Majisuka Gakuen 3

The airing date for the third instalment of AKB48's Yankee drama, マジすか学園3 (Majisuka Gakuen 3), was revealed. It will begin airing on 13th of July, weekly on Fridays 00:12, on TV Tokyo’s “Dorama 24” channel.

In the first season, Maeda (AKB48 Atsuko Maeda) and Daruma (SDN48 Nachu) transferred to Majisuka Gakuen, an all-girls yakee school. Maeda was frequently picked up for a fight or challenged due to her silent nature and mainly her strength in fights whenever her true nature is awakened (She is a pretty strong yankee in middle school). Slowly towards the end, she managed to climb up to the top and towards the end, Yuko (AKB48 Oshima Yuko), the president of Rappapa - MJ's strongest gang, passed on her role to Maeda before she passes away due to her illness. A peace treaty was also made between Majisuka and Yabakune, after much fights through the season.

In the second season, surprisingly Maeda didn't take the top seat herself and instead shared it with a new transfer student whom she know personally, Otabe (AKB48 Yokoyamo Yui). Maeda from the start was absent from school, trying to get the answer she have been searching for by beating up many street hooligans, leaving the president responsibility with Otabe. Most of the original Rappapa members have graduated and allies (or rather, friends) of Maeda took over the vacated positions - except for Gekikara who had to retain in school due to her detainment for her crime in the first season. The Rappapa in this season however is a lot weaker and lack the aura the original Rappapa top members have - which also caused some disapproval amongst the other gangs in the school. What's more, the peace treaty between Majisuka and Yabakune was broken. With Maeda's absence, the internal discontentment building up, the increasing threats by other rival yankee schools, predominantly Yabakune Gakuen, the betrayal of Shibuya (AKB48 Itano Tomomi) and all the plans and tricks by Nezumi (AKB48 Watanabe Mayu), Rappapa had a hard time keeping the school under control and fighting against Yabakune. At the last episode, there was an official big fight between Majisuka and Yabakune which ended rather abruptly when Maeda (who found the answer she have been finding) turned up and resolved with Shibuya - in a rather.. peaceful way. Surprisingly, the conflict gets resolved and members of both sides start helping each other up while Maeda gave in to the cops who came to the fight scene expecting for Maeda, for the crimes she committed while being absent from school.

Frankly speaking season one was really very nice from the start to the end but for season two, the starting episodes was kind of more into comedy and lack the action and thrill that the whole of season one had. Slowly into the season, MJ2 gets more and more interesting and the thrill is finally back. However, the thrill came to a very abrupt stop at the ending part of the last episode, making the season kind of like ending too soon.

No details of the third season is revealed yet, excepted that the setting would be in a prison. Could it be a continuation of Maeda's capture for her crimes? However, with Maeda graduating on 27th of August after the Tokyo Dome concert, could she be acting for only half the season or none at all? Shall anticipate for more details to be revealed! Hope the new season is as thrilling as the first season.

Come to think of it, I might only be able to watch at most 8 episodes before my enlistment. Damn.. after the 8th episode, it must be very exciting already... =[

Photo and source of news from: Mantan Web

UPDATE (7th July):

Casts:
AKB48
Shimazaki Haruka (Lead)
Oba Mina
Shimada Haruka
Kawaei Rina
Abe Maria

SKE48
Yagami Kumi
Kizaki Yuria
Kimoto Kanon

UPDATE (9th July):

'The upcoming drama will be set in the year 20×× in a privately run juvenile prison called “Prison HOPE” or better known as “Majisuka Prison”. The prison accommodates juvenile delinquents who have been abandoned by society, school, and even their families, and are put into different groups. Rather than trying to turn over a new leaf, the girls step into a battle ring everyday to compete for the top in a game of the survival of the fittest.

‘Majisuka Gakuen 3′ will air on TV Tokyo’s “Drama 24” time slot every Fridays starting on July 13th.'

Adapted from tokyohive

A totally new story plot huh... =o

Kind of lost the 'Gakuen' feel in my opinion. Might be a bit too early to comment on it but I feel that they might as well make a new series with a new title instead of making a season 3 that got nothing to do with the past couple of seasons.

New skin for a new phone!

Got my new phone, Sony Ericsson Xperia Play, not long ago and I decided to make a skin for it.

Able to tell where this image is from? =3

AKB48 The 24th Single - Janken Tournament (第2回じゃんけん大会)

A lot of things happened in this Janken Tournament, with most of them very near to my prediction. In overall, I rather depressed with the results, but before I go into anymore moaning (which I did while coming out of the theater) here is the list of members who made it into the AKB48 24th Single Senbatsu

優勝 - 篠田麻里子 (Shinoda Mariko)

2位 - 藤江れいな (Fujie Reina)

3位 - 峯岸みなみ (Minami Minegishi)

4位 - 小林茉里奈 (Kobayashi Marina)

5位 - 秋元才加 (Akimoto Sayaka)

6位 - 大家志津香 (Oya Shizuka)

7位 - 前田亜美 (Maeda Ami)

8位 - 佐藤すみれ (Sato Sumire)

9位~16位:

肥川彩愛 (Hikawa Ayame - NMB48 Kenkyuusei)・梅田彩佳 (Umeda Ayaka)・河西智美 (Kasai Tomomi)・桑原みずき (Kuwabara Mizuki - SKE48 Team S)・小嶋陽菜 (Kojima Haruna)・山口夕輝 (Yamaguchi Yuuki - NMB48 Kenkyuusei)・山内鈴蘭 (Yamauchi Suzuran)・北原里英 (Kitahara Rie)

The tournament started out with some introductions and a performance of 'Chance no Junban' by last year's Janken tournament senbatsu, where 内田眞由美 (Uchida Mayumi) - champion of the Janken Tournament last year - started off the song, solo, in ballad.

There was the appearance of the special guest, pro wrestling legend Antonio Inoki, and what shocked me for a while was his slap on Matsui Rena's face. Realized it was '闘魂注入' (Toukon Chuunyu) or 'Instilling Fighting Spirit' which is well-known in Japan. Matsui Rena did not make it into the Janken Tournament as she lost the premliminary rounds. Was already very sad for that already. D= I could only hope that Takajo Aki (my oshimen), Iwasa Misaki (my next favourite AKB48 member) and Mtasui Jurina (one of my favourites in SKE48) or either of them gets into Senbatsu in for the 24th Single.

Sadly, Wasamin lost in the first round and left Akicha and Jurina who would be competing for the Top 16 positions with Kojiharu (Kojima Haruna) and Miichan (Minegishi Minami) respectively - which secures a place in the 24th Single Senbatsu. Was super depressed when both Akicha and Jurina lost that I simply slumped back on to the chair and did not really bother to pay much attention to the rest of the tournament. =X I guess my hopes of having my favourites in the Top 16 - Senbatsu - was a bit too high eh.

Looking on the bright side, at least at least two AKB48 members that I like is in Senbatsu, with one being the champion of the Janken Tournament - Shinoda Mariko. The other member is Umeda Ayaka, who managed to get into Top 16. I have a feeling that the 'scissors' earring Mariko-sama wore during the tournament did affected the decisions of most of her opponents on which move to make, sort of like a mind game. If it's really for that purpose, I really have to praise her for that!

There's also another AKB48 member whom I took note of during tournament - Kobayashi Marina from AKB48 Kenkyuusei. I don't know much about her but from all the calculations I did before the tournament with the statistics available in the AKB48 Janken Tournament Official Guidebook, I predicted that she had the most chance in getting the Center position (Champion) or at least near there, and indeed, she got into Top 4! Which is really close to my prediction! =D Firstly, congratulations to Marinchan!! ^^ Through this chance of being in Senbatsu for the AKB48 24th Single, I hope that Marinchan is able to shine, especially in the PV, and get the chance to be promoted to Team 4.

At the ending part of the Janken Tournament, the full PV of AKB48's upcoming single '風は吹いている' ('Kaze wa Fuiteiru') was aired. There were many varying comments from my friends with some liking the song but find the costumes, hair style and dance not really nice. As for me not only I find the song awesome, I actually do find the costume and hair style really fitting, along with the background and dance too. I am totally impressed with the whole PV and really made me want to place an order for it.
(Check out my previous post here for more information on AKB48's 23rd single, '風は吹いている')

When the whole live screening ended and as I was about to leave, I realized that one of my Akicha pins (which is a set of two) broke. I did remember it's still intact during the live screening of the janken tournament, even before Akicha was up against Kojiharu. I wonder if it broke due to my rage when Akicha lost? However, I don't remember hitting so hard that a pin can break just like that.

Luckily it's not the one with Akicha photo on!

That part of the pin is self-replaceable though (at least to me). Just need to find a replacement for the broken part.

Before the AKB48 24th Single 'LIVE' Screening, I got the Majisuka and Yabakune pins (from the AKB48 drama, Majisuka Gakeun) I ordered through a fellow forum user, samx, from Nihongogo.

Looks awesome eh? Looks exactly like the actual one in the drama!

More information on the AKB48 24th Single 'LIVE' Screening in my previous post here.

Astonishing sales by AKB48 again!

Oricon released the Daily Singles sales for 23rd August and topping the the chart is AKB48's 22nd Single, 'フライングゲット' (Flying Get), at a shocking 1,025,952 copies for it's first day sales!

it was followed by 'Ｓｅｘｙ．Ｈｏｎｅｙ．Ｂｕｎｎｙ！／タカラノイシ' by V6 (28,943 copies), and 'ＶｉＶｉ夏' by ぱすぽ☆ (14,412 copies).

The previous single 'Everyday. Kachuusha' sold a total of 942,475 copies for the first day, which is really amazing already but understandable as many fans bought multiple copies just for the voting tickets for the 22nd Single Senbatsu Elections (some even in thousands. No kidding!). A voting ticket was included in each of the first press editions of AKB48's 21st single and each person is able to vote more than once. Thus the more voting tickets one have, the more votes he/she can cast.

The AKB48's 22nd single however isn't for Senbatsu elections or anything similar, thus I actually thought that the first day sales would be lower than that of the 21st single. The most probable reason for this amount of sales for just the first day might just be that the amount of fans and people listening to AKB48 have really increased by a lot! Now that's some great news =D

Not only did their 22nd did a really amazing feat, the DVD box set for their midnight drama, マジスカ学園2 (Majisuka Gakuen 2), sold an impressive amount of 10,000 copies in the first week of sales, securing the 2nd position in the Oricon's weekly DVD ranking. The first season, マジスカ学園 (Majisuka Gakuen), sold only 3,000 copies in the first week, ranking at 32nd in overall.

I have watched the first season some time ago and followed the second season while it was airing on TV Tokyo. Found both of the seasons really awesome, not because the cast is AKB48 (along with members from SKE48 and SDN48), but because in general the storyline, action scenes, etc are really good. Wanted to get the 2nd seasons DVD box set but didn't have the money yet >_< It would be costing me near SGD400 with all the shipping and handing included. Would try to get it one day!

Source:
23rd Aug Oricon Daily Singles Sales

Oricon - Majisuka Gakuen 2 sales news