Just announced, all 109 members of AKB48/SKE48/HKT48/NMB48 under 18 years old that had been lumped together on the ‘Heyakko’ page have now been given their own Google+ profile page just like the rest of their teammates so for all of you that have been waiting for a profile page solely for Mayuyu, Lovetan or Jurina for example you’ve finally got your wish so get going and add the members to your circles!
AKB48 member and fashion designer Mariko Shinoda unveiled her latest fashion collection today at a press conference which were all bridal gowns under the name ‘Love Mary’ in collaboration with bridal creator KURAUDIA. She has created 10 gowns in total over a period of 6 months (some of them in various colors) which will be available for rental in July. Seeing as Mariko is a bit of a fashion icon for a lot of young Japanese women, you can be sure that many will snap up the chance to wear one of her designs if they have a Summer wedding planned. What do you think about them? Would you wear one of her designs for your wedding?
Last week saw Sasshi release her first ever PB ‘Sashiko’ and to everybody’s surprise it has outsold both Yuko and Mayuyu’s PB by quite a substantial margin in it’s first week. Sasshi even mentioned during a handshake event 2 days ago to celebrate the release of the PB that hers would never outsell Yuko in overall sales (Yuko’s PB has sold 190k so far). Sales for the first week was 57,226. Compare that to Yuko’s 41k and Mayuyu’s 45k during their first week of release and she’s done extremely well. She’s even broken the Oricon weekly chart record for a female solo in the PB category. If sales carry on being this good she may well overtake Yuko’s total. 2012 is shaping up to be IMO a fantastic year for Sasshi. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if she improves on her placing in this year’s senbatsu election, maybe not enough to crack the Top 5 but I certainly see her getting 6th position.
Well done Sasshi.
Today the formation of NMB48 Team M was announced which will consist of 16 members. The members are a mix of the 1st and 2nd gen kenkyuusei. Unfortunately not all of the kenkyuusei (12 in total) including some of the 1st gen were able to get into the new team. Until Team BII is announced in the future or they’ll be added someday to one of the two teams currently active they’ll just have to stay as kenkyuusei. The captain as was expected to be of the new team is Rena Shimada.
The members of the new team are:
1st Gen Kenkyuusei
Ayame Hikawa
Rena Kawakami
Riona Ota
Natsumi Yamagishi
Momoko Kinoshita
2nd Gen Kenkyuusei
Rena Shimada – CAPTAIN
Eriko Jo
Keira Yogi
Yuuka Kodakari
Yui Takano
Mao Mita
Airi Tanigawa
Fuuko Yagura
Runa Fujita
Sae Murase
Ayaka Murakami
Many congratulations to all those that made it into Team M.
