AKB48 set an astonishing record again~”Sakura no Shiori” hit the No.1 and something more at the Oricon Weekly Chart
AKB48, a young female idol group now has become a nationally popular idol group, which I referred to on previous pages (such as, http://www.tenkai-japan.com/2009/11/24/kouhaku-performers-names-revealed/ ) a few times here, hit the number one at the Oricon Weekly Chart under the date of the Mar.1st issued on this 23rd with their latest CD, “Sakura no Shiori”(/桜の栞、The Bookmarker of The Cherry Blossoms). That CD , which was releaesd on this Feb.17th, sold estimated 229,528 copies on the first day ,which made the CD No.1 in the Oricon Day Chart of that date.
However, what is more, the CD sold 318,000 copies in the first week, which hit the No.1 in the Oricon Weekly Chart as well. It is for the first time that a single CD of a female singers’ group sold more than 300,000 copies in the first week of the release in eight years and four months since Morning Musume’s “Mr.Moonlight ~Ai no BigBand~” (/Mr.Moonlight～愛のビッグバンド～).
These numbers precisely represent that ,as many people including me have referred to, the status of “the top national female idol group” has been kind of conceded from MM(Morning Musume) to AKB now. About 10 years ago, MM was surely “the Top” national female idol group. Yet MM and its mother group Hello Project have been losing their popularity these years around though some “graduate” members keep popular or even are becoming more popular than their were when they were incumbent like I wrote on a previous page. http://www.tenkai-japan.com/2009/12/22/the-career-options-of-morining-musume-graduates/ On the other hand, AKB has been becoming popular by leaps and bounds nationwide nowadays.
AKB ‘s CD one before the last was “RIVER” released on last Oct. 21st which hit the Oricon Daily Chart of that date with estimated 87,795 copies’ sale on the first day. Still even being compared to this “RIVER” ‘s big hit, ” Sakura no Shiori” ‘s one is incredible. AKB achieved successfully hitting the Top of the Oricon Daily Charts with two latest single CDs of theirs in a row , which is an amazing accomplishment that reminds us of the consecutive successes of MM at their zenithal days…
This time AKB’s newest CD has some prominent points. “Sakura no Shiori” has three versions; Type A , Type B, and “the Theater Version”. Both Type A and B version include three songs and their DVDs, and the title song “Sakura no Shiori” and “Majisuka Rock’nRoll” (/マジスカロックンロール) are included in both the two versions. But Type A includes “Enkyori Poster”(/遠距離ポスター, Distant Poster ) sung by Team PB (Team Play Boy), while Type B contains ” Choose me” sung by Team YJ(Team Young Jump). “PlayBoy”(/プレイボーイ) is a popular photo magazine of young idols and “Young Jump”（/ヤングジャンプ） is a popular comic magazine, and Team PB consists of some members of AKB whose photos are often used on the magazine and Team YJ consists of AKB members who are models of Young Jump. Type A has a jacket of a photo of the figuer in the mirror of Atsuko Maeda, “the ace” of AKB, wearing furisode, a traditional, colorful , and long-sleeved formal kimono for an unmarried woman. And Type B has a jacket of the figuers of Atsuko Maeda, Minami Takahashi, the leader of Team A of AKB, and Jyurina Matsui, “the ace” of SKE 48, a sister group of AKB, who are all clad in furisode, a colorful long-sleeved kimono worn by an unmarried woman usually a young girl.
A furisode is traditonally worn on special occasions in Japan, such as Coming of Age ceremonies, entrance ceremonies, and graduation ceremonies. Actually this CD’s songs especially the title song “Sakura no Shiori” is a song for celebrating graduations and blessing friends. Sakura or cherry blossoms come out around this time of a year from early March to mid April and are regarded as a symbol of the ending of an old school year and the beginning of a new school year, as a school year begins in April and ends in March in Japan.
In Japan, as a matter of fact, there is a special genre called ” Sakura songs” in J-pop. A lot of lyricists, composers,and singers write or sing songs of cherry blossoms or using them as a theme in February~ April, a spring time, the season for cherry blossoms. This is because of our special affection and affinity for cherry blossoms. We Japanese do love cherry blossom viewings in spring and connect the image of cherry blossoms and passing and resurrection of life. Actually, AKB has released some “Sakura songs” since their debut five years ago, such as “Sakura no Hanabira-tachi”(/桜の花びらたち, The Petals of the Cherry Blossoms), their first single CD’s song released on Feb.1 st 2006 , its self-covered version “Sakura no Hanabira-tachi 2008″ released on Feb.28th 2008, and ” Juunen Sakura”(/10年桜, The Ten- Year- Old Cherry Tree) released on Mar.4th 2009. AKB sang “Sakura no Hanabira-tachi” in French at the Cool Japan Expo in Paris last July, which appealed to the hearts of a lot of the audience there including so many non-Japanese fans.
Therefore, like the other older Sakura songs or “Graduation songs” of theirs, AKB sings this ” Sakura no Shiori” describing graduations, parting with school friends, and blessing their future. The song itself is a very slow, quiet, pure, beautiful chorus song which is something like ones typical and common at schools, which is a bit different from AKB’s recent up-tempo songs. So, I think AKB may intend to make their newest song be welcome and so popular among the junior-high and high schools’ managements to be a “standard number” to be sung at graduation ceremonies or school chorus competitions.
“Sakura no Shiori” “s music video clip was directed by Shunji Iwai(/岩井俊二) who is very famous as the director of a film, “Love letter” in 1995 , the producer of “BANDAGE” which is currently run at movie theaters, and other popular works. Because of Iwai’s participating in the work, AKB now has another point of drawing attentions of the public again other than the quality of their music itself.
In addition, “Sakura no Shiori” is the theme song of a drama “Majisuka Gakuen” (/マジすか学園)http://www.tv-tokyo.co.jp/majisuka/ , currently weekly aired Fri. 24:12-24:50 at TV TOKYO. This drama is a story about bad, violent yet somehow pure high school girls’ adolescence scenes of “violence and friendships”, and all the high school girls’ parts are played by AKB, SKE, and SNS members. This drama’s plot was written by Yasushi Akimoto(/秋元康), the grand producer of the projects of AKB, SKE,and SNS. Therefore, everything of this drama is created and run by AKB’s projects. “Majisuka Rock’n Roll” is the opening theme song and it has the directly connected image to the drama itself. Yet ” Sakura no Shiori” has the entirely opposite image to the atmosphere of the drama, for the song is depicting so beautiful image of school life of typical ” good and demure school girls”. So, it may be that Akimoto wants to compare the quite opposite images of the two songs and the drama to emphasize the two ends of the possible youth world to express its huge width and at the same time also to describe something people share in common even in such different styles as well. 
Usually young female idols don’t play parts of “bad girls” or of cruel, nasty, or bloodshed scenes. But as Akimoto says, “AKB would keep betraying their existing public images with new strives for breakthrough constantly”, in this drama, AKB keep portraying something “not idol-like” ideas and performances,which give us surprising and fresh stimilations like their new songs always do to us.
(まだ評価されていません)
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