by Zunu » Mon Apr 23, 2012 4:27 am
Up-Front has put more work into this promo than anything in years, so it HAD to rack up decent numbers. A 20K failure would've said to management than no amount of publicity will produce any movement for C-ute, and might've put them in that kind of limbo that Melon Kinenbi eventually wound up in. OTOH, if the final numbers were in the 50K+ range, we might've been looking at some serious MM/C-ute rivalry going forward. I think Up-Front was kind of hoping that this could be a crossover hit with mainstream audiences who would not even glance at an H!P single ordinarily. As it is, our girls will live to fight another day but they still haven't broken free of the wota ghetto.
Time will tell. After all, they are a ridiculously photogenic group with a lot of experience at lo-budget guerilla style promotion. Chisato alone is at least passingly familiar to hundreds of thousands of people for her dance covers from about 18 months ago. Maimi's been steadily building up recognition as a b-actress. And Maimai's Nanika series has gotten some strong numbers a few times; she's definitely turned into someone to watch.
Like Airi in dat skirt, this single may wind up having remarkably long legs.
I'll say this anyway, the choreography is awesome.
tending to put ~ on song titles since 2002