NMB48 And Pocky Collaborate For Valentine’s Day

Everybody loves Pocky – right? NMB48 have teamed up with Pocky for a special Valentine’s Day giveaway to fans. All 44 members will appear on a big box of Pocky. Inside the box there will be 45 smaller boxes of the snack – each with the NMB48 logo and a picture of a member.

30 lucky fans have the chance to win this unique prize by purchasing NMB48’s new single Junjou U-19. Names will be randomly picked out via a lottery.

I love Pocky but haven’t tried the strawberry flavored ones as featured in the pictures above and below.

SDN48 To Graduate With A New Album And Single

SDN48 aren’t going to graduate quietly in March but with a new single and a new album that have been announced today. Their upcoming and last single which is set to drop on March 7th is called Makeoshimi Congratulations. Just one week later their 1st and only album will hit the stores. No details have been given yet about the album but it probably will contain all the songs from their singles to date

From reports, their new single will deviate from what they’ve done in the past and the group will sing a more idol-ish song. To complete the look, the girls will don school uniforms. Rather apt as March is the time of graduation in schools and universities all around Japan.

The 12 member senbatsu for the single have also been revealed and they are: Yukarin, Nonti, Cindy, Meetan, Serina, Haruka Kohara, Haruka Umeda, Yumi Fujikoso, Masami Kouchi, Yuki Kimoto, Mami Kato and Kazue Akita. I’m quite surprised they’ve chosen a senbatsu for the lead song as I thought they might have the whole group singing it.

UPDATE: Tracklisting for the album is as follows:

01. GAGAGA
02. Eros no Trigger
03. Sado e Wataru
04. Ai, Chuseyo
05. Tengoku no Door wa 3kaime de Aku
06. Awajishima no Tamanegi
07. Ai yo, Ugokanaide
08. MIN MIN MIN
09. Onedari Champagne
10. Abazure
11. Everday, Kachuusha (SDN48 version)
12. Kudokinagara Azabu Juuban duet with Mino Monta
13. YaritagariYa-san
14. Gamjatan Bojou
15. Cachaca de Jihaku suru
16. New Song (Title TBA)

AKB48 Scandal – Different Fans React In Different Ways

The dust has barely settled on the resignations of both Nacchan and Yonechan and on the various forums around the internet I’ve had the pleasure of reading the reactions of fans over the weekend. Whilst the vast majority such as myself are naturally disappointed in what has taken place and would like to wish both girls the very best in the future, some fans have taken to insulting them and posting videos to show their displeasure – such as the one shown below.

I seriously don’t understand what burning a picture of Nacchan achieves for this fan. Did the person feel better after doing it? So you’re angry and pissed off. We’re all hurting inside after losing these girls but there’s no way I’d do something like that though. I’m really happy that I bought a couple of Nacchan photos in Akiba during my last trip and I’ll cherish the photos I bought of her. I really don’t think even if I was incredibly angry about what happened that I’d consider burning a picture of an idol I liked. Other fans have shredded their pictures (there was a video of one fan doing that but I can’t seem to find it now). But as the title of my post says – different fans react in different ways. My message to these angry fans is this – you want to get rid of all your Nacchan/Yonechan photos send them all to me. I’ll give them a good home but please don’t burn or shred them!

Minarun’s Father Passes Away

Many fans started to worry when Minarun failed to appear at a recent Team 4 show at the theater on the 27th January. The reason why she didn’t turn up however has been solved today with a message from Minarun herself stating that her father passed away on January 25th but she didn’t get to know about it until very near the start of the theater show on the 27th. His funeral took place  today. Minarun’s parents are divorced although she still stayed in close contact with her father. However this sad piece of news is even more devastating for Minarun as she had an argument with her father at the start of the year and they never patched things up before he died. She bitterly regrets this but has vowed to make her father proud of everything she does. For now Minarun will not be back at work until the end of January and will not update her Google+ pages.

My deepest condolences to Minarun. Stay strong.

It’s Not Over Yet For Nacchan and Yonechan

When I read the statement by Togasaki last night about Nacchan and Yonechan, I thought they were resigning with immediate effect so why do I read from so many people today that both will be back for an AKB48 handshake event on the 5th February for 1 last time before retiring. Apparently this has come straight from Togasaki in a message that’s been posted today.

I understand that some fans would like to say a proper goodbye to them but I think this is a big mistake. There will be many people that will want to vent out their hate and frustrations out on them so I hope I’m wrong but I’ve got a bad feeling that things will turn nasty. I think yesterday’s statement should have been it – you resign, thanks very much for your work and off you go. Surely both girls realise that they’re not going to get an easy ride in this handshake event. Talk about punishing yourself even more!!

AKB48 Win At The 26th Japan Gold Disc Awards

Fans are still trying to come to terms with what happened yesterday with Nacchan and Yonechan so I think we should have some good news about AKB48 and there was plenty for them to celebrate at the 26th Japan Gold Disc Awards.

The Japan Gold Awards are gongs given by the Recording Industry Association of Japan (RIAJ) for outstanding artists which have contributed to the Japanese music industry and are based on actual sales.

AKB48 won the Artist Of The Year which is no surprise considering how they dominated the Oricon Charts last year. In addition they also won awards for Best 5 Album (Japanese), Best 5 Singles, Best 5 Songs By Download, Best Music Videos and Single Of The Year.

AKB48 were not the only 000 group to win an award. NMB48 were also given a gong in the Best 5 New Artists (Japanese) category.

Congratulations to both AKB48 and NMB48.

Crazy Nut Threatens To Murder NMB48, Jurina & Kanon

A sick and very disturbed individual posted a worrying threatening entry on Wikipedia that he would set fire to the NMB Theater tomorrow night at 7.15pm killing all of the NMB48 members and it’s audience and then turn his attention to SKE48 member Jurina by setting her school alight midday on Monday with her in it. But that’s not the end of it as there’s also a threat to Kanon Kimoto by torching her house as well. Whether this is a strange joke or not, it’s not very nice to see things like this and I hope management take precautions. You just cannot take threats like this lightly – there are weirdos around who would do something insane like this. I only hope police catch this person quickly.

UPDATE: NMB48’s show today passed without incident which I’m very relieved to hear about.

Yonechan/Nacchan In DEEP Shit!!

So here we have the first big breaking AKB48 rumour scandal of 2012 which has set the wotasphere alight today and it involves Yonechan and Nacchan. It appears that those troublemakers over at 2ch have found Yonechan’s personal twitter and mixi account and she mentions a boyfriend for 4 years that she just broke up with in an entry, looking for a new boyfriend and a possible sexfriend as well. Of course rumours are just rumours without any evidence but there’s some photos that have been uploaded and it is these photos (take a look at 3 of them below) that have dragged Nacchan into this whole sorry scenario. Add to that some entries in which Yonechan mentions a concert which coincided with Team K’s schedule and it looks like these rumours are starting to look true. What I don’t understand if this is all true is how Yonechan possibly thought she could get away with this. Hate messages have begun to appear in both of the girls’ Google+ pages. It appears that Yonechan has been made aware of the trouble judging by what I’ve read about her trying to hide herself and being very quiet when she arrived in Singapore for work duties with AKB48.

It doesn’t look good for either girl right now but if there’s one of them likely to be fired it’s probably Yonechan. If any action is going to be taken by AKB48 management it’ll happen when Yonechan returns to Japan next week. The member that stands to lose the most is Nacchan as she’s more high profile. She could be axed from WH7 let alone from AKB48 entirely. Rules are rules and if you’re caught out doing something you’re not supposed to then you should be prepared to take the consequences.

UPDATE: Looks like some action might have been taken already with news that Nacchan won’t be attending a WH7 event scheduled for tomorrow. If this is just to prevent any embarassment to her or some kind of suspension I have no idea? Will Yonechan perform tomorrow at Singapore or will she pulled out as well?

UPDATE 2: It’s all over for both of them. Effective immediately as per a message from Togasaki, Nacchan has resigned from WH7 and AKB48 with Yonechan resigning from AKB48 too. I’m disappointed in both of them especially Nacchan, a 1st generation member who was beginning to grow on me. Both have apologised for the trouble they have caused to the other AKB48 members, staff and fans. While some fans will mostly blame Yonechan for this scandal, Nacchan also has to take some of the flak. Her private twitter account has been discovered with some incriminating photos. I hope the 2ch twats are happy now that they’ve caused this.

AKB48 Give Me Five PV

The 5 minute version of AKB48’s newest single GIVE ME FIVE has been posted online on various places so here it is for all of you to see. I’ve gone for the Dailymotion version once more in the hope that it’ll survive more than the YT version would do. This isn’t the full version of the PV, that’s going to be a 34 minute MV drama so we’ll have to wait until the single comes out to see that. The plot will be about the senbatsu members who are all in a school for adults who dropped out of high school that hate themselves and their lives so their teacher persuades them to join the music group and create a band so they can have a sense of belonging together. Yuko’s character is supposed to be a prostitute!!

The PV in the first half of the song focuses on Baby Blossom performing for a selected audience in a hall (sort of like a mini-concert) before showing some clips which forms the storyline of the MV drama and ending with the band high-fiving each other just like they did in the Request Hour concert.

Enjoy the PV!

Under 18 Members Finally Get Their Own Google+ Profile Page

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!