from here to here

The week began with Matt posting caps from this week's Meringue, Aya looking "normal" for once. Or as WyldKat and Tuhis joked: I really like Aya's new fashion statement as well. It says "I'm not a dork." - Or: "My wardrobe assistant got off crack."

mister.mori provided a funny note from the June 18 Nakano GAM concert he visited: I'm sure the MC segments in the GAM concert DVD are different than the ones i saw live, especially because if i remember correctly, they pulled questions randomly out of a box. but anyways, in one of the MC segments in the live i went to, one of the questions for Aya was, "when you become an old grandma, which type of hair style would you choose? the "onion"-bun hair style, or purple hair?" (note: in Japan, it's not unusual to see old old grandmas (whose hair ought to be white) to have their hair dyed an outrageous hue of purple ) Aya chose the purple hair!
Matt's rather bad manip was topped by tern's better one (here are the originals: . mister.mori also discovered Aya presenting a (business?) card to one of the Rajikaru mods during a September 3 episode. It features a picture of one of the famous Himeji castles and her name (though the fact that they didn't blank out the phone number is strange ... (anyone care to call it? :-)

jw042693 reminded us of Aya's short "Tokyo Boogie Woogie" performance during the 2005 Utagassen and Marcello posted a pic from the macfan site (didn't Aya believe that compouter viruses were contageous? :-)

Matt reported two interesting additions to the RS folders: A review of Sukedachi from The Solomon Style with Aya looking absolutely stunning (and being cracked up by Takehi as usual :-)and a live performance by Yuko Nakazawa (from the 2002 HP One Happy Summer Day Concert) in which Aya and Miki served as background dancers. Lol

mister.mori started a little debate about the correct date of Aya's sixth entertainment anniversary. Both N4S and Alien tracked it down to the Hello! Project 2001 Sugoizo! 21seiki concert which ran from January 2, to February 25, 2001.
Alien posted a DVD cover pic and N4S a veoh link to a concert clip:

Matt then reported the upload to the RS folders of Aya's first appearance at Hello Morning on Sep 2, 2001 singing Love Namidairo:

A kawaii early pic was broadcast during a recent "Rajikaru" episode: and 4Gaki63 wanted an ID for this pic and her age at the time
jw042693's reply: It's from her first photobook (Aya on Vacation) which was released in December of 2001. You do the math!

shindou was kind enough to provide us with a summary of Aya's apperance on the August episode of musiG. Highly interesting stuff: Aya has a sister 1 year younger than her. They often get a crush on the same person. This started when they were in kindergarten. They were raised like twins, wearing similar clothes, etc, but their faces were different. Eventhough both of them pine for the same guy, the sis is the one that snatches him. Aya has a feminine face while her sis has a face of someone who has "guts". The reactions were funny when she said that since they were confused at the meaning and also cause she used that word for a girl. To make it clearer, Aya's sis has a bit more masculine face and her personality is also like this.
Their "type" is a person who is slender & tall, can do sports, and would be good if he was good in school academically. Like the person who's the most popular in class. They talk to each other about guys that catch their eye. For Aya, once she feels that way about a guy, she has trouble to approach him. But her sis goes straight for the guy. Saying things like, "I'm big sis' younger sister." "I'm Matsuura." So in essence, using Ayaya's fame to get the guy. Before she knows it, her sis becomes friends and then is going out with the guy. That scenario happens a lot to Aya, that her sister gets to know the guy before her.
Last year they were on the phone and her sis told Aya that, "there's something I want to say to you, you remember Takuya?" Aya didn't remember him. He was the first guy that she got a crush on, when she was in kindergarten. That guy also went for the sis. Her sis happened to bump into him again and he's the one that remembered her first. And now they're dating. Aya was so shocked, her first crush, now is with her sister. She wanted to remember him fondly, as the first crush from kindergaten. And now to think of him, beside her sister. She saw a picture of them, with their cheeks pressed together in the shot.

WyldKat remarked: Wow, I would have never figured Aya as being shy around anybody. Guess that's just her stage persona. She always seems so sure of herself and confident. Guess she's human after all. And Matt thought that Aya never did strike me as the shy type either. But maybe is someone who is straight forward (and bossy) when it comes to her career, but has problems when it comes to open herself up emotionally and becoming vulnerable. In that regard her relationship with Miki is different as she doesn't have to be afraid of letting go with a fellow female.

Alienpyon brought us the good news of the 2008 Aya calendar ready to be ordered:

Egao's fate didn't fare well in the rankings, and a discussion followed whether it would have been better with a more upbeat song while Alien was angry that people instead of clicking the "order now!" button, they hit the "download" button!

Matt reported the uploads of the NEO DVD rip (centering on the 2005 Captain Kouen concert) which had been posted by Himalia as an iso last week and the new Gogo no Kocha commercial (which had been discovered by sville1999): . Wanderer-V2 posted a pic from Aya's performance of "Yeah! Meccha Holiday" during the Hello! Project 2003 Winter Tour -Tanoshinjatte masu . All her songs during that concert (Sougen no Hito and The Bigaku being the other two) were put on veoh by Nights4Saturn:

Matt followed with a string of official images...

...while wondering if anyone had the September 26, 2002 Utaban/Tokuban episode: Well, jw042693 did, and it's now in the RS folders :-))) As is the rip of the GAM 2007 Concert Tour DVD

atstrbcks was inquirung about this Pretz commercial: to which Matt replied: I have it, but I have only uploaded a few commercials so far as I still haven't gotten round to organizing them. Once I have done that (hopefully next month) I will upload them (and I think I'm 90% complete on all Aya cms)

Wanderer posted three images: Red is the color of fire...fire is hot. Ayaya is fire and hot
Who doesn´t want to change place with Miki. I'm meltingThats what I call kawaii

And mister.mori posted the link to the Kirin cm page with the latest spots: the other guy in the CM is Ru Ooshiba who is a comedian/talent of sorts. there's a play on words because the name of the new beverage is Daburu Berugamotto.

Concluding the week were the caps from the new Meringue, with Aya lauging a lot and dressing nicely again:

Cya next week :-)))