AKB48 [RIVER] Music Station Performance

AKB48 performed recently on Music Station their song RIVER. It's the shortened version unfortunately, so no chanting in the beginning. Nevertheless it was an awesome performance. Great camerawork by the cameramen. Everyone had their share of screentime and there isn't any camera hogging. However, not all was good. There was a small problem with Takamina's skirt. It seems that it was too short, but luckily she was saved by those black shorts they always wear under the skirts. (Like those in Skirt, Hirari). Her performance is unaffected though, I must applaud her for that.

AKB48 - RIVER (Music Station Performance)

Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JO9Q2lw3t-s
Note: Sayaka, Sae Yukirin absent.

[RIVER] Week 2 Day 1 and 2 sales

AKBN48's RIVER starts Week 2 very slowly on 13th place on the Oricon Daily Charts. Quite low but it isn't bad for a start on Week 2. 10nen Zakura started Week 2 at #18. So #13 isn't a bad number. In fact, We should start associating the #13 with good luck not bad because, look whose back.

RIVER rises back to the Top 10 and claims the #4 spot, smashing Morning Musume's sales at #5! This is incredible! AKB48's Week 2 day 2 sales passing Momosu's day 2 sales! We don't know how much is AKB's and Momosu's sales though but I think they are close. Like separated by only 1,000 or so. We also don't know the sales amount since both are out of the Top 3, except that they are less than 13,317. They could be anywhere between 6,000 and 13,000.

KinKi Kids represented Johnny's Entertainment and challenged the girls to an epic showdown, continuing the never ending fight between the two idol groups. The good news is that so far in the 2 days, their sales reached only 112,000. AKB's 2 day sales was a staggering 141,844. The bad news is that the sales of Day 3-7 went down quickly and sold only 30,000 copies. KinKi Kids 2nd day sold 40,000 copies. They can easily beat 30,000. I'm worried for the girls but If AKB can beat KinKi Kids, they will make history AGAIN.

I can't help but think the AKB wotas have been storing their money just so they could blast it all out back on Week 2 and beat Momosu. That could explain the sudden drop in sales during Day 3-7. The sales are sure to go down by tomorrow which means Momosu may or may not overtake them. Nevertheless, this event has caused quite a stir among Momosu wotas. Now back to RIVER, if my estimations are correct, RIVER's day 6 and 7 should sell somewhere around 4,000 to 5,000. Week 1 day 1 may have sold around 1,000 to 2,000. Week 1 day 2 is around 6,000 to 13,000 so I'm guessing 10,000 sales. That amounts RIVER's sales to around 194,000! That means only around 6,000 copies left to sell before it reaches 200,000!! That should be reached by the end of the week!!! This is incredible!

[RIVER] 1st week sales

RIVER's sales on day 3 is a massive drop from the previous 2 days, going at only 14,259. What's more worrying is that the 4th day sales aren't any better and dropped to 4,707. If this goes on they might lose their #1 spot on the Daily charts. This does not look good for AKB. At least they still hold the #1 spot for now. Hopefully their sales will increase after their appearance on Music Station on 2009/10/30 (Friday). Their appearance on Music Fighter didn't do much difference to the sales sadly. 200,000 is highly unlikely for 1st week but there is still hope for total sales. Maybe they should change their tactics and start showing Kimi no Koto ga Suki Dakara and Hikoukigumo on advertisements and not just RIVER. After all, in my opinion Kimi no Koto is better than RIVER. Wotas who haven't bought your RIVER single yet, DO SO NOW!!!

In other RIVER news, RIVER is at the top of the Recochoku daily download rankings, and interesting to note that Iiwake Maybe is on the list at #13, up from 28. Maybe due to the high RIVER sales that people decided to check out their old singles?


5th day sales of RIVER went up from 4,707 to 7,085. Any increase is great news. Especially with the low sales of Day 4. RIVER still stays at #1 in the Daily charts. Current total sales stands at 167,895

However, RIVER didn't hold on to the #1 spot and in day 6, they dropped 4 spots to #5. Oricon doesn't update us on daily sales if the single is not on the top 3. So all we know is that the sales is less than 3,684, which is the sales of the #3 single.

7th day sales didn't do any better. RIVER managed to keep it's 5th place position at least, but with sales below 1,832, it doesn't look good for 2nd week sales.

However, not all is lost. Official sales for 1st week is 178,579!!!! That gives them the NUMBER SPOT ON THE WEEKLY CHARTS. Well we all knew that since the monster sales of day 1. Not only that, RIVER is now the BEST SELLING FEMALE GROUP SINGLE SINCE 2003. That's SEVEN YEARS. The low day 4 to day 7 sales don't matter any more cause they have made music history. I am so glad to be part of those sales. A big

CONGRATULATIONS

to you girls for being so awesome and making the #1 spot, and not forgetting Aki-P. You are a genius. A freaking genius. I am sorry for ever doubting you (though I still doubt you for some things like the shuffle). You have earned my respect. OTL. Oh and congratulations for walletraeping us too ^^.


TOTAL WALLETRAEP AMOUNT (as of 28 October, 2009)
Day 1: 87,795 X 1,600 yen = 140,472,000 yen or 1,536,468.33 USD
Day 2: 54,049 X 1,600 yen = 86,478,400 yen or 946,088.46 USD
Day 3: 14,259 X 1,600 yen = 22,814,400 yen or 249,909.64 USD
Day 4: 4,707 X 1,600 yen = 7,531,200 yen or 81,836.78 USD
Day 5: 7,085 X 1,600 yen = 11,336,000 yen or 124,471.89 USD
Day 6 + 7: Pending due to an unknown error in the numbers. Currently trying to resolve the problem.

Week 1: 178,579 X 1,600 yen = 285,726,400 yen or 3,137,167.46 USD
TOTAL: 178,579 X 1,600 yen = 285,726,400 or 3,137,167.46 USD
We have hit 3 million baby. Aki-P is rejoicing.

AKB48 14th Single [RIVER] 1st & 2nd Day Sales

AKB48's 14th single [RIVER] was released yesterday, and for the first time ever AKB48 achieved 1st place on the Oricon Daily Ranking Chart. The exact no. of copies sold was 87,795, almost double that of their preceding single [Namida Surprise].


Second day sales were even more exciting. While there was a drop of 30k down to 54,049 copies sold, the total sales for the 2 days reaches a staggering amount of 141,844 copies sold,  more than what Namida Surprise sold in it's whole 1st week! This is history in the making! Damn am I glad I joined the AKB48 fandom in time to witness this prosperity.


Will AKB48 be able to sell enough on the next couple of days to break the 200,000 barrier? Only time will tell. They have an upcoming performance on Music Station on Friday (091030) and that might give them the boost that they need.

MELOS no Michi is LIVE!

MELOS no Michi is LIVE!


Welcome to MELOS no Michi, my new blog for AKB48 fanboying. Who am I you might ask? My name is Joshua, but I go by the nickname of Melos on the AKB48 forum Stage48.

I have been an AKB48 fan for just half a year, joining the fandom soon after 10nen Zakura was released. During that time, I have witnessed the difficulty of finding information about the group and their works. Information can be found on forums, but it is tucked away somewhere within the threads and hard to backtrack.

It is for that reason that I created this blog, to archive each and every single activity for the non-Japanese speaking fans, so that if the need arises in the future, the information will always be there for them.

Of course, I also have my personal reasons of creating this blog. I find it difficult to keep track of an artist or group if I'm not actively doing something for it.

I don't have much else to say, other than wish me luck :)