And yes the girls did it again, only better!  With the release of their latest single “Everyday, Kachusha” (translated: Everyday headband) they set a new standard for J-pop artists. Everyday, Kaschusha was released on May 25th and managed to sell 1 MILLION copies in about 2 weeks after it initially hit the shelves.

The fire of popularity still keeps burning heavily for the AKB48 sales. Today the single is closing in on 1.4 Million sales with over 5000 copies sold daily. Music critics are speculating that the success of the single could be influenced by the animated baseball-related series ‘Moshidora’. Yet most claim the success is rather due to the fact every single came with a serial number card where fans could vote for their favorite AKB superstar in the “AKB48 22nd Single Senbatsu Election”, which would obviously attract their biggest fans to push the purchase.

For everybody who knows the concept of the AKB48 girls band, this news doesn’t come as a surprise. For those rather unfamiliar with the name, AKB is a Japanese girls J-pop group consisting out of multiple teams. Let’s just say their popularity in Japan knows no boundaries and their music has been picked up by many other Asian countries.

Related news from The Japan Times:

AKB48′s Atsuko Maeda made a comeback Thursday after being voted the most popular member of the all-girl pop group, dethroning 2010 winner Yuko Oshima.

“I’m really happy. I’ll do my utmost,” a tearful Maeda, the 2009 champion, said during an internationally televised award ceremony at a packed Nippon Budokan gymnasium in Tokyo. Oshima, 22, came in second.

Maeda, 19, won most of the votes cast by the group’s fan club and purchasers of the group’s latest single.

Yuki Kashiwagi, 19, came in third, advancing from her eighth-place finish last year.

The annual vote, which was shown in 86 movie theaters across Japan and televised in Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea, selected 21 members for AKB48′s 22nd single due for release in August, from about 150 candidates, including those in similar pop groups, such as SKE48 and NMB48.