NMB48 KKS Ishihara Masako Left the Group

As announced on June 27, NMB48 4th Generation Kenkyuusei Ishihara Masako has left the group. Her leave happened the same day without any gradution ceremony. Ishihara Masako had to rest often because of health problems and could not perform often. Following the judgement of her doctor she decided to leave NMB48 completely. Ishihara Masako had passed the 4th generation audition in fall last year and debuted in December together with the other 4th generation members. She is already the third 4th generation member who left NMB48, after Sugino Risa and Hirose Sena resigned in February. Ishihara...

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SKE48 12th Single [Utsukushii Inazuma] Covers + Tracklist

The tracklist and covers for SKE48's 12th Single [Utsukushii Inazuma] have been revealed! Check them out below. Utsukushii Inazuma will go on sale on 17th July, 2013. Utsukushii Inazuma is the first single that will feature the new Teams after the SKE48 Team Shuffle on April. Another change is that there will not be an Akagumi and Shirogumi in this single, they will be replaced by the Boat Pier Senbatsu and Magical Band from SKE48 no Magical Radio 3. Boat Pier Senbatsu is a team formed for a collaboration with Boat Pier Nagoya. Their song is titled [Seishun no Mizushibuki] and will be...

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Nogizaka46 6th Single [Girl's Rule] Tracklist and Covers

Nogizaka46 will be releasing their 6th single [Girl's Rule] (ガールズルール) on 3rd July 2013. Shiraishi Mai  will be centering the single, replacing former center Ikoma Rina. She is flanked by Hashimoto Nanami, and Matsumura Sayuri. Limited Edition CD+DVD Types A, B, and C will come with a national handshake event ticket, a randomly selected photo from 32 types (each edition will have 32 types with 96 types in total), as well as one of 16 trading cards. The CD Only Regular Edition does not contain any bonuses unless bought through forTUNE music, which you get with an...

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AKB48 Game [1/149 Renai Sousenkyo] to be released on PS3

The AKB48 game [AKB 1/149 Renai Sousenkyo] will be released for the PlayStation 3 (PS3) on 12th September 2013. Currently the game is only available for the PlayStation Portable and the PlayStation Vita portable gaming devices. This game is a sequel to the PSP only games [AKB 1/48 Idol to Koi Shitara…] and it's follow up [AKB 1/48 Idol to Guam de Koi Shitara…]. The game will be available in a regular edition and a limited edition. The regular edition has a suggested price of 5,980 yen and will come with a single, random picture of a member as a bonus. The limited edition has a suggested...

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HKT48 show [HaKaTa Hyakkaten 2 Gokan] will be released on DVD

The HKT48 TV show [HaKaTa Hyakkaten 2 Gokan] will be released on DVD on 28th August. It is already available for preorder on various websites. The show will be available in a limited edition and a regular edition, each one containing 4 discs. The limited edition has a suggested price of 11,760 yen and includes as bonus a making-of video, a compilation of unreleased footage from the show, a booklet and an oshimen badge. The regular edition has a suggested price of 10,710 yen and includes a making-of video and a compilation of unreleased footage from the show (not the same compilation as the...

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NMB48 7th Single [Bokura no Eureka] First Week Sales

NMB48's 7th single [Bokura no Eureka] finished its first week and ranked No.1 in the Oricon Weekly Charts. The single sold 481,843 copies in week one and hence has the highest first week sales of any NMB48 single. Sales surpassed those of the previous record (375,785 by [Nagiichi]) by more than 100,000 copies. This is NMB48's 6th number-one-single. [Bokura no Eureka] started off with an amazing first day selling 420,906 and surpassing NMB48's first week sales record after only one day. The rest of the week turned out fine as well with NMB48 taking the top rank every day of the week. Best...

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JKT48 [Let Us Introduce Ourselves] Concert Setlist

On 23rd June 2013, JKT48 performed a concert in Makassar. It was the first date of their [Let Us Introduce Ourselves: JKT48] five cities concert tour. JKT48 performed 10 songs, which are mostly AKB48 single songs. For the first time, they performed [JKT Sanjou] which comes from Team J's current stage [Renai Kinshi Hourei]. The concert was followed by a meet and great event for a limited quota afterwards. Setlist: M00 - Overture M01 - JKT Sanjou M02 - Kimi no Koto ga Suki Dakara M03 - Baby! Baby! Baby! ---MC1--- M04 - Aitakatta M05 - Gomen ne, Summer M06 - Ponytail to Chouchou ---MC2--- M07...

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JKT48 Team KIII Announced

At the end of the JKT48 trainees [Boku no Taiyou] theatre show on 25th June 2013, JKT48 unveiled their 2nd team, Team KIII. The numbering follows Team K in AKB48 and Team KII in SKE48. 18 members were chosen to be part of Team KIII: Alicia Chanzia Cindy Yuvia Della Delila Dwi Putri Bonita Intar Putri Kariina Jennifer Hanna Lidya Maulida Djuhandar Nadila Cindi Wantari Natalia Noella Sisterina Octi Sevpin Ratu Vienny Fitrilya Riskha Fairunissa Rona Anggreani Shinta Naomi Sinka Juliani Thalia Viviyona Apriani An announcement about who will be made captain will follow later. The remaining...

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New Nogizaka46 x HKT48 TV Show [Kanmuri Bangumi Battle!] Announced

A new TV show featuring HKT48 and Nogizaka46 has been announced. The show will be called [Nogizaka46 x HKT48 Kanmuri Bangumi Battle!] and will air on NTV on Tuesdays at 25:34 JST. The first episode will air on 2nd July 2013. The announcement was made on 18th June during a press conference in Tokyo. This 1-hour show will actually be divided into two half-hour "kanmuri bangumi" shows (a TV or radio show that features the name of the performing artist in its title), each one featuring one of the two groups. Each week, a guest will come to the show to judge which one of the two groups is the...

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AKB48 34th Single Janken Tournament Announced

AKB48 will hold a janken (rock-paper-scissors) tournament to determine the senbatsu members for their 34th single. This tournament will take place in the Nippon Budokan on 18th September 2013. This was announced over the weekend at a [Sayonara Crawl] national handshake event at the Kyocera Dome, Osaka. This will be the 4th janken tournament AKB48 have held to determine the senbatsu members of their singles. Here are the previous winners and the resulting singles: 2010Uchida Mayumi[Chance no Junban] 2011Shinoda Mariko[Ue Kara Mariko] 2012Shimazaki Haruka[Eien Pressure] All full members...

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AKB48's 32nd Single will be titled [Koisuru Fortune Cookie]

Sashihara Rino has announced earlier today the title of their Senbatsu Election Single to be [Koisuru Fortune Cookie] (恋するフォーチュンクッキー / Loving Fortune Cookie). The single release date was also confirmed to be 21st August, 2013, and will be releasing in 7 different types (3 Limited Edition + 3 Regular Edition CD+DVD Types + CD only Theatre Edition). Check out the senbatsu members here. AKB48 32nd Single Koisuru Fortune Cookie 恋するフォーチュンクッキー 21 August 2013 AKB48 was in Fukuoka, Shinoda Mariko's hometown, for the past few days to film the PV of Koisuru Fortune Cookie. A total of 3,000...

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Miyazawa Sae's Team K Concurrency Officially Revoked

AKB48 management has announced that Miyazawa Sae's concurrent position in Team K has been officially revoked as of 24 June 2013. With this decision, Sae goes back to being a full member of SNH48 only. The announcement was posted to the AKB48 official blog, and cited as reasons Sae's speech during AKB48's 32nd single senbatsu election and a meeting held with her. Sae's concurrency in Team K was announced on April 28, during the AKB48 Group Rinji Soukai concerts at the Nippon Budokan. At the time, Sae's reaction to the surprise announcement led fans to speculate that she was not satisfied with...

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AKB48 & NMB48 Dominate Oricon Chart For First Half of 2013

Last Friday, Oricon released the "Total Sales by Artist" figures for the first half of 2013 with AKB48 coming in at No.1 in terms of total CD/DVD/Blu-ray discs sold and No.2 in total sales revenue. This comes after the success of AKB48's 31st single [Sayonara Crawl] which took the highest ever first day (1,450,881), first week (1,762,873) and total sales (1,933,454 ) of a single in AKB48 history. A total of 3,582,000 CD/DVD/Blu-ray discs have been sold in the past 6 months alone from all artists, chalking up a total sales of 6.86 billion yen. This mark a slight increase in total CD/DVD/Blu-ray...

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SKE48 Senshuurakus and New Team Shonichis Announced

SKE48 have announced the senshuuraku's (closing night) of their current three stages. These will be the last stages of the old teams, and the new teams as revealed in the shuffle will perform from then on. The shonichi's (opening night) of the new stages have also being announced. The three SKE48 teams are not getting new original stages, but will be performing old AKB48 stages. Fans could vote out of a limited selection which stage they wanted each Team to perform. The outcome of their vote will not be revealed until the shonichi. View more details of the stages available to vote here. Team...

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AKB48 Group Weekly News Roundup (17-23 June 2013)

AKB48 - The tracklist and CD covers for Watanabe Mayu's 4th single [Rappa Renshuuchuu] was revealed. - Itano Tomomi and Akimoto Sayaka will both graduate at the [AKB48 2013 Summer Dome Tour] together with Shinoda Mariko. - Maeda Atsuko, who graduated on August last year, will be performing back with AKB48 at their Sapporo Dome concert on 31st July. She will perform her new single (and possibly more) at the concert. - Iwasa Misaki will release a cover album, and is taking requests from the fans for songs to cover. Applications end on 10th August. - After Smurf 2, Takahashi Minami will dub a...

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NMB48 7th Single [Bokura no Eureka] First Day Sales

NMB48 released its first single this year, [Bokura no Eureka], on June 19 and the first day sales are out now. The single sold 420,906 copies on day one and ranked first in the Oricon Daily Charts. These are by far the highest first day sales for NMB48 ever, breaking their previous record of 280,367 set by [Junjou U-19]. It is already clear that [Bokura no Eureka] will also have the highest first week sales of NMB48 ever, because the first day sales alone are already higher than the first week sales of any other NMB48 single so far (the previous record was [Nagiichi] with 375,785 copies sold...

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New Unit Songs for Oshima Team K Waiting Stage

The 18th June performance of the Oshima Team K Waiting Stage, (which was Maeda Ami's birthday show and Furuhata Nao's Team K debut) had completely different unit songs to normal. It is as yet unknown whether it's just a one-off or they'll continue to do them: M05 - Yuuwaku no Garter (Akimoto Sayaka, Kuramochi Asuka, Maeda Ami) M06 - Hoshi no Ondo (Itano Tomomi) M07 - Candy (Matsui Jurina, Nagao Mariya, Nakata Chisato) M08 - Hajimete no Jellybeans (Kitahara Rie, Abe Maria, Muto Tomu) M09 - Higurashi no Koi (Oshima Yuko, Furuhata Nao) M10 - End Roll (Shimada Haruka, Fujita Nana, Miyazaki Miho,...

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Watanabe Mayu 4th Single [Rappa Renshuuchuu] Tracklist

The tracklist has now been revealed for Watanabe Mayu's 4th single [Rappa Renshuuchuu] in addition to the covers yesterday. The single will be released on the 10th July 2013 in 5 types. Three CD + DVD types, A, B and Limited Edition, and two CD only types, Regular and Limited Edition which comes with an artbook. The cover for the limited edition with artbook is fan design held by an online contest. Mayu herself helped judge the winner. 13 runner-up entries will appear in an illustration book that will be included in that edition. View the winner and 13 runner-up entries at the official pixiv...

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JKT48 Announce 5 Cities Tour

Beby Chaesara Anadila, one of JKT48 members, has just announced through her Twitter and G+ account that JKT48 will have a5 cities tour, ending in Jakarta. Here are the schedule for their 5 cities tour based on what Beby wrote on her G+ after she attended the press conference for the 5 Cities Tour named [Let Us Introduce Ourselves : JKT48]. JKT48 Live in MAKASSAR, Sunday, 23 June 2013, 15:00-18:00 WITA (GMT+8) at D’Liquid Cafe Grand Clarion Hotel More info: @99_ent (Twitter) JKT48 Live in SOLO, Thursday, 27 June 2013, 19:00 WIB  (GMT+7) at GOR Sritex Arena More info: @BlaksCreative...

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Weekly News Roundup (10-16 June 2013)

In a new feature, we've decided to do a weekly news roundup of all the news from the AKB48 groups that we couldn't cover in fully fledged posts. AKB48 Takahashi Minami to be a voice actor in the Japanese version of the [Smurfs 2] movie. Nakatsuka Tomomi held her graduation theatre performance with Team A on the 13th June. Nakatsuka Tomomi will release a graduation photobook on the 5th July. Itano Tomomi mentioned on Kayou-Kyoku that her graduation date would be in August. Itano Tomomi's 4th single [1%] sold less than 48k copies on it's first day on sale to place 4th in the Oricon daily...

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