SKE48: "Stand by You" new single tidbits and a whole lot more!!!!

 That video at the top is SKE performing their latest single which is their 24th one, "Stand by You". That video has been up for almost five days so maybe we'll be lucky and it won't be deleted. As most know C-ute has been and always be my #1 J-Pop group or at least for the past decade. In second place would be SKE and though their sales don't compare the songs are so much better than AKB.
 However the singles sales have really dropped the past few years, this current song was released yesterday and there's no doubt it'll top this week's Oricon charts. But first day sales were just a little less than 142,000 copies sold, tremendous figure for most groups but it's the lowest first day sales in many years. Rena was such a popular member but didn't think her graduation would affect their sales so much, perhaps it wasn't her leaving but maybe J-Pop fans are a little tired of the group. The new single is good though not one of their best, sounds a bit too much like AKB to me at least.

 SKE's singles do seem to have legs though, their 23rd "Ikinari Punch Line" sold 240,000 copies in it's first week but it's approaching 400,000 in total sales. Too early to give up on this single though, do need to listen to it a few more times. Quite a few things today and there's more than the eighty pics for this post as I expect another group post in the next week or so. One of my fave members over the years has been Akane who these days rarely appears in mags. What a shame as she's so hot in my eyes and on November 29th she turned 27, SKE has so many members 25 or older and wonder if that's a reason for their decreasing sales? Hope not as I prefer Idols to be a bit older.

 Those bottom two are blog pic celebrating her b-day. Akane has been somewhat busy over the years as an actress and radio show host along with appearing on so many variety shows. She had a new stage play that began on November 24th called "Only Silver Fish", pics here are from an interview promoting the play with the Hustle Press site.

 More interview pics, these feature Akari and Mina who were promoting the single and these are from the Music Voce site.

 Yet even more interview pics and think there may be more than the ones for today. This set features a quartet of members who once again were promoting the single with 'TheTV.jp' website.

 On to a pair of mag spreads, know there's a few more coming out in the next week. Maya looks quite alluring in this set from volume 35 of BLT Graph.

 A quintet share this next spread which is from the January edition of Bomb. Nao has been one of my group faves for a while and that third pic featuring her is out of this world....

 Jurina is now back full time with SKE after taking a leave of absence due to her health or at least that was the reason given. She's one of my all time fave Idols and we need to see her in more mag spreads plus would love to see a second photobook from her. On December 12th she led a quartet of members who attended an event for 'Tik Tok'. They're a new company SKE has lined up with and they'll be doing short films and music videos for them. Nothing has been done yet so not exactly sure what kinds of short films they'll be but will have my eye out for them. Plenty of pics from the event and those are the uniforms for the new single, after the pics is a video of the event.