NMB48 Fans Pass Judgement On Suspended Members

As I reported last week, NMB48 fans were given the chance to vote whether Shiori Matsuda and Rena Shimada would be allowed to resume their NMB48 careers or would they have to sweat it out and wait a little longer.

The result came out today and this is how it turned out:

Shiori Matsuda

For – 8,377

Against – 1,406

Rena Shimada

For – 7,622

Against – 2,161

So both girls have been forgiven by the fans and will come back to work soon but they’ll have to wait a bit until they can appear on stage again. The official announcement for their return has just been made.

AKB48 – Ue kara Mariko 1st Day Sales

Last year’s janken single caused sales to dip but no chance of that happening with this year’s single especially with popular member Mariko being center. Whilst the single hasn’t cracked the million this time round on the first day it came so close. Considering that Acchan nor Yuko are in the senbatsu for this single, I think it’s amazing what they’ve achieved.

So what are the final figures for the 1st day – it’s 959,280 copies sold. Pretty impressive I must say. We can safely say that the 1 million barrier will be passed easily tomorrow.

Well done to all of the girls.

New AKB48 Fan Club To Restart Tomorrow

AKB48 fans in Japan can enrol for the idol group’s new fan-club which restarts tomorrow. Due to ticket resale problems, the previous fan club had to shut down but now it rises again like a phoenix from the flames with a name only slightly different from before called Nihon-bashira no Kai. The start of this new fan club also coincides with a concert lined up at the AKB48 theater to celebrate the 6th anniversary of the place. All 4 teams are scheduled to appear in the concert.

The enrolment fee to join is 1,000 yen with the annual membership fee being 480 yen. Not bad at all I think. There will be some advantage to joining the fan club as you’ll be able to pre-order some tickets for the theater and get access to other AKB48 related events.

I know what you’re going to ask now – can foreigners join the club? I don’t really know to be honest but I’d like to find out. It’s probably unlikely. I would guess the best bet would be for you to register and give the address of a friend you know in Japan in order  to get round this problem. I’m just wondering whether they’ll ever open an international fan club for overseas fans?