As stated before, Tomochin releases her debut solo single “Dear J” on the 26th January in 3 different formats. Although the full tracklisting has not been revealed, the single covers and the DVD extra features have been unveiled:
Type A – contains the song Tunnel and a Tomomi Itano Collection feature on the DVD
Type B – contains the song Stay By My Side and a Tomomi Itano interview on the DVD.
Type C – contains the song Thank You a Making Of Tomomi Itano feature on the DVD.
I know a good many people out there will be tuning in on Keyhole TV or via another method this New Year’s Eve to watch Kouhaku Uta Gassen and the songs that will be performed on this year’s show has been announced as follows:
Red Team:
White Team:
There’s just 2 days to go before the PSP portable game AKB 1/48 Idol to Koishitara is released on the 23rd December and it’s set to become a best seller. The game which revolves around the player confessing their love to one AKB48 member and turning down the rest has already pre-sold 250,000 copies and the gaming industry expects 500,000 to be shifted eventually. In terms of a game focusing on a niche genre, this is an extraordinary figure. It seems that everything the group is doing is turning into gold right now. I just hope they won’t oversaturate the market with AKB48 goods otherwise people will start to get sick and tired seeing their faces on products.
It comes as no surprise that the Top 10 best selling Oricon singles of the year has been dominated by 2 groups – AKB48 and Arashi. More importantly is that AKB48 nabbed the no.1 and no.2 ranking and also have 2 more entries at no.5 and no.8. This is how the Top 10 looks with sales figures in brackets:
1. “Beginner” – AKB48 : (954,283)
2. “Heavy Rotation” – AKB48 (713,275)
3. “Troublemaker” - Arashi : (698,542)
4. “Monster” – Arashi : (696,022)
5. “Ponytail to Shushu” – AKB48 : (659,959)
6. “Hatenai Sora” – Arashi : (656,343)
7. “Løve Rainbow” – Arashi : (620,057)
8. “Chance no Junban” – AKB48 : (596,769)
9. “Dear Snow” – Arashi : (591,207)
10. “To be free” – Arashi : (516,142)
Congratulations to all the girls for this fantastic achievement. As we go further down the single rankings, Sakura no Shiori makes an appearance at no.12 (the only AKB48 single this year not to make the Top 10) plus we’ve got SKE48 and Team Dragon showing up too.
11. “Love yourself~Kimi ga Kirai na Kimi ga Suki~” – KAT-TUN : (439,736)
12. “Sakura no Shiori” – AKB48 : (390,957)
13. “This is Love” – SMAP : (350,322)
14. “Mata Kimi ni Koi Shiteru/Asia no Kaizoku” – Sakamoto Fuyumi : (311,215)
15. “LIFE~Me no mae no Mukou e~” – Kanjani 8 : (305,478)
16. “BREAK OUT!” – Tohoshinki : (289,412)
17. “Going!” – KAT-TUN : (282,901)
18. “Wonderful World!!” – Kanjani 8 : (275,891)
19. “Hatsukoi” – Fukuyama Masaharu : (269,765)
20. “CHANGE UR WORLD” – KAT-TUN : (254,150)
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21. “Hitomi no Screen” – Hey!Say! JUMP : (250,206)
22. “Hotaru/Shonen” - Fukuyama Masaharu : (239,768)
23. “I Wish For You” – EXILE : (236,456)
24. “Shamisen Tabigarasu” – Hikawa Kiyoshi : (236,218)
25. “Sakura Girl” – NEWS : (232,752)
26. “Toki wo Tomete” – Tohoshinki : (228,448)
27. “Motto Tsuyoku” – EXILE : (228,189)
28. “XIAH (Intoxication)” – XIAH junsu : (225,638)
29. “One in a million” – Yamashita Tomohisa : (204,561)
30. “Yukai Tsu-kai Kaibutsu-kun” – Kaibutsu-kun (Kaibutsu Taro) : (196,258)
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31. “Family~Hitotsu ni naru koto~” – KinKi Kids : (179,927)
32. “Fighting Man” – NEWS : (173,206)
33. “Arigatou” – Ikimonogakari : (165,507)
34. “Onara Hazukashikunaiyo/Pirameki Taiso” – Hannya, Fruits Punch : (164,203)
35. “Nijiiro no Bayon” – Hikawa Kiyoshi : (160,683)
36. “HAPPY” – BUMP OF CHICKEN : (157,324)
37. “Maho no Ryouri ~Kimi kara Kimi e~” – BUMP OF CHICKEN : (152,501)
38. “My Soul, Your Beats!/Brave Song” – Lia, Tada Aoi : (147,479)
39. “GO!GO! MANIAC” – Houkago Tea Time : (147,355)
40. “Hontou wa Kowai Ai to Romance” – Kuwata Keisuke : (145,354)
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41. “1!2!3!4! Yoroshiku!” – SKE48 : (144,973)
42. “Ryusei” – Kobukuro : (144,874)
43. “GIFT~Midori~(Yuki wo Kudasai/One day in winter/Snow White)” (Limited Edition) – Kanjani 8 : (136,508)
44. “GIFT~Shiro~(Fuyukoi/Kimi no Uta wo Utau)” (Limited Edition) – Kanjani 8 : (136,003)
45. “Okay” – Inaba Koshi : (134,381)
46. “GIFT~Aka~(I wish/Minus 100 do no Koi)” (Limited Edition) – Kanjani 8 : (133,978)
47. “NO, Thank You!” - Houkago Tea Time : (133,922)
48. “Kokoro no Hane” – Team Dragon from AKB48 : (130,957)
49. “Gee” – Shoujo Jidai : (130,145)
50. “Listen!!” – Houkago tea Time : (130,137)
Yesterday saw Sayaka Akimoto and Sae Miyazawa hold a public recording of their weekly radio show “AKB48, Akimoto Sayaka・Miyazawa Sae no Ukkari Channel” at Aqua City in Odaiba. This was the first time for them to hold such a recording and many fans flocked to see both girls. Two more AKB48 members (Mocchi and Haachan) were present as guests on the show. Sayaka and Sae must have enjoyed themselves as they want more public recordings in the future. Sayaka felt it brings them closer to their fans.
The radio show will be broadcast at 9pm on Thursday December 16th and 23rd on the Bunka Housou (AM 1134) frequency.
From tomorrow lunchtime until the 7th of January there could be a lack of updates as I’m flying off to Japan for 3 weeks. I’m hoping that I can continue to provide news on AKB48 as I’m renting a mobile broadband device to work with my Samsung NC10 netbook over there. We’ll see how things pan out once I’m in Tokyo.
Coming fresh from the success she had in the drama “Q10″, AKB48 member Atsuko Maeda will star in the movie “Moshimo Koukou Yakyu no Joshi Manager ga Drucker no “Management” wo Yondara” (that’s a mouthful for a title!!) which is scheduled for release in June 2011. AKA as Moshidora and based on the no.1 best selling business novel for 2010, Acchan will play a high school girl who takes charge of a lesser known baseball team and how she tries to lead them to the National High School Championship simply by learning strategies from a business book called “Management” by Peter Drucker she bought by mistake.
The girl on the cover of the novel (see below) and main character for the story is modelled after Miichan so why haven’t they chosen her for the lead in the movie then? The filmmakers say that Acchan has more experience in acting than her. What a load of rubbish – they’re guessing that Acchan will generate more money for them at the box office that Miichan. Miichan will still have a supporting role in the movie.
Just a slight decrease in sales today as Chance no Junban sold 12,821 copies to bump up the grand total so far to be 575,468.
Here’s a live performance of Chance no Juban from the TV show Music Station.
Today saw Chance no Junban shift 15,765 copies to move the overall total sales up to 562,647. It could still potentially hit 600k for the first week if sales just increase a little bit more to around 20k per day.
Team K’s Tomomi Itano will release a solo single early next year with a song called “Dear J” which will be released on January 26th. All the other Japanese entertainment websites are stating that she’ll be the first AKB48 member to release a solo single but that’s not true as Manami Oku, Yuka Masuda and Meetan have released solo singles in the past.
The surprise announcement was made at a handshake event for “Beginner” today at Ajinomoto Stadium in Tokyo. There’s no details or tracklisting for the single other than the fact that Tomochin has stated it’s going to be a dance song of some sort and there’ll be 3 different CD versions.
Out of all the senbatsu members that could potentially release a solo single, I really didn’t think Tomochin would be the first to do so. Apparently she’s not going to be the last as Acchan will release a solo album during Summer 2011.
