Idol group AKB48's new song is the third-best-selling Japanese single CD of all time

soranews24.com -- Jul 13

AKB48, the mega-group that kicked off the modern idol era, has once again demonstrated that it wears the sparkly crown of the idol industry, as its newest single, "Teacher Teacher," has now sold three million copies.

This makes “Teacher Teacher” the best-selling AKB48 single ever, an impressive feat considering it’s the group’s 52nd single. What’s even more amazing, though, is that this is only the third time in history that a Japanese single CD has broken the three-million mark in sales. The most recent song to share that distinction was “Sekai ni Hitotsu Dake no Hana” by boy band Smap, released in 2003 with sales to date of roughly 3.12 million, and the remaining member of the three million CD single sales club is 1999’s “Dango San Kyodai” a song about three anthropomorphic rice dumpling brothers that originally appeared as part of a children’s television program.

In other words, “Teacher Teacher” is now the third-best-selling CD single ever released in Japan. However, it sits a few slots lower on the overall single sales chart, behind 1970s hits “Oyoge! Taiyaki-kun” and “Onna no Michi,” both of which have some of their sales from record and cassette tape releases.