Nogizaka46: The spellbinding 'Minami Umezawa post' #13....

 

 Took a while but finally a post for Minami hit the top ten for most views, it was her twelfth and hopefully that'll start a trend where they all make the list. Bit of a huge post for today but am holding a few things back in case there's a slowdown on upcoming activities. Usually when a Nogi member releases a photobook or appears in a film/drama they tend to step back for a while. Minami has done both of those things as no member has been in the spotlight more than her for the past two months. So wondering if management will have her ease up on things for a while to give other members more time in the spotlight. It'll probably happen but Minami is one who I think will remain busy as she still does modeling work plus who wouldn't want her to appear in their magazine?!

 Minami's first photobook was released on September 29th and was ranked #1 in it's first week selling close to 72,000 copies. Short stay at #1 as in week two it dropped to the second spot on the charts selling a little over 9,100 copies or 81,000+ for two weeks. That's a solid total but bet that dip in sales wasn't expected but seeing as how 110,000 copies were printed bet there be at last one more reprinting. Kind of wonder if fans aren't getting a tad tired of photobooks plus they can make a big dent in your wallet.

 Lot of books have come out recently too for actresses and other Idols so they may have cut into sales. Nogi has now had six photobooks this year with one more scheduled for November, this will probably end up being the third biggest seller of the seven and it will top 100 K in sales so I would consider it to be successful. Since Minami's last post on September 28th a few more promo pics have come out for the PB which are these, sadly no event was held for the book.

 Also on a somewhat sad note is the "Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken" film dropped out of the top ten at the box office after only two weeks. From what I read the prediction was for it to be a major hit but I couldn't understand why. Nogi does have a huge fan base but they would be the only people to go see the movie at the theaters, while they may have many fans it's not as huge as we would think and that's really the case for all Idol groups. 

 It is difficult for them to expand their fan base even if they are quite talented and there's very few Idols who could be considered stars after they've left their group. Perhaps none as I can't think of any off hand which is why I can never understand why members don't stay in their groups until they're close to thirty. Though the film has dropped out of the top ten Minami and her co-stars have still been promoting it doing interviews, this batch is from the Real Sound site. The film also didn't play in nearly as many cinemas as other movies which definitely would affect it's box office take.

 This is another set of interview pics which I like much better. They're from the Walker Plus site and was done with the member who shall remain unnamed....

 There was no event for the PB but Minami did sign many posters for some stores which she delivered herself which you can see in this batch of recent pics from her Nogi blog.

 Hopefully I've held back enough pics for that Nogi Halloween post but now I'm not so sure....

 Minami has been an exclusive model for With Online for quite a while and her pics for their OL campaign are truly second to none. But lately there's been zero new pics of her and and that kind of bums me out but least she had a decent sized spread in their November edition.

 Minami was in the second position on the final preliminary list for this year's faves, the official list should be starting in about five weeks. That's quite an impressive spot in my eyes but just don't know if she has what it'll take to topple #1 but there's still enough time and especially if there's a few more tremendous spreads such as this final set of pics. These days Minami is the cover girl for almost every mag she appears in and has the honor once again for the September/October issue of CM Now. There's still a lack of new Nogi videos, kind of surprised they don't have more CM's so will have an encore of her two minute 'American Diener' video as it's so superb and it's almost two years old.