As I mentioned a while back I ordered Maki Horikita’s and AKB48 weekly calendar for 2009 and both came through the post last week.
As with most of Japan’s idol calendars, the Maki Horikita one comes in a large B2 format with a picture for 2 months of the year. First opinion when I flicked through the calendar was this isn’t that special. I’m somewhat disappointed with Maki’s calendar. There’s just some kind of sparkle missing with the pictures that comes with it - maybe it’s the clothes and the setting for each picture but I’m not seeing the stylish Maki I’m kinda used to. I’ve seen far better pictures of her than what’s on this calendar. Perhaps other fans of her will disagree with me but I expected something better. I quite like the cover photo with her smile and the last one but not the others at the moment. I’m sure once I actually put it up on the wall and start looking at it daily the pictures will grow on me.
There was no disappointment to be had with AKB48’s weekly calendar which comes in the smaller A4 format. It starts off with a great picture of Sayaka and then the next week has Tomomi Itano. Most of my favourite girls come later on in the year (Nonti for example pops up in September, Takamina in July and Acchan in October). The calendar also came with 5 small BLT photos. The 5 photos I got was Aika Ota and Haruka Katayama (Team B), Reina Fujie (Team A), Natsuki Satoh (Team K) and Shizuka Ohya (Research). Not the 5 photos I was anticipating to get but I’m not complaining. Already some of the most popular members photos are up for auctions and going for quite ridiculous prices. I should have really bought a calendar of either Acchan’s or the two Tomomi’s. Maybe I’ll be able to track one down when I’m in Japan.

