TeamAyu

TeamAyu is Ayumi Hamasaki's official fan club. It launched in 1999 as Ayumi Hamasaki Online Fan Club, then re-launched as TeamAyu in June 2000.

This page is incomplete and will be updated with more detailed information in the future.

History

Screenshot of the Fan Club section of Ayu's official website, circa 1999

Ayumi Hamasaki Online Fan Club

The fan club began accepting members in July 1999, and officially opened for access in September. A subscription to the avex alert! service was a prerequisite for fan club access.

The fee was 6,000 yen, to be made via money transfer at the post office; after making the transfer you were instructed to e-mail a fan club e-mail address with your information to finalize your membership; once you received your confirmation e-mail, which could take up to two weeks, you could log in to the ayu fan club with your avex alert! login information.

Official Benefits List as of September 1999

• Issuance of a premium membership card*
• Participation in Ayu BBS/Chat system
• Ayu original photo gallery
• Ayu Diary
• Downloading screensavers, etc. (in the "ACCESSORIES" section)
• Plus the promise of more services in the future, at the time "still under planning and production".

*While this was listed as a benefit from the beginning, it would be about six months before physical membership cards were finally sent out to members.

The Ayu BBS/Chat did include Ayu making posts on the BBS (as a "Message from Ayu" class of post), which were like blog entries.

According to TA Magazine issue 1, the first AYU'S DIARY video was posted on October 9th, and was called "First Diary".

The website also included a "REPORTS" section, not listed as a feature, as of the release of LOVEppears. This section was any combination of photos, text, and video, much of which was publicly-available material (like CMs and PVs) merely put here for ease of access or in case you missed it. The first fan-club exclusive report was "Ayu's New York Photo Diary," uploaded October 9th or 10th, 1999.

TeamAyu Relaunch

As of January 29, 2000, the fan club was given the official name "ayumi hamasaki Online Fan Club 'TeamAyu'". On March 4 it was announced that membership cards would finally be sent out and that members should double check their shipping address; they were mailed out on March 31st in time for arrival around April 3rd. This initial membership card was packed in a small thick cardboard folio with a business card sized CD-ROM that included a greeting from Ayu and PC wallpapers of 1999 behind-the-scenes photos.

In July, the TA site had a short "hidden photo" game/event, where photos of Ayu were hidden somewhere on the site. After about nine days of hidden photos, the images' locations were published, and this began the feature that would become the long-running "Today's 1 Photo" feature on the site.

Benefits as of October 2000

• Issuance of premium membership card
• Participation in MEMBERS BBS
• Report delivered in video format
• PHOTO GALLERY
• Screen saver & wallpaper download
• Invitation to watch TV programs, etc.
• Concert ticket priority reservation

Ayu's Diary was also still included, but was not called out specifically on the Information page.

Magazine Era (2001-2005)

In early 2001, around the release of A BEST, TeamAyu finally got its own TeamAyu.com website, rather than the club being a subsection of Ayu's official site. You could now join the club via a web form instead of sending an e-mail (although payment was still made separately from the web form), and avex's alert! system no longer existed and was therefore not required anymore. Membership was also now separated out into two tiers, "A course" for 6,000 yen and "B course" for 4,000 yen. The higher-cost "A course" was the only part that allowed for access to the members-only TeamAyu website. Both tiers gave members access to the official TeamAyu magazine, published every few months, and bonus merchandise.

Some of the behind-the-scenes photo galleries from the original Online Fan Club site were migrated over to Ayu's public official website as additional "Special Issue" reports. Those included the WHATEVER video shoots, the ayu-mi-x CM shoot, the LOVE~Destiny~ music video shot, the TO BE jacket photo and video shoots, the Boys & Girls video shoot, the A single jacket photo shoot, and the A Film for XX cover & insert photo shoot.

Benefits as of April 2001 (A-Course)

• Original goods as a bonus for joining
• Issuance of membership card
• Published newsletter
• Advance reservation of concert tickets
• Info on public recording of TV events, etc.
• Mail order sales of original merchandise
• Participation in MEMBERS BBS
• Report delivered via video footage
• PHOTO GALLERY
• Download screensavers & wallpapers

Ayu's Diary and "Today's Photo" were also included as part of the A-Course web site but were not called out specifically on the Information page.

Benefits as of April 2001 (B-Course)

• Original goods as a bonus for joining
• Issuance of membership card
• Published newsletter
• Advance reservation of concert tickets
• Info on public recording of TV events, etc.
• Mail order sales of original merchandise

The MEMBERS BBS on the A-Course website was closed in Spring 2003.

fc.avex.jp Era (2006-2013)

The TeamAyu website was revamped in early 2006, migrating to avex's newly-created internal fanclub organization, and most of the members-only website contents from before that relaunch were not retained, and have been lost.

Benefits as of May 2012

• Issuance of original membership card
• Issuance of membership benefits and continuation benefits
• Published TeamAyu Magazine (newsletter)
  • Planned to be published twice a year

• Issuance of Original Novelty items twice a year
  • The "Original Novelty" benefits are common to A and B courses, but with a more "luxurious" version for A course members.
• Issuance of greeting cards twice a year
• Access to A course member-only site
  • ayu's DIARY
  • MOVIE & VOICE
  • DEAR ayu
  • Screensaver downloads
• Advance reservation sales for concert tickets
  • In the event of a ticket lottery, priority will be given to course A
• Mail order sales of concert goods and FC original goods
• Priority invitations to public TV and radio programs, events, etc.
• Receive the latest information via e-mail

International Launch (2014)

At Ayu's 2014 a-nation appearance in Singapore, it was announced that TeamAyu would relaunch with an entirely new website. This site migrated much of the old site's content into an Archive section. While it was a lower cost subscription (down to 3700 yen per year), and did officially allow access from international fans now, TA members no longer received the magazine or physical merchandise, or a physical membership card, replacing the latter with a QR code to be scanned at concert venues for any exclusive benefits.

TeamAyu App Era (2023-)

Now that avex no longer used Global-FC.com for fan club services and instead migrated their fan clubs to a new company, the TeamAyu website services closed as of June 2023 to move all users to an app-based service instead. The price of membership tripled to about 10,000 yen per year, phone & PC wallpapers were eliminated as a benefit, and the app does not allow for any auto-translation service. While there are exclusive behind-the-scenes videos, there is no way to watch them on a screen any larger than your phone. In 2024 a scratch card gacha feature was introduced, where for a small microtransaction fee members could try their luck at winning prizes.

Contents

No currently-available contents will ever be shared here.

Much of what's listed about the fan club's earliest contents is only known thanks to Wayback archives of news updates posted on the old Ayu fansite Ayu! Love! Ayu!. Thank you, Joijoi, for documenting this even if some fans complained about it at the time.

Ayu's Diary

Sometimes these are video diary entries, sometimes they seem to be text entries. A lot of times it's unclear. When I know for sure something is a video diary, I will make note of that.

[1999-10-10] Ayu announces that she'll be holding her first national tour in the spring, teases that there may be a photobook coming out soon, and that a song called "LOVE~refrain~" exists.

[1999-12-04] Regarding Kouhaku appearance.

[1999-12-14] Video Diary of Ayu's comments after the "First Book 'A'" handshake event.

[1999-12-15] Regarding waratte iitomo.

[1999-12-16] Video letter (unsure if this is actually in the Ayu's Diary section). Ayu says she's currently shooting the jacket photo for "Fly high".

[2000-01-04] Video (unsure if it's in the Ayu's Diary section). Happy New Year message recorded from the CDTV Special dressing room on January 2nd.

[2000-01-15] Video Diary from right after the "A clips" home video jacket shoot.

[2000-01-25] Video diary after the "Fly high" video shoot (although we don't yet know what song the PV is for).

[2000-02-09] Video Diary from after "ayu-mi-x II" jacket photo shoot.

[2000-02-16] Valentine's day message. Ayu says she's in a hotel (not in Tokyo), working on the next song, and it'll be an hour drive to the studio the next day. She also mentions that her new TV commercial (she doesn't say what the CM is for, but in retrospect it's the first Tu-Ka CM) will be starting that month.

[2000-03-14] A mysterious poem that might possibly be lyrics.

[2000-03-14] Video diary from the studio during the vogue/Far away/SEASONS single jacket shoot

[2000-03-18] Video diary during the concert tour 2000 pamphlet photo shoot

[2000-03-24] Video diary explaining that the "trilogy" she mentioned on a recent BBS report is "vogue," to be released in April, "Far away," to be released in May, and a third single in June. She also asks for fans to post in the BBS what they want from the TeamAyu website renewal planned for mid-April.

[2000-04-05] Video letter from the Hey! Hey! Hey! dressing room

Photo Gallery

[1999-10-10] Momo no Tennensui & Ringo no Tennensui CM shoot

[1999-11-05] ayumi hamasaki Secret Live at Akasaka Blitz

[1999-11-17] Shibuya Tower Records surprise promotional appearance, August 13 1999

[1999-11-25] Avex J-Pop Night before show backstage shot

[1999-11-25] 2000 Calendar shoot, August 1999

[1999-12-14] "appears" single jacket photo shoot

[1999-12-23] "kanariya" single jacket photo shoot

[2000-02-25] "appears" music video shoot

[2000-02-25] "kanariya" music video shoot

[2000-03-01] "Fly high" music video shoot

Reports

[1999-11-10] "appears" full PV

[2000-02-15] "A clips" cover photo

[2000-02-16] "Fly high" full PV

[2000-02-17] "Fly high" 30s CM

[2000-02-19] concert tour 2000 flyer images (front, back, and double-page spread)

[2000-02-19] concert tour 2000 30s CM

[2000-02-22] "A clips" promotional video

[2000-02-29] Tu-Ka TV Commercial shoot behind-the-scenes photos, commentary, and possibly video?

[2000-03-04] ayu-mi-x II CM

[2000-03-16] Tu-Ka TV Commercial shoot behind-the-scenes (part 1)

[2000-03-17] Tu-Ka TV Commercial shoot behind-the-scenes (part 2)

[2000-03-25] Tu-Ka TV CM 15s and 30s versions.

[2000-03-28] Five minute video of Ayu playing Tekken 2 and getting very invested in it apparently.

[2000-03-31] Tu-Ka "Development version" TV CM 15s and 30s versions (on TV since the 25th)

Accessories/Wallpaper/Screen Saver/Decoration

The specific name of Ayu's desktop customization downloads section has changed and shifted its content focus repeatedly over the years. For simplicity, I'm keeping them all listed together here.

[1999-09-xx] The site probably launched with some content here. There is at least one screensaver, I believe.

[2000-01-22] Three new wallpapers added. (per Joijoi at Ayu! Love! Ayu!, this was the first update to this section in awhile.)

[2000-02-09] Screensaver version 2 added.