Fresh Lemon Promoted

Considering the push she’s been receiving lately, it’s no surprise to hear that Miori Ichikawa better known as Fresh Lemon has been promoted from the ranks of the kenkyuusei to a proper AKB48 member. It’s not known which team she’ll be appointed to but the signs are pointing towards Team B under the captaincy of Yukirin. I think she’ll fit in quite nicely there.

BTW, maybe Yukirin should be renamed from Reaction Queen to Rain Queen as her mere presence these days with AKB48 seems to bring about rain!!

EDIT: I failed to mention that some of the other kenkyuusei members including my favorite Mina Oba have been promoted since December 2010. 6 months down the road and their still waiting as to which team they’re going to be assigned so why the delay?

AKB48 – Everyday Kachuusha 6th Day Sales – Another Milestone Reached

In my post yesterday I mentioned that another 46k copies of Everyday Kachuusha sold today would break the 1.3 million barrier and that’s exactly what’s happened. The exact total sold was 46,246 to bring the grand total sold for the 1st week to 1,333,969. Who would have thought last Wednesday when this single was released that AKB48 would not only break the million barrier with ease but smash the best selling singles sold in one week. One thing you’ve got to ask yourself is whether their next single released in August will do even better?

AKB48 Summer Tour Schedule

Announced yesterday at a handshake event at the Yokohama Arena, AKB48 will be going on a national tour throughout August visiting 13 cities but that’s not all. Just before going on tour, AKB48 will be stepping up from venues where they usually perform to actually holding 3 concerts at the Seibu Dome in Saitama from July 22nd to 24th. AKB48 members have always wanted to perform at the Tokyo Dome so I’m taking that the group’s management will see how things go at these 3 concerts first. If they sell out easily then performing at the Tokyo Dome will become a reality sooner rather than later. Performing in front of 15,000 people at venues is the norm for AKB48 so to try a concert where the capacity is 35,655 for a baseball game is a huge step for them. I’ve no doubt that tickets will be sold out for the 3 dates.

Here are the tour dates for the group which will no doubt be an emotional experience for them on the 12th August where they visit Sendai.

August 1st – Fukuoka Palace Hotel & Hall
August 2nd – Kagoshima-shi Minbunka Hall
August 4th – Kouchi Kenritsu Kenmin Bunka Hall
August 8th – Tottori Yonago Convention Center
August 10th – Aomori Bunka Kaikan
August 12th – Sendai Sun Plaza
August 15th – Hiroshima ALSO Hall
August 17th – Niigata Kenminkaikan
August 19th – Hokkaido Nitori Bunka Hall
August 22nd – Toyama Aubade Hall
August 24th and 25th – Nagoya Kokusaikaigi Century Hall
August 29th – Shiga  Kenritsu Geijutsu Theater Biwako Hall
August 30th and 31st – Kobe Kokusai Kaikan Kokusai Hall

SDN48’s 3rd Generation

7 new faces have been added to SDN48 which includes 2 former 1st generation AKB48 members. Hitomi Komatani graduated from Team A on October 11th 2008 whilst Hana Tojima went the same way a month later on November 23rd 2008. According to an August 2010 Bubka issue, producer Aki-P was quoted to say that Hana wanted to return to the fold and join SDN48. News of these two coming back has been met with joy especially from Western fans.

The other 5 new members are models Sayo Hayakawa and Saemi Shinahama plus Avex singers Seara Kojo and miray. Rounding up the newbies is Korean girl Siyeon. It’ll be interesting to see how they fit into the group. I wonder if the 2 former AKB48  members will slot straight away into the senbatsu line-up?

AKB48 – Everyday Kachuusha 5th Day Sales – Record Breakers!!

AKB48 are in the history books today after smashing Mr Children’s total for the best selling CD singles sold in one week. Today saw just a very slight dip in sales but they still shifted 54,330 copies to up the grand total to 1,254,354. Many congratulations to AKB48 for this astonishing achievement. I’m just glad to be a part of history taking place by buying copies of this single. Their next target is 1.3 million and they just need to sell another 45,646 copies to do that which I think they will tomorrow.

SKE48 Switch Labels To Avex

AKB48’s sister group SKE48 will be moving to the mighty Avex label it was announced today after Team S’s performance at the Tokyo Dome City Hall. Their first single after the switch will be “Pareo wa Emerald” which will be released on July 27th.

The two Matsui girls (Rena and Jurina) talked to the media about the move in a press conference. SKE48 joins other AKB48 sub-units DiVA and French Kiss who are on the Avex label.

In addition to the move, SKE48 will be joining some big name artists which includes AKB48, SDN48, NMB48 in the annual a-nation tour when it hits Nagoya on the 13th August.

AKB48 – Everyday Kachuusha 4th Day Sales

Get set for tomorrow guys when AKB48 will become record breakers in a historic moment for the group and all of their fans as Everyday Kachuusha sold another 57,371 copies to nudge up their total to an incredible 1,200,024!! I’m so happy that they didn’t lose any momentum in sales today. All that stands between AKB48 and history is a paltry 8,206 copies and that will surely be sold with ease tomorrow. I’m delighted for AKB48. I wish I could see all of their faces tomorrow as somebody tells them they are history makers.

AKB48 – Everyday Kachuusha 3rd Day Sales/Reina Fujie Movie Role

A quite significant drop in sales today as AKB48 shifted just 57,945 copies of their single to bring the overall total to 1,142,653. That means they have just over 65,000 more copies to sell if they need to overtake Mr Children. Hopefully they can sell around 100k over the weekend for them to smash the record.

In other news, Team K’s Reina Fujie has been cast in a new 3D horror movie. The name of the movie is “Enkiri Village: Dead End Survival” and has Reina cast as a scary evil spirit. The plot is about a shrine near a tiny village around Tokyo which is able to sever connections with evil. A TV crew visiting the area find themselves placed under a curse by the village elders. One by one they start dying at the hands of an evil spirit called Enkiri-sama played by Fujie. The movie is released in October 2011.

AKB48 – Everyday Kachuusha 2nd Day Sales

After the euphoria of yesterday’s record breaking sales, would today see AKB48 do quite so well. Naturally there was gonna be a big drop saleswise but they still managed to shift an impressive 142,233 copies which bump their overall total to over a million – the final figure being 1,084,708. They are now 2nd in the best selling singles sold in a week and Mr Children are in their sights. They will beat them I think by the end of the week and in doing that AKB48 will break yet another record to the many they’ve done already.

EDIT: Regarding the news about the guy who bought 5,500 copies of the single – it’s apparently now confirmed as false. He runs a deputy service (whatever that is?) and isn’t even a Yuko fan so he must have thought he was clever to put up his pictures on the internet claiming he’d bought all the CD’s that was seen in his room.

What’s worse is one fan on Stage48 has admitted to randomly putting numbers into the voting code box and by a stroke of luck has managed to actually get a vote. This is a bloody disgrace to steal a vote. If he wanted to vote so much, couldn’t he have bought the CD like the rest of us who are supporting our idols by actually paying for their items? It’s made me sick to read about it.

AKB48 ga Ippai – The Best Music Video DVD

Coming out on DVD & Blu Ray on June 24th is this music PV collection, basically everything released from King Records by AKB48 which contains 36 tracks in total including the uncensored version of Beginner. There are 3 discs in total which run for a whopping 325 mins and there’s members commentary as well. Having pre-ordered mine from CD Japan, First Press editions are still available and you’ll get these with it (a 20-page lyrics book, a 56-page photo book, and three photos of AKB members from a selection of 9 regular senbatsu members plus an A4 clear file too).

The tracklisting is as follows:

Baby! Baby! Baby!
Oogoe Diamond
10 Nen Sakura
Namida Surprise!
Iiwake Maybe
Tobenai Agehacho
RIVER
Kimi no Koto ga Suki dakara
Hikokigumo (Theater Girls ver.)
Sakura no Shiori
Majisuka Rock n Roll
Enkyori Poster
Choose me!
Ponytail to Shushu
Nusumareta Kuchibiru
Boku no YELL
Majijo Teppen Blues
Heavy Rotation
Namida no Seesaw Game
Yasai Sisters
Lucky Seven
Beginner <ORIGINAL VER.>
Boku dake no value
Nakeru Basho
Kimi ni Tsuite
Chance no Junban
Yoyaku Christmas
Kurumi to Dialogue
ALIVE
Love Jump
Sakura no Ki ni Naro (Kanzen Ban)
Guzen no Jujiro
Kiss made 100 Mile
Area K
Kokoro no Hane
Anta ga Itekureta kara

I’m so looking forward to receiving this DVD. What are you guys waiting for? Go out and pre-order it now!