(Miss)understood

(Miss)understood (stylized in all lowercase) is the seventh studio album by Japanese singer-songwriter Ayumi Hamasaki. It was released on New Year's Day 2006, by Avex Trax. Hamasaki acted as the album's sole lyricist, as she had on all of her preceding albums. (Miss)understood marked new musical directions for Hamasaki: she explored new influences such as funk and used gospel choruses in some of the songs, foreign to her previous works. This was the result of her having heard compositions by Geo from the German based pop music project Sweetbox and asking him for his works. Subsequently, Hamasaki rewrote the lyrics entirely to fit (Miss)understood. Lyrically, the album was a departure from her previous work, My Story, which had been primarily autobiographical.

Where My Story had contained "musings about her past", Hamasaki wanted the lyricism on (Miss)understood to send a strong message to all women—to be a kind of "girls' talk" to give "moral support", while at the same time reminding women that there were times when they would feel weak and low. These themes, along with the album's funk influences, are epitomized on songs such as "Bold & Delicious" and "Ladies Night".

(Miss)understood was a commercial success, opening at number one in Japan (her seventh consecutive studio album to do so) with first-week sales of 653,830 copies. It went on to sell 877,433 copies throughout the fiscal year, receiving a Million certification from the RIAJ and became the 8th best-selling album of 2006 in Japan. It is, to date, her last Million-certified album. According to Avex, it is also her first album to fail to hit over a million sales in Japan according to Oricon. By 2007 (Miss)understood sold 1,030,000 copies in Japan.