Very interesting that they decided to release their plans for the year like this. It's a bit risky because you don't know what could happen throughout the year but as a fan I'm happy we have concrete plans that we can look forward to. I wonder if the order of presentation was indicative of the order these things will happen or not. Personally I assume not, but we'll have to wait and see.
The showcase might be virtual unless they just want to wait until the covid situation is safer in Japan which I don't foresee happening too soon. They haven't started vaccinating in Japan and their daily cases and deaths are still high compared to the first 2 waves.
I wonder if they are gonna do a double a-side with take a picture since they showed an unknown title along with Take a Picture.
English song is a bit sooner than I expected them to start trying to promote to overseas countries, but I guess it all depends on how much time and what kinds of activities they dedicate to it.
Fashion Collab could be just some branded clothes with a company like UNIQLO or something more intricate. My hunch is more on the former.
Reality show along with the 2nd single are the most obvious ones every fan knew was going to happen. It will be also interesting to see if it's still a Hulu collab.
Nizoo people have mentioned is probably gonna be like Skzoo for Stray Kids. I don't follow them so I'm not sure how much info is out there about it aside from the animal cartoon video. Nevertheless the character market is pretty good in Japan for almost half a decade now so it seems like a good plan. Not sure if there is a chance they also go into virtual character land like VTubers, and I also don't know anything about that market to have any kind of opinion on it, but it does seem like K-pop companies are eyeing that area a lot. Some of the girls have obvious animal counterparts like Maya and Riku, it will be fun to see what they do for like Mako. Maybe they even pull a Mechaike and keep her a lemon lol.
First album is another one I wasn't expecting to see so soon, but it makes sense. Strike while the iron is hot. It's gonna be a lot of work for the girls but I think capitalizing while they have high general populace recognition is the best plan to push their careers forward and guarantee they have a long and successful venture.
Nizoo is currently trending #6 in Japan Twitter. To me proving it's the perfect marketing move for the perfect market.
Also since Take a Picture is probably already recorded being part of the Coca-Cola ad and all, my guess is the single is fully recorded. I wonder if the MVs are also recorded. The girls have had some extended time out of the public eye after the new year shows. Aside from the digital fan meeting thing I don't think they have done anything else. Some people were speculating because they re-dyed their hair they were doing something. At the time I personally thought people were jumping to conclusions but maybe they did record an MV in that period.
The showcase might be virtual unless they just want to wait until the covid situation is safer in Japan which I don't foresee happening too soon. They haven't started vaccinating in Japan and their daily cases and deaths are still high compared to the first 2 waves.
I wonder if they are gonna do a double a-side with take a picture since they showed an unknown title along with Take a Picture.
English song is a bit sooner than I expected them to start trying to promote to overseas countries, but I guess it all depends on how much time and what kinds of activities they dedicate to it.
Fashion Collab could be just some branded clothes with a company like UNIQLO or something more intricate. My hunch is more on the former.
Reality show along with the 2nd single are the most obvious ones every fan knew was going to happen. It will be also interesting to see if it's still a Hulu collab.
Nizoo people have mentioned is probably gonna be like Skzoo for Stray Kids. I don't follow them so I'm not sure how much info is out there about it aside from the animal cartoon video. Nevertheless the character market is pretty good in Japan for almost half a decade now so it seems like a good plan. Not sure if there is a chance they also go into virtual character land like VTubers, and I also don't know anything about that market to have any kind of opinion on it, but it does seem like K-pop companies are eyeing that area a lot. Some of the girls have obvious animal counterparts like Maya and Riku, it will be fun to see what they do for like Mako. Maybe they even pull a Mechaike and keep her a lemon lol.
First album is another one I wasn't expecting to see so soon, but it makes sense. Strike while the iron is hot. It's gonna be a lot of work for the girls but I think capitalizing while they have high general populace recognition is the best plan to push their careers forward and guarantee they have a long and successful venture.
Nizoo is currently trending #6 in Japan Twitter. To me proving it's the perfect marketing move for the perfect market.
Also since Take a Picture is probably already recorded being part of the Coca-Cola ad and all, my guess is the single is fully recorded. I wonder if the MVs are also recorded. The girls have had some extended time out of the public eye after the new year shows. Aside from the digital fan meeting thing I don't think they have done anything else. Some people were speculating because they re-dyed their hair they were doing something. At the time I personally thought people were jumping to conclusions but maybe they did record an MV in that period.
BPiperDude
StanI'd be surprised if this is the plans for the whole year. Probably more like the first half in general terms. Also the English song could be part of the album or single that is coming up and also nothing more than a release of a previous song but in English (hope not). I think NiziU will be pretty busy this year with new material as they don't have the same kind of month long promotion cycle as they have in SK were they do a show or such for 6/7 days a week.
I think at the time the commercial was done there was nothing prepared. The choreography looks more like Step and a Step and Miihi isn't in it either. Also it wasn't until last week or two that they did a complete hair color change. The may have shot the MV by now but not at the time the commercial came out. They probably put out an unfinished version of the song with only snippets of it for the commercial as the whole recording probably hasn't been fully mixed yet.
Congrats to the girls on reaching 70M views on Step and a Step.
BPiperDude
StanIt appears that NiziU girls are now in South Korea.
According to this article
https://bunshun.jp/articles/-/43031
Both JO1 and NiziU left Japan for South Korea. NiziU departed on the 19th on long pre-planned departure to film their new MV. (There are photo's of them at the airport). The discussion on the article though is that Japan just suspended all business travel from other countries including South Korea on the 14th of this month. While the girls can come back from South Korea to Japan as they are Japanese citizens any Korean staff would not be able too. The girls are currently in quarantine BUT apparently they are able to travel by a special bus between their residence and the JYP Studio. My guess is they will be in South Korea for a while.
From the article they seem to indicate that filming of the MV had to be done in Korea per a Sony Executive.
There are pictures of the girls departing the Narita Airport.
If you don't read Japanese (I don't) it is an interesting article and google translate worked much better than normal.
According to this article
https://bunshun.jp/articles/-/43031
Both JO1 and NiziU left Japan for South Korea. NiziU departed on the 19th on long pre-planned departure to film their new MV. (There are photo's of them at the airport). The discussion on the article though is that Japan just suspended all business travel from other countries including South Korea on the 14th of this month. While the girls can come back from South Korea to Japan as they are Japanese citizens any Korean staff would not be able too. The girls are currently in quarantine BUT apparently they are able to travel by a special bus between their residence and the JYP Studio. My guess is they will be in South Korea for a while.
From the article they seem to indicate that filming of the MV had to be done in Korea per a Sony Executive.
There are pictures of the girls departing the Narita Airport.
If you don't read Japanese (I don't) it is an interesting article and google translate worked much better than normal.
BPiperDude
StanNiziU Riaj summary.
Streaming data has come out just recently and NiziU has gotten some more awards. As was previously stated Make You Happy moved from a Gold to a Platinum for Streaming. Also Step and a Step and BOOM BOOM BOOM both also got a Silver from RIAJ for streaming as well.
Make You Happy = Platinum Digital Streaming, Platinum Digital Downloads.
BOOMx3 = Silver Digital Streaming
Baby I'm a Star = Silver Digital Streaming
Step and a Step = Platinum Physical Sales, Silver Digital Streaming.
So that's 3 Platinum's and 3 Silver over 4 songs for their first year of activities.
https://www.riaj.or.jp/f/data/cert/st.html 2020 months 12, 10, 11 for Streams
https://www.riaj.or.jp/f/data/cert/hs.html 2020 month 12 for Digital Downloads
https://www.riaj.or.jp/f/data/cert/gd.html 2020 month 12 for Physical Sales.
edit:adding links to RIAJ.
Streaming data has come out just recently and NiziU has gotten some more awards. As was previously stated Make You Happy moved from a Gold to a Platinum for Streaming. Also Step and a Step and BOOM BOOM BOOM both also got a Silver from RIAJ for streaming as well.
Make You Happy = Platinum Digital Streaming, Platinum Digital Downloads.
BOOMx3 = Silver Digital Streaming
Baby I'm a Star = Silver Digital Streaming
Step and a Step = Platinum Physical Sales, Silver Digital Streaming.
So that's 3 Platinum's and 3 Silver over 4 songs for their first year of activities.
https://www.riaj.or.jp/f/data/cert/st.html 2020 months 12, 10, 11 for Streams
https://www.riaj.or.jp/f/data/cert/hs.html 2020 month 12 for Digital Downloads
https://www.riaj.or.jp/f/data/cert/gd.html 2020 month 12 for Physical Sales.
edit:adding links to RIAJ.
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