Maachan To Graduate From AKB48

The one-time future ace of AKB48 according to Aki-P a couple of years ago – Team B’s Manami Oku has announced that she’ll be graduating from the group in April. This hasn’t surprised me to be honest considering that she isn’t that popular.

Maachan stated on the AKB48 official blog that she wants to go back to school and enter a university sometime in the future. I only realised this but Maachan has been in AKB48 since she was 10 years old and has never experienced school life. She’s missed out on a big part of growing up as a child/teenager in Japan. She feels that she’s been having doubts about being an idol in AKB48 – not really knowing what she wants to do. After consulting with Aki-P and staff, she feels it’s right to graduate this year. She further says that she’s caused some trouble and worry for people over the years (what does she mean by that?). Is it worry from her family as I’m not aware of any scandal as such that Maachan has been involved in.

I haven’t exactly been a big fan of Maachan over the years but I valued her contribution to AKB48. It’s going to be strange not seeing her in AKB48 and at one-time she was a part of the old Team K (my favourite team ever!).

The exact date of her graduation will be announced soon. Good luck to you Maachan in the future.

EDIT: News of Maachan’s graduation has caused a right old rumpus on Stage48 where one forumite which I won’t name upset some others by saying not very nice things about Maachan. Having an opinion is one thing but not considering the feelings of Maachan’s fans is another. It wasn’t the most tactful thing to do.

AKB48 – Sakura no Ki ni Narou 5th Day Sales

Quite a drop today in sales from the 2 previous days (50k +) in which only 30,801 copies were shifted to being the grand total up to 891,851. 900k is sure to be broken tomorrow.

On the chart for best selling records bought in one week, this single is currently at no.7. They need to sell another 31k to move up to no.6 and 60k if they want to displace B’z with Love Phantom at no.5. Another AKB48 song Beginner is at no.10.

Aki-P Selects Senbatsu Members for SDN48′s 2nd Single

Yesterday evening, there was a surprise announcement at the SDN48 performance taking place at the AKB48 Theater. The group told the audience the 12 senbatsu members that had been selected for their 2nd single “Ai, Juseyo” which comes out on March 23rd. There will be 2 CD versions coming out (Type A and Type B).

For their 1st single it was the fans that voted who became the senbatsu but not this time. It was Aki-P himself that selected them and some fans might be surprised at the omission of some members from the lead single.

Popular members such as Meetan, Nonti and Cindy will not be singing on “Ai Juseyo” but will do the coupling song “Tengoku no Door wa 3 Kaime no Bell de Hiraku” as part of the Undergirls A instead. Undergirls B will sing another song as well.

So who are the senbatsu members that have been chosen? They are: Haruka Umeda, Mami Kato, Masami Kouchi, Haruka Kohara, Sayaka Kando, Yukari Sato, Serina, Yuuki Aikawa, Yui Takahashi, Tomomi Tanisaki, Akane Akuda and Yumi Fujikoso.

The members who are in the Undergirls A are: Meetan, Nonti, KONAN, Cindy, Kazue Akita, Chen Qu, Machiko Tezuka,  Chisaki Hatakeyama, Mana Ito, Yuuki Kimoto, Yuka Ninomiya and Rumi Matsushima.

The ones in Undergirls B (Megumi Imayoshi, Misa Okouchi, Juri Kaida, Nachu, Hiromi Mitsui, Akiko, Aimi Oyama, Marina Tsuda, Natsuko and Miyuu Hosoda) get to sing a unique song only found on the Type A CD called “Awajishima no TAMANEGI” while Reiko Nishikunihara gets to do a solo song only available on the Type-B CD called “Ai yo Ugokanai de”.