AKB48's Single 'Kaze wa Fuiteiru' Ranks 1st in Oricon Weekly Chart

It was revealed on Oricon that AKB48 claimed the first spot in weekly sales again with 1.3 million copies!
Furthermore it's their tenth consecutive time topping the weekly chart, breaking the record of Pink Lady of nine consecutive of first place in weekly sales almost 33 years ago.

AKB48 now takes over the top three position for best first week sales with “Flying Get” at first place with 1,354,000 copies and “Everyday, Kachuusha” at second with 1,334,000 copies. This makes AKB48 the first artist to ever to achieve three million-selling-single in a row.

What's more is, all the singles AKB48 sold since their debut adds up 10,034,000 copies, making them the fourth girl group after Pink Lady, SPEED, and Morning Musume to break through the 10 million mark in the history of Oricon.

Congratulations AKB48!! I will always support you all! ^^

Source: tokyohive|Oricon

NMB48 tops the Weekly Single Charts again!

NMB48's second single 'Oh My God!' sold over 265,000 copies in its first week, thus ranking first in the Oricon Weekly Single Ranking Chart. This makes NMB48 to be the first group to top the charts twice in a row since their debut and also the first female group to sell over 200,000 copies in its first week, two singles in a row.

Congratulations NMB48!!

Source; tokyohive|Mantan Web

SKE48 6th Single at #1 in Oricon Weekly Ranking

SKE48 released their 6th single 'パレオはエメラルド' (Pareo wa Emerald) on 27th July, which is their first single released under avex.

Within the first week, 379,000 copies of the singles were sold, thus entered the Oricon Weekly Ranking at #1. This is not only their second consecutive first place win, it also made them the highest selling AKB48-related group (not counting AKB48), where NMB48’s debut single, '絶滅黒髪少女' (Zetsumetsu Kurokami Shoujo) sold 218,000 copies, and Maeda Atsuko’s solo single 'Flower' at 177,000 copies.

SKE48's 6th Single is also the group's best selling single in within just a week, where their 5th single 'バンザイVenus' (Banzai Venus) sold a total of 273,000 copies.

I started following SKE48 when I stumbled upon their PVs for '青空片想い' (Aozora Kataomoi) and 'ごめんね、SUMMER' (Gomen ne, SUMMER) last year and found them really energetic. Since then, I started listening to all the SKE48 songs from their singles and stage albums.
This single totally blew me off. Not only the cover track is that awesome (ranked 'Pareo wa Emerald' as my most favourite song by SKE48), the B-sides are very good too! Love the PVs for their 6th single a lot too!

Check out my post about the 6th single 'パレオはエメラルド' (Pareo wa Emerald) here.

Interview with SKE48 by Oricon

For the full interview, visit tokyohive here. Posting this because I found this particular section rather interesting to me:

'Interviewer: By any chance, is there a powerful ‘ame-onna’ (a woman whose presence seems to cause rain) among the members?

Matsui: In the past, I was called ‘ame-onna’. Everyone mistakes me as ‘ame-onna’, but now, I think it’s Rena-chan. Even during the shoot for jacket covers, it was clear the entire time until Rena-chan appeared, it started raining instantly.

Suda: The word ame-onna doesn’t sound too good, it should be ‘mizu no megami-sama’ (the goddess of water)!

Matsui: Alright, from now on, I will be ‘mizu no megami-sama’!

Suda: Once, during an outside event, I made a ‘teru teru bozu’ (paper doll as a charm for good weather) so it wouldn’t rain, and walked around with it in my purse. And yet, it rained… I thought ‘why?’, and realized the ‘teru teru bozu’ was crumpled.

Matsui: Then again, don’t you hang ‘teru teru bozu’?

Suda: Eh? Really?

Kizaki: You didn’t know?

Suda: All this time, I was using it the wrong way. I always carried it around.'

Rena is now known as '水の女神様' (mizu no megami-sama, Goddess of Water)! Shall call her by this if she comes Singapore one day and see what's her reaction! XD

Akarin is so funny here, putting the てるてる坊主 (teruteru bouzu, a paper doll charm for good weather) in a purse and it ended up being crumpled, then thinking that it did not work due to it being crumpled. Only when Rena told her that it's meant to be hung up then she realized she used it the wrong way. XD