I
never really cared much for AKB48’s “official rival” group, Nogizaka46 (乃木坂46).
For me, they were nothing more than another AKB48 sister group, but with
different numbers in the name. In other words, another infamous gimmick coming
from mastermind Yasushi Akimoto (秋元康).
Criticisms
aside, Nogizaka46 caught my attention for the first time thanks to an aidoru collaboration
medley on “FNS Kayousai THE LIVE” (2015 FNS歌謡祭THE
LIVE), which aired in December 2015. If I remember correctly, our fellow group,
alongside AKB48, Momoiro Clover Z (ももいろクローバーZ), Morning Musume (モーニング娘。)
and other aidoru groups from Hello! Project and Stardust Promotion (Momoclo’s
agency) performed a lot of famous aidoru tunes, such as “Koisuru Fortune Cookie”
(恋するフォーチュンクッキー) and “LOVE Machine” (LOVEマシーン),
to name a few. Clearly, Nogizaka46 also had to contribute with one of their own
“classic” songs, and the chosen one was “Seifuku no Mannequin”.
“Seifuku
no Mannequin”, which was released in December 2012, is a Technopop piece
comprised of playful synths and that type of urgent melody so typical of the
more serious-toned songs by AKB48 and its sister groups. There’s also a little
bit of drama in the air, and it’s quite interesting how it harmonizes itself with
the “happy sounding” electronic features. It’s Nogizaka46 at its finest!
"Seifuku no Mannequin" reached #1 on the Oricon charts, selling 313,152 copies. Lyrics were written by
Yasushi Akimoto, while music was composed by Katsuhiko Sugiyama (杉山勝彦). As for the
arrangement, Hajime Hyakkoku (百石元) was the
responsible.
Hi, Marcos.
ReplyDelete"Seifuku no Mannequin" has got a pretty good beat and it looks like the choreographer really put NGK46 through its paces for the video.
Up to this point, I've only known the group for their variety show appearances. A couple of them seem to be huge anime fans; in fact, they were weeping major tears when they got presents involving their favourite seiyuu.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_RI6ha2WJc
Hi, J-Canuck.
DeleteTheir variety show, "Nogibingo", is one of the shows I enjoy watching nowadays. There's a group subbing the episodes in Portuguese, so I'm liking them very much. However, this Christmas episode you posted was new to me, and I didn't know they respected seiyuu that much, haha.
The girls are surely charming, but most of their songs are not very appealing to me. Whenever they release a single, I try their songs out, but they rearely stick with me like "Seifuku no Mannequin" did. At least we have nice variety shows from them...
One last thing about them... they seem to be getting really popular these days. Their latest single sold around 770,000 copies until now. Maybe in a near future they'll become AKB48's true rival group.
Well, there's nothing wrong with a bit of healthy competition between Akihabara and Nogizaka.:) Perhaps some really catchy songs can result from it. As long as we don't get any nasty knife fights between the two, it should be all OK.
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