japanese interviews too... But really, the girl was on the top of the world when she was 15 xD

[Picaflor 7/4]

Originally Posted by Keiichi_JPU

yes, boku wa kuma is very refreshing after Take 5, which is quite a surreal, almost heavy song. And then boku wa kuma is all.. bright and simple. Simple and clean it really is.

gah this made me remember how perfect HS is as an album. I'm gonna listen to it without skipping tracks until I fall asleep <3

I guess I can live with it since it's just one song, but if she decides to make more cutesy, pointless, children songs, then I'm gonna have to destroy her stuffed animal for her own good. I want more songs about passion, and death, and love. not about how a bear hates fried shrimp and probably used to be chocolate along the line of reincarnation. But like i said, it was just one song, a breather song I guess, not everything has to be serious. but for now on. She needs to lock her bear in a closet and stop singing about it, and drawing pictures of it, and featuring it in her music videos, and photoshoots, and talk about it in her blog, and throwing baseballs at her concert with a picture of him on them. Chuichi, her very own creation, doesn't even get as much love as this "Made in China" plushie.

[bluegie]

Originally Posted by Polyrhythm

Distances record...the first week sales one, I never really understood. Wikipedia is quite vague. Did it set a record for just Japan or the world?

I'm not really sure about that, but I don't really believe about "the highest selling first week album worldwide" unless there's an absolute proof. Being the highest first week album in Japan is already a big thing. I dun think people can break her following records until another miracle appears:

- Highest selling album (First Love, 7.6 million copies at least)
- Highest first day selling album (Distance, with over 1.5 million copies)
- Highest first week (Distance, 3 million copies)

It will be really hard to break those records...