CDTV’s Annual Favorite Female Artist Ranking 2011

The music TV programme CDTV unveiled their annual favorite Top 30 female artist ranking and several AKB48 members came up in the ranking with 1 SKE48 member too. The highest placing AKB48 member was Yuko with Acchan coming up 1 place below her. Jurina was the only SKE48 member in the ranking.

1. YUI
2. Oshima Yuko (AKB48)
3. Maeda Atsuko (AKB48)
4. Hamasaki Ayumi
5. Nishino Kana
6. Namie Amuro
7. Kashiwagi Yuki (AKB48)
8. Koda Kumi
9. Uno Misako (AAA)
10. miwa
—-
11. aiko
12. Kojima Haruna (AKB48)
13. Mizuki Nana
14. Katou Miliyah
15. Mochida Kaori (Every Little Thing)
16. Yoshioka Kiyoe (Ikimonogakari)
17. YUKI
18. Takahashi Minami (AKB48)
19. Kuraki Mai
20. JUJU
—
21. Jiyoung (KARA)
22. Itano Tomomi (AKB48)
23. Ochi Shiho (Superfly)
24. Matsui Jurina (SKE48)
25. Shiina Ringo (Tokyo Jihen)
26. Takahashi Ai (Morning Musume.)
27. Kimura Keala
28. A-chan (Perfume)
29. Nakashima Mika
30. Watanabe Mayu (AKB48)

NMB48 Collaborate With The Hanshin Tigers Baseball Team

It’s common for idol groups and baseball teams to link up with each other from time to time and now it’s NMB48′s time to collaborate with the Hanshin Tigers for their next match against the Hiroshima Toyo Carp on Wednesday 17th August. The Tigers are currently 2nd in the Central League and are chasing the leaders Tokyo Yakult Swallows. A win is essential if they have any hopes of catching them up. The Tigers are one of two teams in the league without a cheerleading squad so who better than NMB48 to rouse the crowds and spur the team on to victory. All 16 members of Team N will be on hand during the match to give their support for the team.

Before the game itself, NMB48 will perform their debut single and help the announcers of ABC TV. Team N’s captain Sayaka Yamamoto will have the honour of throwing the first pitch, having done this before when the Tigers faced the Chunichi Dragons on May 14th. NMB48 will also sport their own custom made jerseys which will feature their own trademark leopard print design along with the Tigers’ logo. During timeouts between innings, the girls will also be participating in various other activities at pitchside.

Let’s hope NMB48′ efforts will be worth something and the Tigers will be inspired to win the game.

EDIT: Even with NMB48 cheering them on, the Hanshin Tigers still managed to lose 5-4 to Hiroshima.

NMB48 2nd Single Announcement

Today’s NMB48 handshake event gave the fans welcome news about their upcoming 2nd single. Coming off a successful debut single, NMB48 have striked while the iron is hot to carry on the interest in them from fans and the general public. Although no name for the single has been announced, the date for the release has been set to October 19th and even the senbatsu members for the single has been named.  The majority will be from Team N with 3 2nd gen kenkyuusei joining the lineup. 3 Team N members have been unlucky enough to not make it this time to the senbatsu. The lucky 16 members are:

Team N

Mayu Ogasawara
Kanako Kadowaki
Rika Kishino
Haruna Kinoshita
Riho Kotani
Rina Kondo
Kei Jonishi
Miru Shiroma
Aina Fukumoto
Nana Yamada
Sayaka Yamamoto
Akari Yoshida
Miyuki Watanabe

2nd Gen Kenkyuusei

Fuko Yagura
Keira Yogi
Eriko Jo

We’ll see with this next release whether the excellent sales figures for their debut was just a flash in the pan or can NMB48 do the same as AKB48 and SKE48 and gradually grow from strength to strength. I guess it’ll all depend on the quality of the song they’re given.

 

Another AKB48 Sub-Unit Suffers Disappointing Sales

Last week Watarirouka Hashiritai 7 didn’t do quite as well as I expected with their single ‘Hettapi Wink’ and this week DiVA have also suffered a slump with their 2nd single ‘Cry’. DiVA’s debut single did reasonably well in it’s first week selling 73k, Cry is looking around the 53k mark when the weekly charts come out on Wednesday. It didn’t look good when the 1st day sales figures come out and sales have been dropping each day since then. SKE48 was even outselling them yesterday just as they did with WH7 last week. Even Sayaka is crying about the sales figures – check out the picture below!! It’s a damn shame as this unit has so much talent and deserves to do better. Hopefully the addition of a new member soon could generate some good promotion for them.

We’ll know better with AKB48′s next single ‘Flying GET’ whether the slump in sales is perhaps the start of a backlash or not but as I’ve said before, having a CD release every week does not help the situation at all. Everybody is going through a tough time financially at present, even I can’t afford to buy every release that comes out so I have to decide in advance which ones I want to buy.