Crazy Nut Threatens To Murder NMB48, Jurina & Kanon

A sick and very disturbed individual posted a worrying threatening entry on Wikipedia that he would set fire to the NMB Theater tomorrow night at 7.15pm killing all of the NMB48 members and it’s audience and then turn his attention to SKE48 member Jurina by setting her school alight midday on Monday with her in it. But that’s not the end of it as there’s also a threat to Kanon Kimoto by torching her house as well. Whether this is a strange joke or not, it’s not very nice to see things like this and I hope management take precautions. You just cannot take threats like this lightly – there are weirdos around who would do something insane like this. I only hope police catch this person quickly.

Yonechan/Nacchan In DEEP Shit!!

So here we have the first big breaking AKB48 rumour scandal of 2012 which has set the wotasphere alight today and it involves Yonechan and Nacchan. It appears that those troublemakers over at 2ch have found Yonechan’s personal twitter and mixi account and she mentions a boyfriend for 4 years that she just broke up with in an entry, looking for a new boyfriend and a possible sexfriend as well. Of course rumours are just rumours without any evidence but there’s some photos that have been uploaded and it is these photos (take a look at 3 of them below) that have dragged Nacchan into this whole sorry scenario. Add to that some entries in which Yonechan mentions a concert which coincided with Team K’s schedule and it looks like these rumours are starting to look true. What I don’t understand if this is all true is how Yonechan possibly thought she could get away with this. Hate messages have begun to appear in both of the girls’ Google+ pages. It appears that Yonechan has been made aware of the trouble judging by what I’ve read about her trying to hide herself and being very quiet when she arrived in Singapore for work duties with AKB48.

It doesn’t look good for either girl right now but if there’s one of them likely to be fired it’s probably Yonechan. If any action is going to be taken by AKB48 management it’ll happen when Yonechan returns to Japan next week. The member that stands to lose the most is Nacchan as she’s more high profile. She could be axed from WH7 let alone from AKB48 entirely. Rules are rules and if you’re caught out doing something you’re not supposed to then you should be prepared to take the consequences.

UPDATE: Looks like some action might have been taken already with news that Nacchan won’t be attending a WH7 event scheduled for tomorrow. If this is just to prevent any embarassment to her or some kind of suspension I have no idea? Will Yonechan perform tomorrow at Singapore or will she pulled out as well?

UPDATE 2: It’s all over for both of them. Effective immediately as per a message from Togasaki, Nacchan has resigned from WH7 and AKB48 with Yonechan resigning from AKB48 too. I’m disappointed in both of them especially Nacchan, a 1st generation member who was beginning to grow on me. Both have apologised for the trouble they have caused to the other AKB48 members, staff and fans. While some fans will mostly blame Yonechan for this scandal, Nacchan also has to take some of the flak. Her private twitter account has been discovered with some incriminating photos. I hope the 2ch twats are happy now that they’ve caused this.

AKB48 Give Me Five PV

The 5 minute version of AKB48′s newest single GIVE ME FIVE has been posted online on various places so here it is for all of you to see. I’ve gone for the Dailymotion version once more in the hope that it’ll survive more than the YT version would do. This isn’t the full version of the PV, that’s going to be a 34 minute MV drama so we’ll have to wait until the single comes out to see that. The plot will be about the senbatsu members who are all in a school for adults who dropped out of high school that hate themselves and their lives so their teacher persuades them to join the music group and create a band so they can have a sense of belonging together. Yuko’s character is supposed to be a prostitute!!

The PV in the first half of the song focuses on Baby Blossom performing for a selected audience in a hall (sort of like a mini-concert) before showing some clips which forms the storyline of the MV drama and ending with the band high-fiving each other just like they did in the Request Hour concert.

Enjoy the PV!

Under 18 Members Finally Get Their Own Google+ Profile Page

Just announced, all 109 members of AKB48/SKE48/HKT48/NMB48 under 18 years old that had been lumped together on the ‘Heyakko’ page have now been given their own Google+ profile page just like the rest of their teammates so for all of you that have been waiting for a profile page solely for Mayuyu, Lovetan or Jurina for example you’ve finally got your wish so get going and add the members to your circles!

Mariko Unveils Her Wedding Collection Designs

AKB48 member and fashion designer Mariko Shinoda unveiled her latest fashion collection today at a press conference which were all bridal gowns under the name ‘Love Mary’ in collaboration with bridal creator KURAUDIA. She has created 10 gowns in total over a period of 6 months (some of them in various colors) which will be available for rental in July. Seeing as Mariko is a bit of a fashion icon for a lot of young Japanese women, you can be sure that many will snap up the chance to wear one of her designs if they have a Summer wedding planned. What do you think about them? Would you wear one of her designs for your wedding?

Sasshi’s PB Outsells Yuko and Mayuyu!

Last week saw Sasshi release her first ever PB ‘Sashiko’ and to everybody’s surprise it has outsold both Yuko and Mayuyu’s PB by quite a substantial margin in it’s first week. Sasshi even mentioned during a handshake event 2 days ago to celebrate the release of the PB that hers would never outsell Yuko in overall sales (Yuko’s PB has sold 190k so far). Sales for the first week was 57,226. Compare that to Yuko’s 41k and Mayuyu’s 45k during their first week of release and she’s done extremely well. She’s even broken the Oricon weekly chart record for a female solo in the PB category. If sales carry on being this good she may well overtake Yuko’s total. 2012 is shaping up to be IMO a fantastic year for Sasshi. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if she improves on her placing in this year’s senbatsu election, maybe not enough to crack the Top 5 but I certainly see her getting 6th position.

Well done Sasshi.

NMB48 Team M Announced Today

Today the formation of NMB48 Team M was announced which will consist of 16 members. The members are a mix of the 1st and 2nd gen kenkyuusei. Unfortunately not all of the kenkyuusei (12 in total) including some of the 1st gen were able to get into the new team. Until Team BII is announced in the future or they’ll be added someday to one of the two teams currently active they’ll just have to stay as kenkyuusei. The captain as was expected to be of the new team is Rena Shimada.

The members of the new team are:

1st Gen Kenkyuusei
Ayame Hikawa
Rena Kawakami
Riona Ota
Natsumi Yamagishi
Momoko Kinoshita

2nd Gen Kenkyuusei
Rena Shimada – CAPTAIN
Eriko Jo
Keira Yogi
Yuuka Kodakari
Yui Takano
Mao Mita
Airi Tanigawa
Fuuko Yagura
Runa Fujita
Sae Murase
Ayaka Murakami

Many congratulations to all those that made it into Team M.

Final Suspended NMB48 Member Can Return To Work

After the fans voted for suspended members Rena Shimada and Shiori Matsuda to return to NMB48 at the end of 2011, there was still one member that was yet to return to the fold namely Akari Yoshida. Last week fans were given a chance to do what they did before with the the other two girls and that was to vote whether to allow her back to work or leave her on the sidelines for a longer period of time.

The votes were as follows:

YES – 6,821
NO – 873

So the result means that she can come back to work. She will resume her duties with the group in mid-February.

Welcome back Akarin!

AKB48 Unit Festival Setlist

Hot on the heels of the 4 day Request Hour Setlist Best 100 2012 concerts came the AKB48 Unit Festival which took place the very next day at the same location (Tokyo Dome City Hall). This was an opportunity for fans to listen to AKB48 sub-units and solo artists as their songs weren’t included in the voting for this year’s Request Hour. In addition AKB48 once again played their newest single GIVE ME FIVE as Baby Blossom and one of the coupling songs for the single Sweet and Bitter. Even Sasshi got to perform for the first time live her debut solo single Soredemo Suki Dayo. She admitted that she was extremely nervous before taking to the stage and wanted to run away. But everything went well for her. Mayuyu also got the chance to perform her upcoming solo single Synchro Tokimeki.

The setlist was as follows:

1. Senaka kara Dakishimete – Acchan, Mariko, Kojima, Tomochin, Yuko, Yukirin, Mayuyu, Takamina
2. Mujin-eki – Wasamin
3. Tsuki no Uragawa – DiVA
4. Shuumatsu Not yet – Not yet
5. Naminori Kakigoori – Not yet
6. Dear J – Tomochin
7. Kakkowarui I love you – French Kiss
8. Saisho no Mail – French Kiss
9. Sweet & Bitter – Selection 6 – Acchan, Mariko, Sasshi, Yuko, Takamina, Tomochin
10. Hetappi Wink – Watarirouka Hashiritai 7
11. Kanpeki Guu~ no ne – Watarirouka Hashiritai 7
12. Soredemo Suki Dayo – Sasshi
13. Kimishika – no3b
14. Relax! – no3b
15. Kuroi Tenshi – Kanon, Rena, Churi
16. Wimbledon e Tsureteitte – Renacchi, Paruru, Annin
17. Skirt, Hirari – Lemon, Minarun, Miyu, Mariyagi, Ranran, Ricchan, Karen
18. Kuchi Utsushi no Chocolate – Milky, Sayanee, Eriko Jo
19. Itoshisa no Accel – Jurina
20. Ue Kara Mariko – CD single senbatsu
21. Synchro Tokimeki – Mayuyu
22. Fui ni – Tomochin
23. Lost the way – DiVA
24. Kibou Sanmyaku – Watarirouka Hashiritai 7
25. Kuchibiru furezu… – no3b
26. Pedicure Day – no3b
27. Pera Pera Perao – Not yet
28. Flower – Acchan

Encore:

GIVE ME FIVE! – Baby Blossom
Flying Get – all members
Kaze wa Fuiteiru – all members
Everyday, Kachuusha – all members
Heavy Rotation – all members

Bit odd for a Unit Festival to play so many AKB48 singles. And where was the other sub-units like Nattou Angels or even Sukeban Girls for example which would have been nice to see? Apart from that, the setlist looked fantastic. Such a shame that it wasn’t streamed live on Youtube but I suppose it was asking too much for them to air 2 concerts in a row.

Wasamin – Heavy Rotation (Enka Version)

Wasamin continues to amaze me with her enka singing. Have a listen below to her enka version of the no.1 song at the Request Hour Setlist Best 100 2012 countdown – Heavy Rotation. It is just simply amazing. I believe a lot of fans weren’t going to bother at first to buy her single but now have been bowled over by her vocals on Mujin-eki and with Heavy Rotation. Fast forward to 10:49 to hear the song.