Nogizaka's sixth single "Girl's Rule" was officially released on July 3. The sales volume on the first day of the O chart exceeded 300,000, catching up with the cumulative sales of the previous single.
On the surface, the effect of changing to C is very obvious. It seems that the new center has given Nogizaka a shot in the arm. The total sales volume of this order is expected to exceed 400,000, and it is not impossible to reach 500,000.
But in fact, the reason for the increase in sales is more than that. The second-term members who are currently trainees will also participate in the six-order handshake meeting. The contribution of the second-term students cannot be ignored.
The barriers blocking sales showed signs of loosening, and Yoshio Konno, who had suffered from no breakthrough for more than half a year, finally breathed a sigh of relief.
During this time, Mai Shiraishi was the absolute central figure in Nogizaka. New titles, new endorsements, and even the upcoming live tour will all be launched during the sixth single.
In conjunction with the new single promotion event, Rakuten Group, one of the shareholders of Nogizaka LLC, also invited Nogizaka members for the first time to support its professional baseball team Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles.
Japan's Rakuten and South Korea's Rakuten are two different companies. The former is an e-commerce platform born and raised in Japan, and the latter is one of the five major groups in South Korea.
The Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles are a young team established in 2004. Their home stadium is located in Sendai City, the capital of Miyagi Prefecture. The so-called Tohoku refers to the Tohoku region of Japan, that is, several counties in the northeastern part of Honshu Island.
On the Rakuten Group Game Day in July, there will be a match between the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles and the Hokkaido Ham Fighters. Nogizaka will perform with the Rakuten Golden Eagles cheerleading team before the game starts, and select one member to perform the kick-off ceremony to heat up the atmosphere.
For this kick-off ceremony, Lotte Group also specially invited Nogizaka members to participate in the company's morning meeting and asked them to give a speech in English in front of a group of company employees.
Nogizaka’s English level is so good that everyone can understand it. They are a bunch of scumbags. They pronounce most words directly with Roman pronunciation and have a strong Japanese English accent. Lotte's OL taught them for a long time before they could barely get them to speak the right words.
In line with the concept of those who are able to work hard, it was originally a sentence for the God of Fortune, but it was finally reduced to one sentence for each of the others, and Amamiya Shiori wrapped up the rest.
Needless to say about the candidate for the kick-off ceremony, Mai Shiraishi has played softball herself and is a new center, so she takes the responsibility.
For this kick-off ceremony, the day before the game, Shiraishi Mai went to the Tokyo Dome, the competition venue, for a half-day of special pitching training.
On the day of the official competition, the members arrived at the venue several hours in advance.
The athletes were doing preparatory exercises in the open field. There were only a few people in the stands, and it was still early for the audience to enter.
Many baseball teams will invite well-known actresses, idols, and models to kick off the game. For them, whether they pitch well or not, it is an opportunity to increase their popularity.
Most of the other members were also envious of this opportunity, chatting in the lounge, thinking about the day they would be invited to tee off.
At the end of the recent semester, various exams have come one after another. Since the admission system of Tokyo University stipulates that the third-year majors should refer to the average grades of students in the first year of freshman year and the first half of sophomore year, so Amamiya Shiori has recently focused on studying.
The lounge was too noisy and she couldn't sit still at all. She was not interested in baseball either, so she walked out of the lounge to get some air.
As soon as she came out, she saw Mai Shiraishi, wearing a Rakuten Golden Eagles uniform, sitting on the steps at the entrance of the stairs, rubbing her arms nervously.
"Would you like something to drink?" asked Soi Amamiya, who was wearing a white sailor dress.
Mai Shiraishi raised her head, her expression serious, as if she was too nervous, "Eh? Sorry, what did you just say?"
"Mai, would you like something to drink?" Amamiya Soi raised her voice.
"Oh, oh." Shiraishi Mai nodded blankly without answering.
"Are you so nervous?" Amamiya smiled and touched her head.
Mai Shiraishi looked at her and swallowed, "Today, how many viewers are there today?"
"It seems there are quite a lot of people," Amamiya Sōri thought for a moment, "more than 40,000 people."
"Forty thousand people!" Mai Shiraishi took a breath.
Nogizaka has never held a concert with more than 10,000 people since its establishment. Suddenly, 40,000 pairs of eyes were staring at the kickoff. Mai Shiraishi felt her legs shaking just thinking about it.
"Anxin, it's just a kick. It'll be over in ten seconds." Amamiya Sori comforted, "Just throw it in the catcher's face. I don't expect you to score."
"But I'm so nervous!" Mai Shiraishi crossed her arms tightly, "It would be a joke if I threw it crookedly."
"Don't scare yourself," Amamiya Sori comforted, "I'm going to buy something to drink, do you want it?"
"Juice, thank you!" Shiraishi Mai nodded.
"What flavor?"
"Anything is fine."
"oh."
Amamiya Shiori was looking for a vending machine in the corridor inside the East Egg.
Along the way, I met many cheerleaders. They were fit and had uniform long hair. They wore a small waistcoat on their upper body and a miniskirt on their lower body that could barely cover their buttocks. Not only her thighs but also her navel were exposed.
After asking the girls on the cheerleading team about the location of the vending machine, Amamiya Soi found her target not far from the corner of the forked road at the end of the corridor.
A vending machine for drinks and a vending machine for snacks.
"Eh? What should I do?" A girl with a single ponytail wearing a red and white cheerleading uniform squatted in front of the outlet of a vending machine selling snacks and whispered, "What should I do?"
He looked in through the transparent glass with a sad look on his face.
The cheerleading uniform she wore was not the one Amamiya Sugawara had seen before. The upper body is long-sleeved, with almost no skin exposed, and the lower body is a pleated skirt that reaches 15 centimeters above the knees.
Amamiya Shiori put coins, a bottle of dr pepper, and a bottle of canned orange juice in front of the drink machine.
The two bottles of drinks arrived at the outlet smoothly. Amamiya Sugaru squatted down to get the drinks and glanced at the next door.
This is a young girl with baby fat on her face, which makes her look fleshy, but judging from her slender legs, she is actually not heavy.
The anxious look on her face was because the snacks she bought did not fall into the delivery port, but were accidentally stuck between the transparent glass and the shipping track.
"Do you want my help?" Amamiya Shiori asked.
"Huh?" Suddenly someone spoke, and the girl was startled. She quickly stood up and saw a girl next to her wearing a white sailor dress holding two cans of drinks in her hands and looking at her.
"Yes, I'm sorry, were you talking to me just now?" The girl hurriedly put her hands in front of her and bowed slightly.
There is no trace of pink on her chubby little face, and she looks bare-faced.
"Uh, yes, it's me." Amamiya Nodded. I thought I was just asking if the sudden bow was a bit too much of a reaction.
