There are so many versions of 'Girls Rule" on YT it was hard to choose between them, can't go wrong with any of them. There have been many long posts here but without a doubt none of them will top this one, easily my biggest and perhaps best post here. Time wise it'll be the longest one too as I'm in a fantasy hockey draft as I'm doing this, may take two or more hours to finish. Could have done a few more posts for this single as there was so many things going on for the group during June and July of 2013, this single was released on July 3rd of that year.
But these 'singles series' posts just aren't devoted to the songs as it's more of a Nogi history and what was going on during the period when a single was released. Such things as mag spreads, promo events, concerts and many other happenings, have all of those things and more for this post. The group's 5th single "Kimi no Na wa Kibou was released on February 13 and it sold 242,000 copies in it's first week. It was a good song but to me it wasn't one of their strongest singles.
"Girls Rule" though was a strong single, I really like this tune and the B-side listed above is even better as these two songs are what made me a Nogi fan. Big increase in sales as in it's first week the total copies sold zoomed all the way up to 337,000! Total sales for 2013 were 452,000 which made it the 13th biggest selling single of the year, would have thought it would have been higher but it wasn't released until July. No need to tell you the song was of course #1 on the Oricon charts that first week, their last fourteen singles have hit the top spot. Here are the covers and a few other promo pics, four versions were released.
For the first five singles Rina was the center, glad they made a change for this one. The new center was Mai and it was an excellent choice as she really showed so much energy in the PV and also when they perform the song live. Here's the Senbatsu lineup for the song and Mai was flanked by Nanami and Sayuri, fairly sure it's been her only time on the front line.
Know everyone enjoys cards and with each single there seems to be more than ever as I easily could have posted twice or more than what's here.
So many things to post don't where to start. These pics seem like a solid choice and not going to post too many of them for now. Keep wanting to do a post about this event which was for a 'June Bride' event that happened on June 8th, will try to do a post on it soon as there's so many more pics and some videos. At the event three eligible Nogi bachelorettes were there in the form of Mai, Nanami(wow!) and Sayuri and if memory is correct think they were also at the same event in 2014.
Have plenty of mag spreads from that period and most include a promo pic of the single. The same trio above starts us off and this superb set is from the July 11th Weekly Shonen Champion.
One can never get enough of Nanami and here's one of her first of many alluring spreads which is from Young Jump #29.
Trio of Kazumi, Manatsu and Rina were featured in the July issue of Bomb-TV.
Have two group spreads with this first one being from the Summer edition of Girl Pop.
Last mag spread is from WPB #27.
The 'Power Push' series was one from Natalie and about thirty of the forty members had pictorials for that website. They're really solid sets and think most of them have been posted here already. July 2013 was when they started the series for the Nogi members and have a few pics from the first month with Yuuri, easy to see why she made my 'top ten fave member' list and Mai F.
On June 24th the group performed "Girls Rule" at the Pearl Dome during halftime of a football game, think Japan has some sort of pro league. As you can see by these pics the gals really put on such a fun show, would have liked to see them as the cheerleaders!
Naturally the group appeared on every major music show promoting 'Girls Rule". Here are some screenshots from one appearance which was on the Music Japan show as they attempted to make and fly paper airplanes, Nanase ended up being the grand winner.
Whew, this is one long post but don't worry as we're almost at the end. Reika is the team captain but seems at public events Mai is the group's 'leader', probably because she's been the most popular one for so many years. On July 1st six members were at an event for Japan's 'Forestry Agency' as they were part of a campaign for them and did a few promo videos for the agency.
Finally reached the end and for the finale have the best thing for this post though every pic here deserves a grade of an A++++. As fabulous as the A-side was it's "Sekai de Ichiban Kodoku na Lover" song which I truly love. It's still in my top five Nogi songs and the PV for it is easily my #1 from the group, lost count of how many hundreds of times I've viewed it. Here's some screenshots from the PV and the video which I hope you'll all enjoy follow them.
Edit: Well, like too many YT videos that one was taken down, seems the group's live performances stay up but not their PV's. That happens often with many J-Pop groups and it's strange why that happens as this song is over three years old so by now it certainly wouldn't affect any sales. Plus a PV stands for 'Promotional Video', makes no sense not making them available as it would help sales not hurt them. No PV then but do have a live version and there are many to choose from but most are shorter than the single version.
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