AKB48 Ponytail to Shushu 6th Day Sales

Another milestone has been broken by AKB48 today when they went through the 500k barrier. There was a bit of a drop in sales with 18,560 sold. Now the grand total stands at 501,641. What a week it’s been for the girls. This is simply fantastic.

AKB48 Ponytail to Shushu 5th Day Sales

Just a slight drop in sales today with 23,418 copies sold to bring the grand total up to 483,081. I would imagine it’ll be tomorrow when they break the 500k barrier. I guess their appearance on Music Station the other night has really helped them to maintain sales over the weekend.

Shukan AKB 28th May Summary

Right I’ve decided to start summarising each week’s Shukan AKB just as I’m doing with AKBingo so let’s begin with yesterday’s episode:

It was a continuation from last week in which certain members are given a challenge to complete. They’re allowed 90 mins to practice before they have to do the challenge in front of their peers and Speedwagon in the studio.

First up today is Jurina. She had to do exactly as what Kojima did for a recent AKBingo challenge and that is to pull a cloth from a table without tipping over glasses. Jurina starts very confident and has no problem in managing to pull a cloth with 1 or 3 glasses or even with some plates. She does fail however when the cloth is changed and there’s a full compliment of 8 glasses on the table. Can she pull it off in the studio? I thought this challenge was even more difficult than Kojima’s because not only are there 8 wine glasses, 2 plates with food and some cutlery on the table but the wine glasses are half full of wine. Now that is tough but you know what. It’s no sweat to her as she manages to do it quite easily. Jurina is bloody awesome.

The 2nd challenge is for Sasshi. Her challenge is to pull a white rubber glove over her head and blow it up using her nose until it explodes in 1 minute or less. In her early practices the glove keeps breaking because of her nails so she cuts them. It doesn’t look good as she doesn’t manage to keep hold of the glove long enough when she’s blowing it up. It keeps flying off her head. Let’s hope she gets it right in the studio! It’s time for her to go and it starts out looking good as the glove keeps expanding and expanding. The clock is ticking down and finally the glove explodes. Sasshi succeeded with barely 2 seconds to spare. She cried tears of joy afterwards. Good on ya Sasshi!!

Challenge no 3 is for Kitarie and she has to learn how to play the flute. Her tutor is Nito Moeno who’s pretty nifty at playing the flute. Kitarie is a complete novice on the instrument and it shows. She’s finding it very difficult to get a sound out of the instrument even with Moeno showing her how it’s done. The frustration is getting to her as you can see tears forming in her eyes but finally she manages to get a sound or two. Is it good enough to clear the challenge in the studio? Well she does manage to do half a scale on the flute but it’s not very convincing and Kitarie fails on her challenge. Never mind Kitarie.

The final challenge on this week’s show goes to Takamina. She has to balance on a large beach ball and move it with her feet for 3 metres whilst also twirling a baton in her hand. Her tutor is a circus clown. She doesn’t do that well in practice but I had every confidence in Takamina completing this one. In the studio she’s away and the look on her face is intense as she’s concentrating so hard but Takamina manages to complete the challenge. Attagirl Takamina, that was immense!!

Shukan AKB News – more on the senbatsu election and the date of the final result which is on 9th June and a small preview of the Majijo Teppen Blues PV and it’s over for this week’s show.

Next week: more challenges for more members.

AKB48 Ponytail to Shushu 4th Day Sales

Today there was only a very slight drop in sales from yesterday. The number sold was 27,112 copies so now the grand total stands at 459,663. Hitting 500k is now a certainty but how many days will it take them to achieve that?

AKB48 Ponytail to Shushu 3rd Day Sales

We’re into the 3rd day for sales and it was another drop today – this time by 20k . The sales figures were actually 28,671 copies. So now the grand total stands at 432,551. I’m hoping that 450k can be achieved by the end of the first week.

AKBingo 26th May Summary

We have a brand new title sequence for today’s show. It’s round 4 of the Dodgeball Punishment game in this week’s episode and we have 2 teams of six members:

White Team: Yuko, Moeno, Sasshi, Myao, Acchan and Ami Maeda.

Pink Team: Kojima, Akicha, Takamina, Mayu, Kumi Yagami and Ayaka Kikuchi.

The referees on the sidelines are Yukirin and Komori

1st Punishment – Akicha is the first one out after trying to catch a ball but failing to do so. She has to pick up a lizard from it’s tank and hold it close to her whilst Kiyoshi takes a picture of them. She did rather well I thought.

2nd Punishment – Sasshi is out after Komori does a funny turn as one of the referees with her flag. I find Komori to be such an entertaining girl!! Sasshi has to eat a whole peeled lemon. She has some difficulty and is actually gagging whilst eating it!!

3rd Punishment – Takamina is the next to go. Her punishment involves her kneeling on the floor whilst Kiyoshi is wielding a plastic sword above her head. She’s supposed to grab the sword before it hits her head but fails and gets smacked right in the middle of her temple!! Takamina is laughing on the floor after she’s been hit.

4th Punishment – Kojima is gone and she has to eat something that pongs like a stinky pair of socks. What’s the thing she has to eat? Anybody any ideas? She takes a sample and eats it but hates the taste. Yuko looks concerned from the sidelines!

5th Punishment – Mayu is eliminated and she has to have her face painted. She’s not too keen at all and looks like she’s crying! I have no idea the character they painted her face to look like.

6th Punishment – Moeno who hasn’t looked happy at all in this game is made to be even more unhappy after being the next to face the axe. Her punishment is a face imprint. Her face gets painted in ink and then she has to drop her face into a cloth so that the imprint of her face comes out on the cloth.

7th Punishment – SKE member Kumi Yagami has to endure the worst punishment of the day in my opinion after being the next one to be eliminated. She has to eat an omelette which is filled with ant larvae. It looks totally disgusting but fair play to Kuumin she did extremely well. I don’t think I would have eaten the damn thing.

8th Punishment – Electric shock via a vandegraph generator. Acchan is out. Considering that Erepyon yelped like crazy in this punishment the last time, Acchan did much better than her.

At the end of the game the winners with 3 members remaining are the White Team with Mayu taking the overall MVP award.

Next up is Phrasemuseum between Yukirin and Sumire Sato. Sato wins.

There’s a live performance of Ponytail to Shushu before the show gets ready to wrap for another week but not before an announcement about the senbatsu election and a plug on the AKBingo book.

Next week’s show has 2 very special guests – the Kameda brothers who are boxers. I’ve never heard of them!

AKB48 Ponytail to Shushu – 2nd Day Sales

Well as expected, I knew there was going to be a huge fall in sales figures today but I thought that 100k would be sold. Instead the actual figure is 49,447 copies sold meaning that the grand total stands at 403,850. That’s another barrier smashed for AKB48 – 400k! I expect another dip for tomorrow but it would be great if they could maintain this kind of sales for the next 2 days so that they could break through the 500k barrier by the end of the first week. I can only live in hope!

AKB48 Senbatsu Election – 1st Round Results Are In!

OK so with today’s release of Ponytail to ShuShu also signalled the beginning of the Senbatsu Election. The girls have all campaigned long and hard to get your vote. After the first day’s sales comes the first round results of the election and they are as follows:

01  Team A – Maeda Atsuko
02  Team K – Oshima Yuko
03  Team B – Watanabe Mayu
04  Team K – Itano Tomomi
05  Team A – Shinoda Mariko
06  Team A – Takahashi Minami
07  Team B – Kashiwagi Yuki
08  Team S – Matsui Rena
09  Team K – Miyazawa Sae
10  Team A – Kojima Haruna
11  Team A – Takajo Aki
12  Team K – Ono Erena
13  Team B  – Kasai Tomomi
14  Team B – Kitahara Rie
15  Team K – Minegishi Minami
16  Team B – Sato Amina
17  Team A  – Sashihara Rino
18  Team S – Matsui Jurina
19  Team A – Nakagawa Haruka
20  Team B – Miyazaki Miho
21  Team A – Ota Aika
21  Team K – Akimoto Sayaka
23  Team A – Kuramochi Asuka
24  Team B – Masuda Yuka
25  Team B – Hirajima Natsumi
26  Team B – Komori Mika
27  Team K – Kikuchi Ayaka
28  Team K – Nito Moeno
29  Team K – Fujie Reina
30  Team B – Sato Sumire
31  Team KII – Ishida Anna
32  Team S – Oya Masana
33  Team S – Yagami Kumi
34  Team B – Ishida Haruka
35  Team K – Umeda Ayaka
36  Team A – Katayama Haruka
37  Kenkyusei – Yamauchi Suzuran
38  Team KII – Takayanagi Akane
39  Kenkyusei – Ooba Mina
40  Team K – Yonezawa Rumi

I’m delighted that Rena is inside the Top 10 and also Sasshi is in the Top 20. I did not expect to see Harugon at no.19! I’m not really surprised with the Top 5 at all, that was to be expected but it’s close between Yuko and Acchan. It would be nice if Yuko took the top spot. A lot could change though before the final election results so Sayaka fans don’t despair just yet that she’s only scraping inside the Top 21. The 2nd round results come out on the 5th June.

AKB48 – Ponytail to Shushu 1st Day Sales

Are you ready AKB48 fans as you’re about to find out what the first day sales figures are for Ponytail to Shushu. Has it exceeded 1st day sales of Sakura no Shiori. The answer is an emphatic YES! I can reveal that the figure is………wait for it……354,403!!!! What an incredible achievement for the group, it surpasses their last single’s 1st day figures by a whopping 124,875 copies!!! Congratulations to all of AKB48 and I’m so happy for them. The figures were no doubt helped by the senbatsu election and the 2 editions of the CD. I expect new sales records to be broken by the group at the end of the week with 400k looking very achievable for them. I can’t see them beating Arashi’s first week total for their last 2 singles (over 500k) but I’d love it if they did. It’s a great time to be an AKB48 fan!

Oricon Top 30 Charts – Week 21

Arashi bulldoze their way into the no.1 position in the new Oricon charts and sell a very impressive 543,269 copies of their new single Monster. That’s a 1000 more copies than what they sold in the first week with Troublemaker. It’s an OK song. I’d rather have seen Kana Nishino in the top spot with Aitakute Aitakute entering at no.2. She really has released some excellent songs during the past year.

There was only 4 new entries in the Top 10 this week. The other 2 new entries were 2 cool rock songs in F.T Island’s Flower Rock and TETSU69 with Roulette. There was a surprising jump up 15 places from DOES with Bakuchi Dancer which re-entered the Top 10 at no.7. AVEX’s new idol group Tokyo Girls Style released yet another new single so soon with Onnaji Kimochi. It didn’t improve their lowly chart position and it only got to no.30. Their last single Kirari was so much better than this bog-standard idol song.

The chart rundown in full:

30 Tokyo Girls Style – Onnaji Kimochi
29 Bump of Chicken – Maho No Ryori – Kimi Kara Kimi E
28 SHAKALABBITS – Nacho Roll
27 Saito Kazuyoshi – Zutto Sukidatta
26 Tendo Yoshimi – Michi’s Life Depends On The Internet
25 Kiyoshi Hikawa – Shamisen Tabigarasu
24 Kaori Mizumori – Matsushima Kikou
23 AAA – Dream After Dream – Yume Kara Sameta Yume
22 HO-KAGO TEA TIME – Listen!!
21 VAMPS – Devil Side
20 HO-KAGO TEA TIME – Go!Go!Maniac
19 Going Under Ground – Listen To The Stereo!!
18 Sayuri Sugawara – Sunao Ni Narenakute
17 Park Yong-ha – One Love
16 FUNKY MONKEY BABYS – Taisetsu
15 NAOTO INTI RAYMI – Takaramono ~ Kono Koe Ga Nakunarumade ~
14 RIZE – Laugh It Out Feat. Hayato
13 Girls Dead Monster – Crow Song
12 BRAHMAN – We Are Here Feat. Ego-wrappin
11 Ketsumeishi – Nakama
10 moumoon – Sunshine Girl
09 Girls Dead Monster – Thousand Enemies
08 TETSU69 – Roulette
07 DOES – Bakuchi Dancer
06 Fuyumi Sakamoto – Mata Kimi Ni Koi Shiteru
05 Ikimonogakari – Arigatou
04 F.T Island – Flower Rock
03 KAT-TUN – Going
02 Kana Nishino – Aitakute Aitakute
01 Arashi – Monster

And RASC has his usual weekly Top 30 videos to recommend: