...and I am Happy I was Wrong!

Looks like I worried for nothing.

Yesterday, I found out that 'Heroine ni Narou Ka!' was number 1 on the daily Oricon ranking.

Note that this is the DAILY and not WEEKLY ranking (because some people are more interested on the weekly results than the daily ones) but what the heck, number 1 IS number 1.

The song is really great. People should really give it a try.

Now, I hope more promotion is given since this really has the potential to reach 30K. Maybe even 40K who knows?

Heroine Ni Narou Ka! Needs a Heroine....

Days after the release of Berryz Kobo's latest single 'Heroine Ni Narou Ka!' it is apparent, at least to me, that the single is not going to do well in the charts. It also reinforces my opinion that Up Front Agency, no matter how well meaning they may be, simply cannot promote their artists properly. The single is one of the group's better 'modern' songs (I usually term the singles made in Hello! Project post-Elder Club graduation to be 'modern' as a counterpart to Morning Musume's OG or Old Generation) and even has a fairly interesting (albeit somewhat controversial) music video to boot. What is more, the lines were fairly distributed amongst the members for those who care about how much their Idol is singing, and the music is a bit mature for H!P partly because most of the members are turning 19 this year (the Japanese coming of age is 20).

Yet despite all that, the single didn't chart as well as I'd hoped. And the reason can probably be pointed to poor promotion. I've only seen some TV guestings about the single unlike S/mileage who appeared on shows and events left and right and as a result did pretty well for an upstart H!P group. A song, no matter how good it is, will not do well if it is not promoted to the general public properly. It was a let-down, but I am hoping that the girls can have strong second weak sales.

Along with the lack of decent promotion, 'Heroine' also suffered from the misfortune of being released while the girls are busy doing Fanclub meets, holding their 7th anniversary tour, making their next single, and preparing for their upcoming US visit. While Idols are expected to multi-task, more effort should have been made to promote their singles because more people will be more interested in a group they see all the time as opposed to a group they used to see some times. But I am not UFA and this is reality. I guess I would just have to live with it. After all, Berryz Kobo has seen a lot of heartaches throughout the years to let this one affect them.

And, like I said earlier, they still have the second week to catch up.