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Another two new sister units of AKB48 has been created, with big plans for China!
First, the Shanghai sister group SNH48 will officially accept applications soon, and have public auditions for team members in August. The group will officially launch in December. Applications are accepted through SNH48 website. AKB48 has been extremely popular in China, with members of the group regularly visiting China in the past 2 years. Whether it can gain success though is another story, although the chance is good as there is a lack of idol groups coming out of China. Currently, there are two other overseas AKB48 sisters group – JKT48 (Indonesia), and TPE48 (Taiwan).
The second sister unit is called TYB48, a snaggletooth girl group, consisting of 3 members Nana, Mio and Rika. According to Japan Today, the girls are chosen from a field of applicants recruited by a dental clinic specializing in “tsuke yaeba”, Japanese term for snaggletooth. The group has already released their first single, “Mind if I Bite?” (かみついちゃってもいいにょろか？). Click here for TYB nico channel
The 2012 version of a-nation will have several dates with different themes, and is broken down into 2 set of events: music week, in various venue in Tokyo, and stadium fes, at Tokyo and Osaka dome.
For music week, which will take place between August 3 to 12, has seven different shows scheduled:
August 3: VERBAL of m-flo presents… “OTO_MATSURI”
August 4: BAND NATION…. the GazettE has already announced they will be part of the show
August 5: ANISON GENERATION…. anime songs celebration, with May’n announced she will perform
August 9: Asia Progress M… featuring popular male artists in Asia including AAA, DEEP, U-kiss etc.
August 10: Asia Progress F…. featuring popular female artists in Asia including AKB48, girls next door, etc.
August 11: IDOL NATION….. SKE48 is scheduled to perform!
August 12: ROCK NATION….. VAMPS will be there！
The stadium fes. will take place at Osaka Nagai stadium on August 18 and 19, and at Tokyo Dome on August 25 and 26. Line up for those shows has yet to be announced. Ticket information is listed here, with English instructions!.
Mr. Children’s latest best collections has taken first and second place on the Oricon charts this week. This is the band’s second ever 1-2 weekly finish and since their last pair of best collection release, Mr. Children 1992 – 1995 and Mr Children 1996 – 2000 in 2001. The Macro 2005 – 2010 disc, which contains top hits such as Shirushi, HANABI, ESORA, and Gift, was in first place, selling over 730 thousand, while the Micro 2001 – 2005 disc sold about 710 thousand in its first week of release.
Mr Children continues their POPSAURUS tour this week in Hokaiddo. They are slated to end this leg of the tour in early June.
On a separate announcement, a.p. bank fes., co-found by band leader Sakurai Kazutoshi, has announced that the 2012 version will take place in three locations in the summer. The first set of shows will take place in its “regular home base” Kagegawa, Shizuoka, on July 14 – 16. The second set of shows will take place in Awaji, Hyogo Ken in Kansai, on August 4 -5 . The last set of shows will take place in Miyagi on August 18 – 19. This should turn out to be an epic music event. Ticket and camping information can be found on the offical a.p. bank fes. website.
Golden Bomber will put on sale their global version of their best album, “Golden Best” in Japan on June 18. The release will have 6 different versions: France, Great Britain, Taiwan, Korea, Germany, and US, with each version having different tracks and cover. Furthermore, different version will include the hit song Meme shikute in their local language, such as Chinese, English, Germany, Korean etc. Note that this is not a domestic release, so the selling price is lower than the Japanese version.
The latest buzz in the Japanese music circle is none other than Yohio. The young 16 year old, lolita kei Swedish import has recently release his first Japan release, “REACH the SKY“. It is interesting to see a reverse import of visual kei artist to Japan, although visual Kei music has been popular in the Europe region for a long time. Japan Today has put up an interesting article on the background of Yohio.
According to the artist’s official site, Yohio’s band Seremedy will also be releasing their first album this summer. Yohio stated “It’s so many levels higher than our previous release. Seremedy has evolved!”. Stay tune for more information
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