Sashihara Rino / Nogizaka46 1st and 2nd day sales

Sashihara Rino's debut single [Soredemo suki da yo] as well as [Oide, Shampoo], 2nd single of Nogizaka46 were both released on Wednesday after weeks of media covering an artificial rivalry between the two.

Even with extensive "doping" on Sashihara's side, Nogizaka46 went on to almost double Sashihara in number of units sold. Oricon reports first day numbers as 56,879 and 111,222 sold units respectively.

After two days, Sashihara and Nogizaki46 are at 86,447 and 132,774 sold units respectively.

Today avex staff issued a statement, apologizing that theater edition (Type-D) sales of Soredemo suki da yo amounting to approximately 12k units had not been counted by Oricon. According to avex's statement, Oricon considers a release to be a single as long as it doesn't exceed a 4-song limit (not counting "off vocal" tracks). Apparently Sashihara's cover of Matsuura Aya's 2002 hit "Yeah! Meccha Holiday", exclusive to the theater edition, was counted as a fifth track and not as the "bonus track" it was originally intended to be.

While she might not have been able to beat Nogizaka46, Sashihara did outsell Watanabe Mayu's solo debut "Synchro Tokimeki" by about 8k units (50,145 / 1st day).