Thursday, April 7, 2011

"Ai, Chuseyo" sales update!

The second single from SDN48, "Ai, Chuseyo" debuted at #1 on it's first day on the Oricon charts, selling 50,604 copies!

Unfortunately, it then dropped to #6 today, with an estimate (meaning, not a final number) of ~5,000 sales. orz

Of course, there are plenty of reasons to explain that drop.

First, as you should all be aware, Japan is still trying to recover from the earthquake that hit on March 11th, and buying CDs is probably the last thing on most people's minds right now.

Additionally, when the release was postponed from March 23rd to April 6th, that didn't stop it from being released onto Japanese iTunes. So, many people who might have gone to buy a physical copy could have decided to download it from iTunes instead. Of course, that's good since they still get the money, but it's bad since it won't show up on Oricon's charts. But with power outages, disrupted lines of transit, and etc, we can't really blame people for choosing to get it the easier way, can we?

Still, it doesn't matter if they sell 1 copy or 1 million copies. What does matter is that we support them as their fans.

Ai yo Ugokanai de translation

Lastly, we've got the 3rd song on the Type B version of "Ai, Chuseyo". This song is SDN48's first solo song, and it's by "Rachel", otherwise known as Nishikunihara Reiko (Rachel is her nickname). She's SDN48's oldest member, and she is a fantastic singer. This song is a beautiful, touching, ballad, and it probably speaks for itself better than I can, so please check it out!

Enjoy!

Awajishima no Tamanegi translation

I'm on a roll! \:D/

Anyway, the Undergirls B song (featured on the Type A single), "Awajishima no Tamanegi" ("Awaji Island's Onions") is kind of like Sado he Wataru in that it features another location in the title, lol. So, before you read the lyrics, check out Wikipedia's informative article about Awajishima.

There's another tricky part, where they talk about onions from Hawaii. This doesn't translate so well into English, so I'll explain that part briefly now. In the lyrics, they use the English word "onion" to talk about Hawaii's onions. However, after that they say, "But in Japan, they're tamanegi (Japanese for "onion"). So it's kind of a play with words, resulting in the translation coming out sounding a little odd.

Anyway, enough of my babbling. XD Enjoy!

Tengoku no Door wa 3kaime no Bell de Aku translation

Here's the lyrics for the song by Undergirls A, "Tengoku no Door wa 3kaime no Bell de Aku" (The Door To Heaven Will Open On The Third Ring")!

This song is about... well, to put it bluntly, a whore house. XD Essentially, the song is being sung from the point of view of someone introducing a new patron to the house.

There's some french in the middle of the song, but I don't understand it at all, and it wasn't in the lyrics, but if anyone wants to take a stab at translating it, I'll be more than happy to edit it in with credit to you.

Enjoy!

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Suppon no Onnatachi ends, and...

As you may have heard, SDN48's first weekly program, Suppon no Onnatachi, ended last week.  This week, in it's place, we get "Suppon no Onnatachi 2".

And, much like how Suppon no Onnatachi started, we've got a competition!

This time, the girls will compete against each other bracket-style.

The bracket (click for larger)

For those curious about who is going up against who, here's the romanized version.  All matches have been organized according to block, and then in the order they're shown on the bracket (from left to right).

A Block
1 - Sato Yukari vs Serina
2 - Kaida Juri vs Chen Qu
3 - Oyama Aimi vs Kohara Haruka
4 - Ito Mana vs Matsushima Rumi

B Block
1 - Tezuka Machiko vs Akita Kazue
2 - KONAN vs Fujikoso Yumi
3 - Umeda Haruka vs Mitsui Hiromi
4 - Kimoto Yuki vs Aikawa Yuki vs Imayoshi Megumi

C Block
1 - Noro Kayo vs Hosoda Miyu
2 - Hatakeyama Chisaki vs Okouchi Misa
3 - Ninomiya Yuka vs Nishikunihara Reiko
4 - Ohori Megumi vs Kouchi Masami vs Fukuda Akane

D Block
1 - Urano Kazumi vs Tsuda Marina
2 - Takahashi Yui vs Tanisaki Tomomi
3 - Kato Mami vs Kondo Sayaka
4 - Nachu vs Natsuko vs Akiko

I haven't had a chance to see this week's episode yet, but going from the preview on the official site, it looks like Suppon no Onnatachi 2 will be a really fun show. :D

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

SDN48 - Ai, Chuseyo translation

Now that the long-awaited second SDN48 single is finally out, I'm going to be working on finding lyrics for the songs to translate for you all!  It might take a while, though, so please be patient. m(_ _)m

First, I've got the title track, "Ai, Chuseyo".  Chuseyo is Korean for "Please" (or if you're familiar with Japanese, it's like "kudasai").  Luckily this one has a lot less Korean than GAGAGA, so I made it through with my pathetic Korean skills, lol.  Anyway, enjoy!