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Love Live! Sunshine!!'s Aqours, Inori Minase Set Personal Records With Latest CDs
posted on by Rafael Antonio Pineda
"HAPPY PARTY TRAIN," the ninth single from the Love Live! Sunshine!! franchise's nine-girl idol group Aqours, sold 55,000 copies to rank #2 on Oricon's CD single chart for the April 3-9 week. The single shipped in Japan on April 5. The single is the group's highest ranking single, and the group's single with the highest first-week sales. It overtakes the group's first single "Kimi no Kokoro wa Kagayaiteru kai?," which ranked #3 with 48,000 copies in its first week in October 2015.
The single is also the group's ninth in a row to reach the top 5 in Oricon's weekly ranking charts, beginning with the "Kimi no Kokoro wa Kagayaiteru kai?." The group's seventh single, "Omoi yo Hitotsu ni Nare/MIRAI TICKET," ranked #3 in November, and the eighth single, "Jingle Bell ga Tomaranai," ranked #3 in December. (The newest single is officially Aqours' "3rd" numbered single, since several of the earlier singles were listed under mini-units within Aqours or as Love Live! Sunshine!! anime or game singles.)
The anime premiered in Japan last July. Funimation streamed the series with English subtitles as it aired in Japan, and also produced an English broadcast dub for the series. It will get a second season this fall.
In addition, voice actress Inori Minase's debut album Innocent flower sold 18,000 to rank #3 on Oricon's CD album chart for the April 3-9 week. The album shipped in Japan on April 5. It is Minase's first CD to rank in the top 3 of the weekly charts.
The album contains 12 songs, including songs from Minase's first three singles, "Yume no Tsubomi," "harmony ribbon," and "Starry Wish," which ranked #11, #10, and #8 on the Oricon single chart, respectively. The "Starry Wish" single's title song is the ending theme song of the ViVid Strike! anime.
Minase has voiced roles in such anime as The Anthem of the Heart (Jun Naruse), Is the order a rabbit? (Chino Kafū), Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World- (Rem), and Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? (Hestia).
Source: The Mainichi Shimbun's Mantan Web (link 2)
Update: Oricon reports that the precise sales totals for "HAPPY PARTY TRAIN" and Innocent flower are 54,517 and 17,979, respectively.
