Alright so in about a day in Japan we will be getting the first of the 6 “Shuffle Units” with QN/STARISH/HEAVENS for the “Maji Love Kingdom” to come out next year. THIS is going to be the FIRST OF SEVEN (almost typed something else...WHOOPSIES!) pieces of content that will be coming out from December 12th to now March 13th because of the fact that Broccoli is gonna be busy af with UtaPri and Marketing the CDs and so forth and its mindblowing to be honest.
HOWEVER
The question of the hour here has to do with “Do the #’s matter” and in a way they DO but not entirely and if you want proof of this...let’s go back to 2016 when “Legend Star” came out for UtaPri!
The reason I want to focus on this season and this period right now is I want us to remember the following
At this time HEAVENS had been around only since about....2013 but this was going to be their first year as a full-time unit. It would also be the first time we would get to see how the public reacted to having a third group for which to support as far as buying CDs and other merch for so there was going to be that to take into account too!
Well here is what happened
There were 7 duet singles and then the 3 group singles right? I’m going to do the group part last because I want to make sure that we have them nice ,neat and separated and I can focus on the big part for the comparison. These 7 were
Mighty Aura
Justice Impulse
Visible Elf
Lovely Eyes
Lasting Oneness
Grown Empathy
Next Door
I know this isn’t entirely in order but there we go
I’m going to come out and say this right now: I was more worried (at the time) of how each individual member was going to be received than how the singles were selling. The reason is because ,when I was looking at the episodes, I wanted to see how the fandom took to each individual HEAVENS member and then that MIGHT have helped me gauge interest in the CDs but for the most part (as I found out through the Oricon Style Ranks) that was kind of a moot thing
Here were the two I thought would do the absolute BEST just based off of characters in the duets
Eiji/Tokiya
Masa/Kira
Those were the two that I thought would do the best because ,in my head, I was thinking
“There is virtually NO WAY you could make either of these really dramatic drama episodes right?”
Well...for the most part they didn’t but yet they were two that actually did the poorest and I admit I swung and whiffed on that one when I looked at the episode...OH DID I MISS!
See for whatever reason with the first one the HIGHEST that the Eiji/Tokiya single got to was #11 on the daily chart...this was rather alarming because of the fact that when I go and look at the rankings for Seiyuus a lot of the time Mamo is one of the tops and he deserves to be there. I really didn’t know Eiji (Yuuma) that well yet so I figured that Mamo’s popularity would carry them to ,AT THE VERY LEAST, a top 10 but alas that didn’t happen...nor do I remember (cos sadly I don’t know where I put the post on here) where the Kira/Masa duet ended up high but I don’t remember it going to the top 10 either!
Truth be told of the 7 singles the 2 that did the best were
Lovely Eyes (that peaked at #6)
and
Justice Impulse (That peaked at #4 and was the highest ranking one)
NOW
Can I sit here and tell you I know why it happened that way? No and it gets more bizarre when we look at the #’s for the actual group singles. Its almost like to the “Domestic fanbase” (The fandom in Japan) that for the most part the duets didn’t matter and the group singles are what mattered to them.
Now I have heard in my group chat that a lot of what this could have been also is timing and what other big releases or artists were coming out that week and that’s true but we also need to remember that when they did the release of all the singles (for the duets) that there was about a 10 day window between when the episode aired and when the release happened. I think the only three CDs that didn’t get effected by this was when the group singles came out and that was a very interesting story in its own right (and even moreso for HEAVENS).
Here’s why
So the Group singles were to come out at some point during the season. STARISH’s dropped around the beginning of the season and then QN’s came out a little before the end of the season and HEAVENS’ came after the fact which I admittedly thought was curious but looking back it didn’t seem to affet the performance on the CD.
So if we took each group single and treated them as “first ,second and third” it went like this
3. STARISH (they peaked at 5th if I remember right)
2. HEAVENS (They peaked at 3rd and out of the 14 days they would be pretty much “eligible” for the chart they were on for 12 days)
1. God’s S.T.A.R. (What do I need to tell you about this one...NADA!)
Now don’t take this as a slight cos look...all three CDs were a top 5 when they came out and QN just crushed everyone cos that is just about what they do anymore. They drop a CD and I swear if its NOT a “Top 2″ I’m questioning my faith in Humanity...no joke. The real surprise was HEAVENS though
Remember this: of the 7 duets there were 5 that never made the top 10! FIVE! This made me wonder if the group single (which came out near the end of the year remember) would do well because the individual singles ,for the most part, “bombed”.
Now we fast forward to November of 2017
Alright can someone explain this to me cos I legit didn’t get it
So HEAVENS has their “Duet singles” pretty much tank and then they blow up with the group single...cool! Why then did their “Episode CD” make a top 5 but then just fall off the chart?
Like if you think about this it makes things an interesting “sell” for them as a group because NOW you have a situation where the duets were weird as far as how well they did ,the group single for the season does REALLY WELL despite everything before it, and then we get to the situation where their episode CD (which I will remind people was supposed to introduce HEAVENS for those that claim they didn’t “know anything about them”) goes bleh
Anyone see where this will be going and what I AM going to be concerned about?
NOW WE FAST FORWARD TO THE PRESENT DAY!
It was recently announced that HEAVENS/STARISH/QN are going to be in 6 new shuffle units for the movie singles...COOL!
The question that we will be answering is: “Do the the #’s that they do as far as the Oricon ranks matter to me?”
They WOULD if the #’s from Season 4 were a better barometer AND if all the groups were having separate singles but I kind of get why they couldn’t do that so here we are.
The reason I’m really not going to worry about even the first four (although I will be reporting on the #’s) is because each of them will have one QN member in them. Now QN as we all know is stupidly popular so that could help the #’s right there but then we have to wonder about the last two when its just HEAVENS/STARISH again because...well we know what happened in Season 4!
There are two #’s I am going to be really curious about
1. The HEAVENS Movie Single (which will probably be announced in almost 10 days time)
2. The new HEAVENS Mini Album that comes out in March. For those that don’t know on March 13th of next year HEAVENS will be putting out a new “Mini Album” called “Anthem for the Angels” which is going to be seven solo songs for each of the boys in the group. The cover for the CD is a little intimidating but I’ll work with it.
These are the #’s I’m going to be really looking at because I am also going to be curious when the “STARISH BEST” CD comes out that was announced this year. I dunno if that had ANYTHING to do with why the CD for “HEAVEN SKY” suffered (I don’t THINK it did but if you look at how close they were as far as coming out maybe people wanted to save $$$ for that instead) but you never can tell. I still need to get that CD while I am thinking of it
So what’s the point to ALLLL OF THIS?!
If you are a fan of HEAVENS on here I wouldn’t panic about the shuffle units because as we have seen that past performance means little when it comes to the group singles. The big thing we need to focus on is March because so far even if we made a top 5 we need to keep at it so Broccoli knows we aren’t going away anytime soon!
Talk you in the next post
