[Charts & Rankings] The Official Oricon Thread ~A SUMMER BEST~

[bondingo]

Originally Posted by isthisLOL?

Nana Mizuki has seen a rise in single sales rather than a decline and is now one of the bestselling solo females in that area - and it's obvious a big part are her otaku fans. AKB48 are ****ing gigantic - and they seem to almost only have otaku fans and use promotional tricks like crazy to promote buying several copies of the same single.

Great point on Mizuki Nana, but with AKB you're a bit off. They have PLENTY of mainstream music-loving fans, and they're all over the place. They're very popular here with not just otaku, but teenagers, children, some young adults, etc. It's just that the otaku are, like you said, the ones who go crazy and buy a million copies of each version so they can vote for their favorite members or whatever the promotion is that single.

Originally Posted by Andrenekoi

Promotional tracks such as How beautiful you are, Love Songs or Microphone are the same as singles, they just don't get physical releases... As Namie and Utada proved again and again, you don't need a physical single to have a hit.

Namie and Utada may have proved that, but Ayu hasn't. None of those songs were hits for her, as they generally weren't very good choices to hook casual listeners in (with the exception of HBYA...maybe, and that clearly didn't work).