First off came a series of new official pictures, the first eight belonging to the 2008 calendar sets, the next commemorating the 7th anniversary of the Hello Shop and stuff.
Quintaxos posted a youtube link to a medley from the 2006 Spring Tour with Country Musume. Partly blond (though as Kreuz Asakura pointed out with extensions :-)
And while ChobiMM3 admitted that she had the choreography of Ne~e memorized yossha posted another youtube link to the "Don't know Why" PV soup preferring Aya over Norah Jones. Which as usual brought on a little discussion about the topic :-) mangomalte remarked: as a big fan of Norah Jones i'll have to say that Aya isn't so much better than her, although she is better. but, her cover of Don't Know Why is almost unbearable... i pretty much never listen to it, although i love the rest of the album. i do agree about the video, it is really nice, if only she'd done the song better. if she's going to sing english she should sing something written for her or if she has to cover she should cover something less famous (or at least something i don't listen to ). i think she should stick to japanese. soup countered: I think Norah Jones is dead boring Ayaya breaths life into this song. Sure her english is not perfect, but it doesn't bother me at all. I love her voice and she seems to have fun singing it. Though later admitting that I guess I'm just a blind/deaf Ayaya fan. I like everything she does. He got support from Chobi, though Matt thought that I love how she sings "Don't Know Why". Musically I mean. Hell, I had to google for the lyrics to understand WHAT she was singing most of the time. Why don't they hire Ayaka as an English teacher to at least get the pronounciation right. But then some of the English lines in Tsunku's lyrics are total nonsense too, so it might be some sort of master plan. But she should stick to Japanese... And Vermillion topped it when he added I want to hear Norah Jones sing one of Aya's songs to see how good her Japanese pronounciation is! which prompted Alien to remark She wouldn't risk 20 million copies just to make a ridicule of herself singing in Japanese. But it would be totally fun to see her dropping the towel (ooops!) in a PV of a jazz version of Momoiro Kataomoi Fumi is absolutely correct when saying: instead of sing American jazz songs in English, some excellent person must translate to Japanese and she will sing in her own language, this is best, because her audience will understand better, and she will have deeper emotion about song. Translation must not be word by word, but poem into poem as I always believe.
Anyhow soup posted the youtube link to the Tsuppuri Glico Pretz spot (just click it the link - I think three vids on this side are enough :-)
ILoveMico
found out that it was Marcello's birthday and persuaded Aya to send a greeting:
The next link came from zam, a cute ice tea commercial: zam just loved the short skirt, and btw there is also a ...ahem... frank parody by AV star Ran Monbu in the archives as well... Laurie33361 especially loved when she says ''ish te'' at the end, and as silenceglaive added the ending "aishite" / "icetea" mix is cute
Matt gave himself an early Xmas present with the Hello! TV DVD, a funny parody of a TV program, Aya taking part as host of a game show with Melon Kinenbi and as damsel in distress in a dorama:
Alienpyon emptied Matt's purse even more when he posted a CD Japan link to the Love Gift 2004 (complete with an Aya baseball cap) which will be presented in a few weeks time. And mangomalte reminded us of the other Love Gifts (the video for 2004 is already in the archives as well).
soup posted another youtube link, this time for her September 21, 2003 Expo performance of Sanpo & Tonari no Totoro (also on veoh). zam explained: Ayaya sings 2 songs from Tonari no Totoro... 1st song is Sampo and the 2nd is Tonari no Totoro man Ayaya sounds better than the original!! The structure in the background during Tonari no Totoro is a replica of Howl's moving castle. This gotta be Ghibli's museum!
mister.mori
then reported Aya's appearance on a two hour "Image Ranking" special
of "Downtown
DX" 
,
complete with (tasteful) cap :-)
Coming back
to the Center-In commercials ChobiMM3 correctly insisted wouldn't
the Center-In commericial make more sense if it was for a tampon, since that
actually does the centering it? and Nights4Saturn found an interview
on the
sponsor's website: I think she looks absolutely
ravishing in the yellow!. And silenceglaive added: Yes
that combination is really nice looking .. pretty old style .. I like the hair
band thingi 
Next came
another round of calendar officials, with a spectacular film noir hommage: 
Last set reminded Chobi of Audrey Hepburn in "Breakfast at Tiffany"
Fumi's insistence that jazz was Aya's destiny prompted some protest from silenceglaive: I don't want Ayaya to be a Jazz singer .. since I do not like Jazz. But Matt was quick to ensure Well, there's Jazz and there's Jazz. I hate free jazz but I like swing for example. And don't worry it won't happen soon, but given the early expiration date of idols she has to think about what to do in the future... which brought on some suggestions by silence (Maybe some Talkshow or so named "Ayaya no Kimochi" or so) and Fumi ("Aya's Big Band Showdown!" She will become age 22 next year, most idol pop singer careers become slow, and they don't have career after age 25, Matt is correct: Matsuura has very much to contribute to musical world for many many years, but she will do this only if she changes her product to music for adults, same as Tomiko Van did this last year, and Namie Amuro did this several years ago, also Hamasaki and MIka Nakashima and PUFFY and etc. Each must become what they are best for, Namie became Hip Pop R&B and Van became small jazz blues, and Matsuura is best for big show like American jazz women). Fumi also enhanced her argument with a picture:
usagi no kami went on: I believe this to be true as
well, especially after Mr. Mori pointed out that Aya has many female fans her
own age which suggests that her audience is not outgrowing her but growing with
her, and Laurie333361 concluded I think
she would be a great jazz singer ^^ As
long as she sings things she wants to sing, she'll be great. *I just hope she
doesn't want to be a rapper (she was really good in get up!rapper though) !
Well, that's it for this edition.
Cya next week :-))).