The number one single for this week was “Kitagawa Kenji” (北川謙二) from NMB48, selling 317,051 copies. This is in-line with their previous release, “Virginity”, which sold 315,205 in its first week. Looks like we have a pretty good estimate of the current NMB48 fanbase’s purchasing power.
The Second from EXILE were at #2 (appropriately enough) with “Think ‘Bout It!” (yes, I’ve left out a lot of capital letters in this sentence – I found them aesthetically displeasing). The single sold 106,161, which is also entirely typical for an EXILE single.
What wasn’t typical was the fact that AKB48 came in at #3 in the second week of “UZA” sales, which managed only 45,177. There’s no two ways about it – that’s horrible. At the usual 10% of first week sales, they would have taken #2, but they only managed 4%! And I usually consider 5% tragic. It brings the total for this single to 1,173,873.
flumpool’s “Answer” came in at #4, selling 34,699.
Nishino Kana-san was at #6 with 21,362 copies of “Always” sold.
Halloween Junky Orchestra continues to show strength, with “Halloween Party” adding 11,530 (that’s a remarkable 20% of their first week sales, and this is the fourth week), for a total of 89,959. We’ll definitely see them break gold now – possibly before this dips out of the top 10 again.
My second support-the-kids effort for October was Dream5, and their new single “Shekimeki” came in at #10, selling 9,588 (one of them is mine). Their music is solid pop – nothing to get thrilled about – but I saw some choreography videos that made it clear how hard they worked, so I wanted to give them the thumbs-up for that.
J-Everything 