AKB48 Approaching 100,000 Sales

AKB48’s latest single 10nen Sakura which was released two weeks ago charted at No.4 in it’s first week and rather surprisingly No.7 in it’s second week – actually beating Berryz Koubou’s first week for their own new single, Dakishimete Dakishimete.

In their first week the single sold a staggeringly good 66,261 copies and last week an amazing 26,375 copies giving a total so far of 92,601!! It will most likely reach 100,000 this week if not in the next.

It seems as though AKB48 may be the new idol group to watch – the promotion the recieve is pretty excellent and theater promotion alone sells many, many copies. The numerous events they have, often almost every day of the week are bound to help as well!

Just goes to show how much good promotion and a decent PV can do – I bet DefStar are wishing they had never let AKB48 go!

To celebrate these sales I’ve finally updated the Release Schedule with all of the upcoming AKB48 releases until the end of April!

AKB48 – 12th Single (2009-03-04)

AKB48 will release their 12th single on 2009-03-04 with the title 10nen Sakura. Not much is known about the single right now but it’s possible it will have a graduation theme like that of Sakura no Hanabiratachi.

AKB48 will release their joint single with Idoling!!! (under the unit name AKB Idoling!!!) around a month before in promotion of the idol-scouting event IDOL CHAMPIONSHIP PUSH 1.

An Interesting Week in Oricon

The Oricon Charts this week are quite interesting in that AKB48‘s latest single Oogoe Diamond has sold an extremely respectable 48,258 copies in it’s first week; a whole 10,000 copies more than Morning Musume’s latest single sold, worrying stuff for Japan’s top girl group but good news for AKB48! Oogoe Diamond is now their best selling single.

Good news for Satoda Mai as well as her album with the Hexagon All Stars has managed to get to #1 with sales of 270,310 in it’s first week! Satoda Mai has had a more fruitful career outside of Hello! Project this year than all of her years in Hello! Project with Country Musume.

Ohori Charts at #27

AKB48 Team K member Ohori Megumi’s debut solo single has charted at #27 in the Oricon Weekly Charts with it peaking at #22 in the daily charts. The single sold 3,969 units in it’s first week and for those of you unaware Ohori has to sell 10,000 copies within one month or she will be forced to graduate from AKB48.

The single is titled Amai Kokansetsu and is basically a sexy (slutty) song which I actually find pretty fun to listen to, I like her almost smokey voice and the single isn’t too expensive for a DVD to be included.

You can help support her by purchasing her CD! You can also watch the PV for the single on the sidebar to the right –>>

Five Members of AKB48’s Team A to Graduate

Rather shockingly five members of AKB48’sTeam A are to graudte within a few days at the end of their most recent stage; Team A 4th Stage Revival.

The members to graduate are;

1. 戸島花 (Tojima Hana)
2. 駒谷仁美 (Komatani Hitomi)
3. 大江朝美 (Ooe Tomomi)
4. 中西里菜 (Nakanisha Rina)
5. 成田梨紗 (Narita Risa)

All of these members are reasonbly popular, so it’s quite surprising they’re all graduating at once. I’m less surprised to see Narita Risa and Komatani Hiromi leave as they haven’t participated in any singles since 2006 but Nakasahina Rina and Tojima Haruna are both front-girls…

Today’s Releases (2008-09-25)

2008-09-25

• Shinoda Mariko – PENDULUM (DVD)

New AKB48 Unit – No Sleeves

A new AKB48 sub-unit has been created titled No Sleeves which consists of three lead members Takahashi Minami, Kojima Haruna and Minegishi Minami. These three Team A members are three of the most popular and have their own extensive fan-bases so the unit is already pretty strong.

They’ll release their debut single Relax! on 2008-11-26 in both CD and CD/DVD formats. This is the first sub-unit since Chocolove from AKB48 to release a single so it’s pretty exciting stuff! I’m guessing this means Chocolove is properly disbanded now as we’ve not heard anything from them in quite some time.

Tracklist

1. Ｒｅｌａｘ！
2. ハートの温度 (Haato no Ondo) (Heart Dance)
3. Ｒｅｌａｘ！－Ｉｎｓｔｒｕｍｅｎｔａｌ－
4. ハートの温度－Ｉｎｓｔｒｕｍｅｎｔａｌ－

Source