by Menno » Thu Jul 12, 2012 4:46 pm
It didn't came out of H!P, that's part of the problem.
Kikka falls in the gap between Idol singers and "Real" singers, it's not a good place to be in in terms of success in the current Japanese music market. The main quality of her voice is that it's very clean, but it's lacks a bit of personality. They use the autotune to give her voice a bit of a kick and not so much to make it sound in tune. There's nothing more that makes her stand out in the crowd, she isn't noticed by a more mainstream audience. At the same time the H!P wota aren't interested since it's not H!P and it's not the idol thing they like. The song is also just an average anime song, it also doesn't stand out in that genre.
So I'm not that surprised that this song doesn't seem to be picking up.
And I doubt that big promotion would have helped this song. More handshake events then the 1 that is currently planned for Sunday would have helped, but those doesn't have the same effect for soloist as they have for groups. It still got a couple of tie-ins that might give it a bit more longevity in the charts then the average H!P song. Koharu's Kirari songs also debuted out of the daily top 10 on the 1st day, but then climbed into the top 10 later in the week. If Kikka can do the same all this criticism would have been for nothing, but I would be very surprised if that actually happened.