Mariko Attends The King Tut Exhibit In Osaka

Take a look at these gorgeous pictures of Mariko Shinoda as she attended the official opening ceremony of King Tut Exhibit: Golden Treasures and the Young King’s Truth last Thursday which is set to open at the Tempozan Tokusetsu Gallery in Osaka on April 17th.

Mariko wore the golden dress because when she thought about the country of Egypt the colour gold came to her mind. When somebody in the audience asked a stupid question ‘which AKB48 member is most similar to King Tut?’, Mariko responded that would be Sayaka as she’s half filipino and the King’s attire would look good on her. I had to laugh at that response.

 

Mariko Unveils Her Wedding Collection Designs

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?

MARIKO Magazine A Huge Success

Mariko Shinoda’s new fashion magazine entitled MARIKO Magazine sold just over 31k during it’s first week on general release which placed it in 3rd place on Oricon’s Weekly Book Ranking. She was only narrowly beaten from becoming second. We all know that Mariko took charge of everything for her magazine even going on photoshoots to London. Her hard work in doing this has paid off handsomely for her. I would imagine that with the success this edition has created, she’ll no doubt want to do another new edition soon. As much as AKB48 fans don’t want to hear of this, Mariko’s time in the group will certainly come to an end I think next year. She’ll be 26 years old in March 2012 and will think it’s time to move on to other exciting things in her life. You don’t see many idols of that age. One thing she can do is concentrate fully without the need for AKB48 distraction on this magazine – if that’s what she wants to do?

Fans Celebrate Mariko’s Victory

Check out this video on Youtube which was shot in a cinema somewhere I assume in Japan where they were broadcasting the janken tournament. Witness the moment that Mariko won the tournament. The fans in the cinema were mostly rooting for Mariko and looked to be very happy as she won.

EDIT: Here’s another video just before the tournament started – some fans are interviewed and we see the bus containing AKB48 members arriving at the Budokan (although we don’t see any of them).

Mariko Gets Her Own Fashion Magazine

To be published on October 28th, Mariko has become the chief editor of her own fashion magazine which is called MARIKO MAGAZINE.

Mariko has probably more fans outside the AKB48 world than anybody else where she’s incredibly popular with women for her fashion taste and her modelling in the magazine “More”. It makes sense therefore that she should have her own magazine. A magazine of her own has been Mariko’s wish for a long time. Her magazine was supposed to be coming out a lot sooner but she was still finalising the contents for it plus with her AKB48 work it made that impossible to do so it was decided that in the Autumn would be the ideal time to launch the magazine.

The featured  photos for her new magazine has taken place at one of Mariko’s favorite cities – London (has she ever been to this country at all?). Some of the other contents that you’ll find in MARIKO MAGAZINE will be how to do your hair just like Mariko, make-up tips and exercise routines. There’s also a special deluxe edition of the magazine coming out which will have an exclusive 2012 Mariko calendar.

You can already pre-order the magazine online on Amazon Japan. It’s likely to be sold out very quickly.

Female Idol Announcer Survey

With Konkon, formerly of Morning Musume now a full time TV announcer, Goo decided to ask it’s users which current idol would also be a good announcer. 6 AKB48 members managed to be in the Top 10 but did any manage to become no.1. Take a look below:

01. Mariko Shinoda (AKB48) – 4387 votes
02. Yuki Kashiwagi (AKB48) – 2458 votes
03. Yuko Oshima (AKB48) – 2226 votes
04. Other Names – 1447 votes
05. Minami Takahashi (AKB48) – 762 votes
06. Abe Natsumi (Dream Morning Musume) – 712 votes
07. Atsuko Maeda (AKB48) – 652 votes
08. Aya Matsuura – 626 votes
09. Kojima Haruna (AKB48) – 537 votes
10. Rika Ishikawa (Dream Morning Musume) – 523 votes

Mariko is coming to that age when many idols are pensioned off to do other things. Perhaps if acting roles don’t come her way, she could try announcing instead and of course she does have her modelling assignments to fall back on if times did become hard.

 

Mariko To Star In New Lismo Channel Program

Mariko Shinoda will be taking part in a new program by mobile serice au on their LISMO channel entitled “Princess Mariko loves apps ♪ for LISMO channel”. The program will see Mariko introduce fun and unique apps for android mobile phones from all over the world. The intention of the program is to try and attract new customers to the new au smartphone service “LISMO channel for Smart Phone”.

Mariko’s new program will begin distributing today and in a couple of hours time (3pm Tokyo time) she will hold a public recording to introduce the LISMO Channel app.

Mariko Shinoda To Appear In New Movie

Mariko Shinoda will have a role in the new NHK comedy movie “Salaryman NEO Gekijouban (warai)” (“Salaryman NEO Movie (lol)”) which is based on an NHK comedy programme.

The plot revolves around the employees of a beer company NEO Beer and Mariko will play the role of a receptionist at the company during the day and a mysterious job during the night. Mariko has stated that she has always wanted to appear in a comedy movie as she loves comedy so much.

The movie hits cinemas on November 3rd and there’s a trailer below. Mariko is glimpsed very quickly during the trailer.

Catching Up on AKB48 TV Shows

It’s only this week that I’ve had a chance to sit down and start to go through 2011 episodes of AKBingo and Shukan AKB. There’s a lot of catching up for me to do before I’m up to date with everything. I do have some questions though regarding some shows.

AKBingo (2/2/11 – the 1 hour SP) – who is this Bibiko-san person and what did he say to make Kasai cry? Also I know he’s been in AKBingo before but who is that effeminate man who does the heart ‘chun-yuu’ thing? Everytime he comes onto the show the girls adore him like a god. Is he like a one trick pony act that just does his signature move? If so he’s not going to last long.

Shukan AKB (4/3/11 – Dokkiri) – probably one of the best Shukan AKB shows in a long while but even I was shocked when Shinoda squared up to Nito Moeno. You could cut the atmosphere with the knife such was the tension and the other members became so quiet. Was Shinoda on the act or not? I know she’s said in an interview that she did a reverse dokkori but I just did not like it at all. Fair enough if both girls were in on it but if Mariko stood up to Moeno like a brat knowing full well that it was a variety show and Moeno was only acting then it’s wrong. Has Moeno said anything about the incident? I hope I won’t see anything like that again, just hate seeing my favorite idols having a stand-off like that but I admire Moeno for not backing down if Shinoda’s reaction was indeed real.

Mariko Shinoda Gets Her Own TV Show

Mariko Shinoda held a press conference yesterday to promote her own brand new upcoming TV show “Mariko-sama no Orikou-sama!” which will debut on April 6th on NHK every Wednesday at 1.05am.

Mariko’s show will be an educational one – learning “common knowledge” in easy, funny and short ways. Mariko commented that there’s a lot of common knowledge on environmental and economical issues that she doesn’t have a clue about so she would like to learn a lot.