Juice=Juice: A few recent happenings....

 Like a lot of H!P groups Juice=Juice is in a bit of a rut sales wise. All of their singles save one have cracked Oricon's top five yet none of the singles show staying power. Their latest single "Jidanda Dance" hit #3 on the charts it's first week out selling 32,000+ copies. That was released on April 26th and in the next three weeks the sales were just a little over 3,000 sold.
 That brings the total to 35,500, no single sells less than 35,000 yet only one has cracked the 45,000 mark. They have their dedicated fans and it's such a shame they can't increase that fan base as I think after C-ute their songs have been the best these last three years. C-ute also was in a rut like that for a few years but they stuck it out and eventually got to selling around 70,000 copies for their singles. Hope these gals stick it out and don't get too discouraged nor mad....

 Just a few things for today but they do total up to be many pics. The group does have some fans worldwide as this Autumn they'll be travelling to seven countries to perform concerts, they'll even be doing something C-ute never did which is to perform in America. One final thing about C-ute, Juice=Juice will be opening for them on June 12th at the Saitama arena which will their final concert and perhaps it's a passing of the torch. First off are some terrific pics from an interview Tomoko and Yuuka did earlier this month with Hustle Press to promote the new single.

 Mag spreads for the group are sadly a rare occurrence and it's even rarer when one has the cover. Karin has that cover honor in this set of pics from the June 1st edition of Weekly Shonen.

 Also in that issue is my fave member Tomoko, she will be turning 22 shortly and she truly has become such an attractive woman.

 The group has their own Ameba blog and all of them update fairly often. Here are some pics from the last few weeks with Yuuka and Akari who is way overdue for a photobook.

 Last tidbit is that the group just released a digital single on May 19th titled "Goal ~Ashita wa Acchi da yo~". It's a really catchy and upbeat tune and would have been perfect for a regular CD release. The song debuted last November in concert and have the video for it below.

Juice=Juice: "Dream Road ~Kokoro ga Odoridashiteru" single tidbits

 Think this is the fifth in their 'Single series', will be the last one until their next single comes out. The group's older singles there were two members who were a bit young so will pass on those older songs. However to me those singles I won't be posting about are among their best songs so thinking about having a post for their "First Squeeze' album and have some recent videos of them performing some of those older songs.
 This single was released on October 26, 2016 and the titles for all three songs are "Dream Road ~ Kokoro ga Odoridashiteru/Keep On Joushoshikou/Ashita Yarou wa Bakayarou", definitely three long song titles. Above are two of the covers for the single which was released in six versions, here are the others along with two promo pics.

 Like all of the singles from Juice=Juice it reached the top five on the Oricon charts, #5 was it's top position. That's actually lower than their previous few singles and the total sales were also a bit down. In it's first week it sold 32,200 copies which is on par with their other singles. However after that it showed no staying power and only sold about 3,000 copies in the next month.
 Will say it's not one of their better singles but then again we fans may have been spoiled as they put out so many fabulous songs in such a short amount of time, hard to keep that pace up. That could be the major reason why the sales were down for the single though like most H!P groups they don't sell a ton of records but they had always broken the 40,000 mark. Here's a few cards that were included in the singles.

 If you're a Juice=Juice fan think you'll really enjoy this post as it's the biggest one I've ever done for them as it has sixty pics plus have the PV at the bottom. One reason for so many pics is that two week's after "Dream Road" was released the group had their first headlining concert at Budokan and lot of the pics were promoting it. What I like about doing these 'single series' posts as it's not just about the songs but it's like a snapshot of a group during the time a single was released.
 If you haven't seen it yet highly recommend watching their "Budokan" drama that aired earlier in 2016, it truly was one serious drama. Think I'll also try to do a future post for the concert, have viewed it five times this last month and it's one fun watch as H!P groups really put on such entertaining concerts. Pics here are from an October interview the group did for the single and concert with Billboard Japan.

 More interview pics which feature Tomoko who is such an underrated beauty and Yuka. These are from the website Hustle Press, their series with J-Poppers is called 'Pick Up Idol'.

 One more set of interview pics though there's only four of them. These feature Sayuki and team captain Yuka, being the captain means you do a lot of interviews and these were for Walker Plus.

 Usually Hello Project groups have a mini concert the day of a single's release. JJ didn't do that for this single but instead held an event on September 11th, perhaps because of the Budokan concert? The event took place at the Ikebukuro Sunshine City fountain in Tokyo and it drew over 2,000 fans. You won't see them but Karin had crutches at the show, she had fractured a bone and had to use the crutches for almost six weeks.
 That meant this mini concert was much more subdued than usual, the gals are truly so entertaining and energetic in concert. You'll also notice they're all quite emotional as they all had tears streaming down their faces, have seen a few other videos with them sobbing such as when the announcement was made they'd be having a Budokan concert.

 Mentioned at the top this wasn't one of their stronger singles though it really is a fine song, was just playing the PV again and found out that I'm liking it more than ever. Of course in these posts need to have the video for the single which you can view after these pics and the video is subbed!