Nanchatte Renai - Will it hit No. 1?

[Prinny Squad]

Now before I begin, please excuse me for being a huge stat nerd. I just enjoy looking at numbers and stuff, s'all~



Nanchatte Renai, Morning Musume's 40th single. This is a huge release for them, since it marks 12 years in the music business and the longest stable line-up of Morning Musume ever. However, people also know that there's a bit of a bad luck omen associated with the 'decade' singles.



For some reason, and god I wish I knew why, Morning Musume's singles ending in 9 perform ridiculously well, and then the following single... kinda falls on it's face sales-wise, as noted by the following:



9 ハッピーサマーウェディング (Happy Summer Wedding)

c/w 通学列車 (Tsuugaku Ressha) 2000-05-17 | 471,270 | 990,950



10 I WISH

c/w あこがれ My Boy (Akogare My Boy) 2000-09-06 | 407,350 | 654,640



First week sales wise, they match up all right. However, I WISH fell really behind as far as total sales, selling 300k less than Happy Summer Wedding. The single right after, Renai Revolution 21, sold 500k first week and came close to 1m overall sales. Prepare to see this pattern again, as we now jump forward to the 20th single!



19 シャボン玉 (Shabondama)

c/w 涙にはしたくない (Namida ni wa Shitakunai) 2003-07-30 | 98,028 | 151,104



20 Go Girl～恋のヴィクトリー～ (Go Girl ~Koi no Victory~)

c/w 恋ING (KoiING) 2003-11-06 | 73,884 | 145,340



Now sales kept declining after this, as the music industry was generally going through a decline due to more digital outlets of music such as chaku-uta and iTunes. The next single, it's a lil trickier to tell that it sold worse, but final sales wise, it did sell worse.



29 SEXY BOY ～そよ風に寄り添って～ (SEXY BOY ~Soyokaze ni Yorisotte~)

c/w チャンス　チャンス　ブギ (Chance Chance Boogie) 2006-03-15 | 36,531 | 48,667



30 Ambitious！野心的でいいじゃん (Ambitious! Yashinteki de Ii Jan)

c/w わたしがついてる。 (Watashi ga Tsuiteru.) 2006-06-21 | 37,065 | 47,159



First week sales, Ambitious beat SEXY BOY due to media blitzing. The media blitz kinda died down afterwards, and it ended up not beating the final sales of Sexy Boy. The single right after was Aruiteru, which sold 40k first week and was the first #1 single since AS FOR ONE DAY.



Now, does this mean Nanchatte Renai is going to fall to the same curse? My answer is no, not at all. If anything, looking at first day sales data, it's possible they could even dethrone the queen of J-Pop herself, Ayumi Hamasaki.



Right now, Morning Musume is in second place. That's pretty good, considering it went up against Gackt, Crystal Kay, and Ayumi Hamasaki. However, what's revealing is that Ayu and Momusu are really close despite the OMG MOMUSU NOT IN FIRST WE DOOOOOMED stigma. In fact, first day sales of Nanchatte Renai beat out Shouganai Yume Oibito, and even Iroppoi Jirettai, which has been the golden standard for newer singles.



Do I think Morning Musume's gonna beat Ayu? It's gonna be tough, but maybe. But I definitely think they're going to beat IroJire, selling 70k and securing at least the #2 slot for themselves.



DISCUSS~

[tsukinobyouin]

Happy Summer Wedding and Shabondama were both singles where a new generation joined. Those singles typically do better overall anyway because of all the new gen hype/curiosity. As for Sexy Boy vs. Ambitious, Ambitious seems to be one of the least liked MM songs of all time. Not sure if that's just within the foreign base though, but I imagine its low sales are due to it being a fairly bad song.



I hope Nanchatte does well, but I've never cared much about sales numbers to begin with. I just like the idea of good sales possibly influencing them to keep this lineup as long as possible.

[Prinny Squad]

[quote name='TnB' post='67213' date='Aug 12 2009, 09:50 AM']Happy Summer Wedding and Shabondama were both singles where a new generation joined. Those singles typically do better overall anyway because of all the new gen hype/curiosity. As for Sexy Boy vs. Ambitious, Ambitious seems to be one of the least liked MM songs of all time. Not sure if that's just within the foreign base though, but I imagine its low sales are due to it being a fairly bad song.[/quote]



I didn't even thing of that! But at the same time, I WISH was in between two close-to-a-million songs, and it just kinda flopped. Some career retrospectives of Momusu (Kizuna Shokudou SP, for example) completely gloss over I WISH existing. And with Shabondama/Go Girl, the sales were building up for a while after Hyokkori Hyountanjima flopped, and then just kinda... stopped with Go Girl.



I never even thought of that though, that's a great point.

[Ap2000]

It happened 2 out of 4 times.

I really don't see a pattern there, since Shabondama/Go Girl ~Koi no Victory~ and SEXY BOY ~Soyokaze ni Yorisotte~/Ambitious! Yashinteki de Ii Jan sold nearly the same.

[neshcom]

The race was kind of close yesterday. Ayu's S/S~LIA~ took 36 552 points, Nanchatte got 23 301 (13251 behind), and Gackt had 3rd with 13 534 (~10000 behind MM, less than half of Ayumi).



Shouganai proved that first day sales are vitally important, but yesterday was kind of close.

[JPope]

I think you came up with a theory and tried to shoe-horn the stats to fit that theory.

[EmEl]

There's no pattern. Big round numbers just are big round numbers.



If you're not one of the consistent 100,000-in-the-first-week sellers, then becoming a number one single is only about what other things came out in the same week. Day one sales are all about the pre-orders. The rest will be about the casual fans.

[Pucchi-Mo]

[quote name='TnB' post='67213' date='Aug 12 2009, 09:50 AM']Ambitious seems to be one of the least liked MM songs of all time. Not sure if that's just within the foreign base though, but I imagine its low sales are due to it being a fairly bad song.[/quote]

Bad song, ugly outfits, so what do they do?



FIRST PRESS HAS INTERCHANGEABLE COVERS FOR EACH MEMBER. <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... /laugh.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':lesson:' />

Yeah, that'll sell it!



GO NANCHATTE! (Aki Urara)

Even if it doesn't win, the urgent fan effort to get it there will still be really good for MM.

[Special Needs Tricycle]

Morning Musume isn't going to beat Ayu and they probably won't even come close to the 70k Iroppoi Jirettai sold. Figures from day one:



シングル

*1　36,552　浜崎あゆみ

*2　23,301　モーニング娘。

*3　13,354　GACKT



While they're selling better than they did with Shou ga nai on the first day (About 300 more), and they still have a full TV schedule to try and round up non-wotas to buy the single, which in turn is going to make the after-release-date sales better, but I'll be super surprised if they beat Ayu or sell 70k.

Fake edit: Just realized neshcom already posted stats. :x

[Tallgeese]

They won't just because there's that pesky Ayu single in the way. Anyway, it would be nice, but I don't think it's that important, as long as they still have decent songs. Both Shouganai and this one have been really good.

[AEUGNewtype]

[quote name='JPope' post='67218' date='Aug 12 2009, 10:59 AM']I think you came up with a theory and tried to shoe-horn the stats to fit that theory.[/quote]

I kinda agree.



I'd like to think this song could reach #1 since the song is one hundred times better than Shouganai and actually better than any single they've had since JunLin joined, for that matter, but the quality of the music seems to work in the exact opposite of intuitive direction for Japanese sales numbers, from my past experience, so I doubt it. It seems like with Japanese music, the more lame, boring, and non-unique the music is, the better the sales numbers are. Take this Ayu single for instance...

[Tallgeese]

[quote name='The☆AEUGNewtype' post='67247' date='Aug 12 2009, 07:19 PM'][quote name='JPope' post='67218' date='Aug 12 2009, 10:59 AM']I think you came up with a theory and tried to shoe-horn the stats to fit that theory.[/quote]

I kinda agree.



I'd like to think this song could reach #1 since the song is one hundred times better than Shouganai and actually better than any single they've had since JunLin joined, for that matter, but the quality of the music seems to work in the exact opposite of intuitive direction for Japanese sales numbers, from my past experience, so I doubt it. It seems like with Japanese music, the more lame, boring, and non-unique the music is, the better the sales numbers are. Take this Ayu single for instance...

[/quote]



I think I gave up on predicting what will sell in Japan years ago. How and why some songs or acts sell is completely beyond me. Same goes for the US, too.

[Special Needs Tricycle]

Yeah, it would be nice if people bought things strictly on music quality... But even then, that's really subjective most of the time. :X



And then we have cases like Oshiri Kajiri Mushi.

[neshcom]

On Wed., SSLIA got 12 000 points, Nanchatte got 10 000. I missed Tuesday's rankings. Hmm....

[Ian905]

Oh shit Ayu's gotta new single?



I personally like Shougani better then Nanchatte, but maybe that's just me.



And I see what your getting at with the whole ninth single thing, pretty cool.

[EmEl]

[quote name='neshcom' post='67319' date='Aug 13 2009, 11:08 PM']On Wed., SSLIA got 12 000 points, Nanchatte got 10 000. I missed Tuesday's rankings. Hmm....[/quote]

You didn't miss anything. Those first numbers you posted were Tuesday's.



In any case, you can always click "前へ" on Oricon's webpage to see the previous day if you missed it.

[neshcom]

[quote name='EmEl' post='67328' date='Aug 14 2009, 02:43 AM'][quote name='neshcom' post='67319' date='Aug 13 2009, 11:08 PM']On Wed., SSLIA got 12 000 points, Nanchatte got 10 000. I missed Tuesday's rankings. Hmm....[/quote]

You didn't miss anything. Those first numbers you posted were Tuesday's.



In any case, you can always click "前へ" on Oricon's webpage to see the previous day if you missed it.

[/quote]

Thanks for the tip.



New numbers Ayu's still at #1 with over 8 000 more points. MM's down to 3 with almost 4 800. 2nd place was B'z new single.



It looks like Ayu's got it hand-down...

[EmEl]

Wow, that B'z single came out last week. It already sold 180,000 last week.

[neshcom]

B'z's single and Ayu's single were close with close to 6 500 sales on Firday. Nanchatte Renai sold at 4th place, so no points were disclosed. Gackt's single, which took 3rd, only sold 3 500 copies. I think it's safe to see Ayu, then MM, then B'z on the weeklies.



No number one, but this is still a big release for MM; they beat out some really big names. Damn, that EXILE single is still on the top 10. It' almost a month old <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... hahaha.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />

[Johnson]

Nanchatte Renai's up to #1, selling 8,110 copies. B'z and Ayumi are down at 2 and 3, respectively. If I'm not mistaken, they have already sold 50K+ copies.

[Special Needs Tricycle]

Morning Musume has outsold Ayumi Hamasaki in 2009.

[Kago]

[quote name='Johnson' post='67441' date='Aug 17 2009, 07:53 AM']Nanchatte Renai's up to #1, selling 8,110 copies. B'z and Ayumi are down at 2 and 3, respectively. If I'm not mistaken, they have already sold 50K+ copies.[/quote]



Was there some major promotion that happened to boost them back to 1?

[Special Needs Tricycle]

There was their Music Station performance.



I think they may have had a handshake event that day too?

[kitaoji]

They had two on the 15th, and there are actually nine of them running this week. And they're not the lottery-style tickets where you only have a chance to get into the big event. They're like the ones we had at AX where buying the CD (on the spot) guaranteed you a handshake, and this is why we have wotas running around with 15 handshakes. >_>



That said, Oricon's clamping down on this sort of rigging. They have an official article out, but I'm not confident in translating it. Anyone care to translate?

[Tallgeese]

Of all people, Oricon with their documented rigging of charts in favor of JE, should not be the one to cast stones.

[neshcom]

[quote name='kitaoji' post='67499' date='Aug 18 2009, 01:01 AM']They had two on the 15th, and there are actually nine of them running this week. And they're not the lottery-style tickets where you only have a chance to get into the big event. They're like the ones we had at AX where buying the CD (on the spot) guaranteed you a handshake, and this is why we have wotas running around with 15 handshakes. >_>



That said, Oricon's clamping down on this sort of rigging. They have an official article out, but I'm not confident in translating it. Anyone care to translate?[/quote]

A quick Google translate makes it sound like Oricon is explaining that their numbers come from market research done by stores that Oricon is in agreement with. The other bullet sounds like they take the market research and are subject to skewing sales 30% or by 3000 copies? Maybe it's explaining how they count sales from things like handshake/street events?



To be fair, I consider handshake tickets/lottery incentive to be on par with multiple editions that, say, have a different song (Mirrorcle World, Days from Ayu) or, instead of instrumentals, have remixes (3 SPLASH, FREAKY from Koda Kumi). In this respect, MM's singles have been sort of "more pure," though they may offer less choice to the consumer and lack more incentive beyond special covers. Then again, MM special editions have special (though not THAT special) DVDs.

[Special Needs Tricycle]

I'm not good with fancy shmancy Japanese and huge strings of Kanji, but I think it means that they're only taking sales reports from trusted CD/DVD-selling stores from now on, and that CDs sold at special events will not be counted anymore.



The likely causes of this are AKB48, whose sales on Sound Scan charts, which IIRC, only records CDs sold at shops, are around 1/3 as much as they are on Oricon, and Idoling!!! whose main sales come from the FujiTV building. Idols in general, basically. Morning Musume picked up on doing this for Nanchatte too.

[tsukinobyouin]

[quote name='neshcom' post='67502' date='Aug 18 2009, 02:03 AM']To be fair, I consider handshake tickets/lottery incentive to be on par with multiple editions that, say, have a different song (Mirrorcle World, Days from Ayu) or, instead of instrumentals, have remixes (3 SPLASH, FREAKY from Koda Kumi). In this respect, MM's singles have been sort of "more pure," though they may offer less choice to the consumer and lack more incentive beyond special covers. Then again, MM special editions have special (though not THAT special) DVDs.[/quote]



I would actually use your examples to argue the exact opposite point. When artists (avex, Johnny's, or whoever else) sell multiple editions, at least they're offering something new on the other edition - especially when that something new is a song or a DVD.



If Ayu makes it to number one based on fans buying two copies of her single - one limited, one regular - her sales are still more "pure" because generally people are paying for that alternate edition because they like her so much, they'll take any new content they can get. Assuming every single person buys both editions, for ever 50 copies Ayu sells that's 25 fans. Assuming every single person buys both editions for MM AND buys only 3 extra copies to go to the handshake events, for every 50 copies they sell that's only 10 fans.



But really, there's too many factors at work to make sales numbers "pure" for any artist. That's why I really don't care about sales rankings and figures beyond "this artist is doing well" and "this artist isn't." But good for MM beating Ayu. Regardless of the tactic, it's just nice to see. <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... /laugh.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':(' />

[neshcom]

[quote name='TnB' post='67511' date='Aug 18 2009, 01:27 PM'][quote name='neshcom' post='67502' date='Aug 18 2009, 02:03 AM']To be fair, I consider handshake tickets/lottery incentive to be on par with multiple editions that, say, have a different song (Mirrorcle World, Days from Ayu) or, instead of instrumentals, have remixes (3 SPLASH, FREAKY from Koda Kumi). In this respect, MM's singles have been sort of "more pure," though they may offer less choice to the consumer and lack more incentive beyond special covers. Then again, MM special editions have special (though not THAT special) DVDs.[/quote]



I would actually use your examples to argue the exact opposite point. When artists (avex, Johnny's, or whoever else) sell multiple editions, at least they're offering something new on the other edition - especially when that something new is a song or a DVD.



If Ayu makes it to number one based on fans buying two copies of her single - one limited, one regular - her sales are still more "pure" because generally people are paying for that alternate edition because they like her so much, they'll take any new content they can get. Assuming every single person buys both editions, for ever 50 copies Ayu sells that's 25 fans. Assuming every single person buys both editions for MM AND buys only 3 extra copies to go to the handshake events, for every 50 copies they sell that's only 10 fans.



But really, there's too many factors at work to make sales numbers "pure" for any artist. That's why I really don't care about sales rankings and figures beyond "this artist is doing well" and "this artist isn't." But good for MM beating Ayu. Regardless of the tactic, it's just nice to see. <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... /laugh.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=';)' />

[/quote]

Ok, I can see that way of thinking. My original thinking was that if a fan was willing to buy more copies (without the extra content) seems to show even more band loyalty, but I instantly remember that I mentioned MM have bonus DVDs.



If Ayu sold 50 copies, sometimes that's 12.5 fans <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... lesson.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />

[kabtx]

Second place by quite a wide margin.



Ayu - 75352

MM - 54973