and then

Mirrorcle World single has made its debut on the Oricon Daily charts at number 1.

Additionally, ayu-mi-x 6 -GOLD- and -SILVER- entered the weekly album charts at number 6 and 8, respectively. They are at positions 8 and 9 on the new Billboard Japan Top Albums chart.

• See ayu-mi-x 6 in Ayu-VogueNET’s discography
• See Mirrorcle World in Ayu-VogueNET’s discography
• Oricon Style
• Billboard Japan

Additionally, ayu trance 3 and ayu-ro-mix 2 are also up for purchase.

Now only days away from the official release, Ayu’s official site has updated with streaming previews from the upcoming remix collection ayu-mi-x 6

• Official Site

Virtually every local version of the iTunes Music Store now has Ayu’s latest original album GUILTY in its database! Please support Ayu in your local music market!

In other news, Ayu’s 2007 Asia Tour DVD is out now in Japan!

Sponichi Annex has posted an interesting article about Ayu’s career overseas. Although the main focus was the in-depth involvement of Western DJs on ayu-mi-x 6, the article did give us one interesting tidbit:

今年の元日に発売したアルバム「ＧＵＩＬＴＹ」の収録曲は１２日に、日本人アーティスト史上最多タイとなる世界２５カ国へ配信されることが決定。うち欧米諸国は１９カ国となっている

The album GUILTY, released New Years Day of this year, will be released in 25 additional countries on the 12th. 19 of these will be Western nations.

Mark you calendars! It’ll be interesting to see what comes of this article–if anything.

• Sponichi Annex: Ayu International Remix Album Release (by way of AHS)

I’m not entirely sure when this happened, but the tracklistings for the upcoming ayu-mi-x 6 albums have been reworked. Although there are no new or missing tracks that I can see, the official site changed the overall presentation of the list, including the order and how the remixes are named.

• See the updated ayu-mi-x 6 -GOLD- in Ayu-VogueNET’s discography
• See the updated ayu-mi-x 6 -SILVER- in Ayu-VogueNET’s discography

Ayu’s official site made back-to-back updates announcing three new releases. Ayu’s first international tour, 2007 A ~Tour of Secret~ is finally coming to DVD March 12th! It’ll be packaged with a new documentary about this milestone concert tour.

The next two are part of a collection: the sixth ayu-mi-x. Nearly five years after the release of the last ayu-mix, ayu-mi-x 6 is finally set to be released March 26. ayu-mi-x 6 will be available in two formats: gold and silver, each with a different tracklisting. Unlike many of the past ayu-mi-x collections, both versions have dance mixes.

• 3/12 LIVE DVD『ayumi hamasaki ASIA TOUR 2007 A 〜Tour of Secret〜 “LIVE + DOCUMENTARY”』
• 3/26 Remix Album『ayu-mi-x 6 - GOLD-』『ayu-mi-x 6 -SILVER-』

This news is arguably dwarfed by the blog post read round the world. Since the original Team Ayu post, the story has been picked up by news agencies the world over.

• Japanese Pop Star Deaf In One Ear (BBC NEWS)
• Japan’s pop princess ‘Ayu’ goes half deaf: blog (AFP via Yahoo! News)

I noticed there were a lot of people coming through Ayu-Vogue searching for the results of the GUILTY drawings at CDJapan.jp and Yesasia.com. I don’t think I won anything, but poking around fan forums like AHS suggest that

• CDJapan.jp winners received e-mail notification*
• Yesasia.com winners had an additional item added to their order (accessible from their customer account)

Good luck, everyone!

*Edit: Oh! Mine was just delivered (pre-ordered from CDJapan) and it did come with “F Prize: Poster”. There’s still hope for those of you who haven’t received a congratulatory e-mail from CDJapan!

After a surprise early release, GUILTY secured the top spot on the daily charts. Hopefully it will be able to maintain its position until its official Janauary 01 street date. Congrats Ayu!