aleyna lectures

np. 織田哲郎 – 翼を広げて (DEEN-cover)

I don’t normally write about 倖田來未 [Koda Kumi] unless it’s about charts, but since people over @ JDF freaked out after some misinterpretations, I don’t think it’ll hurt if I post this here too.

Follow up for clarifications etc.

倖田來未 [Koda Kumi] has been one of the most successful Japanese female solo-artists during the last few years.
Link to her English wikipedia-page with listed sales here, click.

To put it short, earlier this week in a radio-show ‘All Night Nippon’ (which is the most popular radio-show in whole Japan) she insulted all Japanese women that are older than 35, saying that after reaching that age the “amnionic fluids get rotten and you become dirty”. That is a rough translation from the clip, but pretty clear for it’s message.
When now some western people might think that “what’s the big deal? Bet everyone in America has said something even worse than that.”, that is beside the point.
This is Japan we’re talking about and Japanese women are very touchy about the subject. And she just basically told everyone over 35 that they are something dirty. Not to even mention the issue about Japanese women + career&family.

From the tape you can clearly hear that she didn’t actually mean this to come out the way it did. She is just big-mouthed and the kansai-ben (a “rough” dialect) she uses is definetely not helping the case.
That, however, is no excuse.
It was very wrong and extremely careless of Koda to say anything like that, and it’s even worse when she is mostly an idol of young girls. In Japan, an idol is an idol and negative comments and/or attitude do not lead to anything good.

She released her album ‘Kingdom’ just a few days ago, having gained the following, respectable sales ‘to-date:
84,116 + 61,034 + 38,530 + 23,486 (x1.7) = 352,182.
Sales-drop is expectable for today’s numbers that will come out tomorrow, since this was in the news yesterday-evening.

Also, her company Avex panicked and to avoid anyone questioning Koda about the matter (and to show the public that they’re punishing Koda from her actions), they’ve called off all promotion of the album. Also a few of Koda’s projects (f.e. with Visée, a make-up-company) have been erased.

I don’t know how this “temporary suspension” of Koda will come out. At the moment there are rumours of her 2008-tour to be cancelled, but on the other hand.. there are always rumours in the J-ent-world.

The official apologies on her minimal-made Official homepage.

.

To an article about the case (in Japanese, no new info provided) on Sanspo.