Tokyo Girls' Style

Tokyo Girls' Style (東京女子流 Tōkyō Joshi Ryū?) (stylized as TOKYO GIRLS' STYLE) is a Japanese idol girl group created by Avex Trax. Consisting of five teenage members, Ayano Konishi, Miyu Yamabe, Hitomi Arai, Yuri Nakae, and Mei Shyoji, this group was the first idol group that Avex had created in seven years.

The group's name symbolises that the group is full of surprises and it is unknown how they would develop in future, much like Tokyo's image. They also hope that they can one day emulate Tokyo's success in areas such as to enter other overseas markets and coming up with their own unique style.


History

Avex created the group Tokyo Girls' Style in 2009 to capitalize on the rising demand for Japanese idol girl groups, a trend fueled by the success of the female idol group AKB48. Members of the group later said that they had previously worked with this record label before, and were reportedly encouraged to audition for the new group. On December 1, 2009 the Japanese media made reports about this new group, though Avex kept the identities of the group's members a secret until January 1, 2010. From January 1 to January 5, 2010, Avex gradually released more information on the members of the group. and launched the group's official website.

The group's debut single, "Kirari" (キラリ☆ lit. "Sparkling"?), was released on May 5, 2010, reaching a peak position of 30th placing on the Oricon charts. Their second single, "Onnaji Kimochi" (おんなじキモチ "Same Feeling"?), was subsequently released on May 19, 2010. Their first album, Kodou no Himitsu, which is a compilation of their previous singles, was released in Japan on May 4, 2011. This album peaked at the 25th position on the Oricon charts.

In order to break into other Asian markets, Tokyo Girls' Style re-recorded the song in their second single, "Onnaji Kimochi, in Mandarin Chinese. This Chinese version of the song was included in the album entitled 心跳的秘密 (Xīntiào de mìmì), which was released in Taiwan on May 4, 2011, and in Hong Kong one week later. The group admitted that "They were worried that their singing is not good because the Chinese pronunciation is so hard [to grasp]." Since then, the group has released more albums in these two places, as well as releasing a Chinese-language official site. In 2012, they made their debut performance in Singapore. They later commented that "they were surprised by how many people showed up to watch them.".

Tokyo Girls' Style's 11th single, ROAD TO BUDOKAN 2012: Bad Flower, was released on October 17, 2012, and it became their first single to debut on the Oricon TOP10 charts, debuting at the 4th position. They later performed their first solo gig at Nippon Budokan on December 22, 2012, becoming the youngest female group to perform at this location. During this concert, the age of the group's members were revealed for the first time; previously, only their birthdays were revealed.

In 2014, they starred in two films, Count Five To Dream Of You (directed by Yuki Yamato), and Kotodama – Spiritual Curse, one of the famous horror movie series in Japan. These two films will have a US premiere at Japan Film Festival in San Francisco in July 2014.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Girls%27_Style