Ikuta Erika discusses Nogizaka46, the early years and more…

Nogizaka46 member Ikuta Erika is known for her wonderful vocals and piano playing and her second photo album, in which 200,000 copies were nearly sold out by the first week of release, a total of 270,000 copies were made.

The 200,000 copies made were the first for Kodansha in the history of releasing female solo photo albums.

As she celebrates her eighth year with Nogizaka46, Ikuta was recently interviewed for Yahoo! News Japan’s Taguchi Shunsuke.

Ikuta Erika is from Dusseldorf, Germany and started playing the piano at the age of three and also took ballet at the age of 10.

When asked of why is Nogizaka46 well-liked by people, Ikuta said, “Everyone is cute (laughing).  Even if members appear in a CM,  I would concentrate and look at them carefully.  And even if I have recorded it and see a pretty face, I want to see it again!  Rewinding and looking at it again and again”.

Ikuta remembered the earlier years of Nogizaka46 and being in the shadows of AKB48, and the group being known as the “official rival of AKB48”.

Despite the number “46”, Ikuta said that “even if we had fewer people than AKB48, I can not lose”.

But things were not easy, Ikuta said “Even though we held a handshake meeting in the early days, most of the fans did not come out in the second half and we would be sitting and waiting a lot”.

When their first debut single “Guruguru Curtain” was released in 2012, AKB48 was releasing single after single and kept selling over a million copies.

Ikuta said the “turning point” of Nogizaka46 was when they appeared on TV Asahi’s “Music Station” in 2014.  Ikuta said, “Because it is a program that no one can perform on unless they are extremely a major artist, it took use three years to appear on ‘Music Station'”.

In 2015, the group performed for the first time on NHK’s Kohaku Uta Gassen and in 2017, the group achieved their first million copies sold.

In February, they will hold their “7th Year Birthday LOVE” for four days at Kyocera Dome in Osaka with 50,000 people.

Ikuta said, “I feel that things that I have been able to do so far, will become difficult with the momentum from now on and I often thing, ‘How does one keep the popularity from the present-time from now on?’.  It’s difficult to keep climbing up forever”.

You can read more of the interview here!

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