"Blue Bird" is the 40th single released by Ayumi Hamasaki. It was released on June 21, 2006. "Blue Bird" was Hamasaki's 15th consecutive single to top the Oricon and 27th #1 single in total. Initially planned to be a triple A-side single, it features two new songs, "Blue Bird" and "Beautiful Fighters". "Blue Bird" was the CM song for Zespri Gold Kiwifruit while "Beautiful Fighters" is featured on a Panasonic D-snap and D-dock commercial. A rearrangement of "Ladies Night", featured in her understood album, called "Ladies Night " is also featured on this single. A trance remix to "Blue Bird" is also on the single. On her official website, she describes "Blue Bird" as being a summer song, and "Beautiful Fighters" as being a song praising women. Blue Bird also reunited Hamasaki with the composer Dai. Blue Bird was the first time he composed a song for Hamasaki since "Will", which she co-composed under the name Crea. "Blue Bird" was Hamasaki's first single to be certified platinum since 2005's "Heaven" and was her last single to achieve platinum status until Mirrorcle World. The sales of "Blue Bird" made Hamasaki the first solo artist in Japan to sell over 20 million singles.
Music videos
The Blue BirdPV officially aired on SpaceShower TV on June 9, 2006. In the first scene, she is singing on an empty beach. She is then seen on a boat with friends. Throughout the video, it switches between the first setting, the second setting, and a third setting in which she is feasting and having fun with the same friends. There is also a fourth setting where she sings on a cliff. The PV was filmed in Guam. The Beautiful Fighters PV officially aired on SpaceShower TV on June 12, 2006. In the first scene, fans anticipate entering what looks to be an arena, while three dancers stand outside the door. The fans rush in to watch Ayumi and a group of dancers atop a stage dancing and standing on multi-colored cars. The video switches between scenes of the five female dancers' stories of misfortune at different jobs. The dancers are shown as a delivery person, a waitress, a pool-cleaner, and a painter; Ayumi plays as a cashier at a mart. At the end, each person involved in the dancers' mess-up is shown dancing in the crowd and then each of the dancers, along with Ayumi, circles the stage in her own car.
The single debuted at #1 on the Japanese "Oricon" chart. It outsold the #2 single by 104,268 copies. The first track "Blue Bird" debuted at #1 on iTunes Japan and the second track "Beautiful Fighters" debuted at #10. The single recorded the third highest first-week sales for a single by a Japanese female artist in 2006. In 2007 Avex reported that Blue Bird have sold 322,000 copies.
