A (Single)

"A (エー)" is Ayumi Hamasaki's tenth mainline avex trax single, and her second 5" CD Maxi Single. It is her best selling single with sales totalling over 1.6 million per Oricon.

The title is a stylized letter "A" made of the combination of a pi symbol (𝜋) and the right-side half of what would later become Ayu's usual torii-inspired "A" logo. The use of 𝜋 ties into the release's themes of circular movement and going in cycles.

Infobox

• Initial release date: August 11, 1999
• First week sales (per Oricon):
• Total sales (per Oricon):
• Weeks on chart:

Background and Release

During the Spring and Summer of 1999, Ayu starred in several TV commercials featuring then-new songs. The first of these was a commercial for JT's Momo no Tennensui drink featuring "Trauma" in May. In or around June, "End roll 'HAL's Mix'" was used in an ad for Morinaga's Kongari Chocolat seasonal confection. Around the same time, the first of two ads for Honda's Giorno Crea scooter featuring "too late" aired. And in July, we returned to momoten with new song "monochrome" and got a second version of the Giorno Crea CM with "too late".

July saw only the release of "Boys & Girls", being used at the time in an AUBE cosmetics commercial, and none of the above songs were used as a coupling or b-side track. Fan discussion during this era is mostly lost to time, but it's easy to see that fans assumed an album must be coming.

Instead, A was released on August 11th, during what was still an active promotional cycle for Boys & Girls. As a result, some magazines used their monthly Ayu feature as a way to cover both releases; but many magazines didn't do an A-specific feature at all. Magazine advertisements do exist for the single but I have not been able to find what publications they were found in (although it's likely they were found in weekly entertainment publications like Oricon Week: The Ichiban or Weekly The Television since monthly magazines I have don't include any ads for "A").

Giveaway Items

Aside from the poster shown here, I'm not sure what other promotional giveaway items exist for this release.

The phone strap shown here, if official, was likely a giveaway item for "A" given the font used.