An Open Letter to Erika

Dear Erika:

You are human & have every right to behave as one. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. You're young yet & have a right to have life experiences--whether postive or negative--because that's how we learn. If you want to cry, then by all means, do so.

If you want to spend money that you earned, be my guest. If you want to party like Jimmy Page on a week-long bender in 1972, then you have my blessing. (Life is for living, yes?)

You have to realize a cold fact, however: The the only thing the media likes more than the rise of a young star is to see that same star crash & burn--all the while preaching their smug, self-righteous "morals" to the public from their sanctimonious bubble of hypocrisy. And unfortunately, the public jumps on the bandwagon to nod their heads & agree like a herd of mindless sheep. We've all been guilty of it.

No one is perfect, & not everyone can express themselves accordingly, especially if they're depressed, stressed & exhausted. If you don't want to want to disclose your feelings & secrets to the public, then don't. Not everyone feels comfortable with this sort of thing...unfortunately if you're private or shy then you "have an attitude." On the other hand, if you do speak your mind then you're "difficult". (Really, in the public eye you're damned if you do & damned if you don't!) So I say damn it all & do what the hell you want. You have talent so stay focused on your music, because if you're a good enough artist then you'll get by on that merit--that's what's important in a musician--to me, at least. And if your fans have their priorites straight & leave their judgement of your personal life at the door, they should know this as well.

To quote you: "I am myself. Hear the future in the wind...and together, we will hear a voice we have never heard before." Good stuff, there.

So when all is said & done just be yourself, after all--who else can you be? If someone doesn't like it, they're the ones who'll have to deal with it. And Erika--you're stunning...live a little & have fun. But why.....WHY are you seeing someone who resembles Rhesus Macaque? This is easily forgiven, however-- you stone-cold rock some of the (second-best!) hats in the business.

Then again, why not come to America--where you can shave your head, make a sex video, drive drunk, take pics of yourself snorting coke in a hotel room, & then be photographed with no panties on! (and that's on a slow night) If we're offended-- splendid! It's what we need & we expect no less.

...and remember--a well-behaved woman seldom makes history!

Written by solstar

Erika Dominating News Of 2007

Many news sites make a ranking of all news of 2007, including MSN. MSN Sankei recorded how many times each article has been accessed throughout the year. While Erika may not have gotten in the first place, she still dominates the ranking with a total amount of 6 articles in the Top 100, and 9 in the Top 200.

11 - Erika-sama's teary apology (The complete breakdown.)
14 - Sawajiri Erika's apology ("It's all my fault.")
36 - Obliquely good mood? Sawajiri Erika-sama's silence at the stage greeting.
44 - Erika-sama, disliked-woman no.1
65 - Togashi Shin's angry statement regarding Erika-sama's "Betsu ni.." speech.
83 - Kameda Kouki comments on Erika-sama

Top 100: http://sankei.jp.msn.com/special/news2007/news2007.htm
Written by HPriest

Erika Wants To Double Credit Card Limit? + More Information

According to someone from an advertising company again, Erika requested to increase the limit of her gold credit card that she got from her office. The current limit is said to be around 2 million yen and with her request she wants more than the double amount of that. Her office doesn't really understand why they should give her a higher limit. The reason behind her request is unclear as well.

There have been quite a few rumors going on since she came back to Japan from the Led Zeppelin concert in London. It seems that she wants to study abroad in Great Britain or somewhere close to that, and nearly everyone has already accepted this fact. However, when you ask the staff/people of her office, they will probably give you a confused look and answer with "Huh? You knew that?" . They probably don't even know about this credit card rumor yet.

Stardust also doesn't seem to be too happy about the amount of leaks coming from their own people.

It's obvious that this information can only come from somebody with the staff. Who allowed you to spread this to the public?, the company president in a rage. It really is burden for the office, especially because of so many details that get leaked with each rumor. It makes it really easy to find out about her and her current schedule.
Will Erika have a more private life in 2008? We will see..

Written by HPriest

Destination Nowhere Week 4 Sales

ERIKA's latest single Destination Nowhere placed at #39 this week. It is only a 6 spot drop from last week, compared to the 15 spot drop from first to second week, and 10 spot drop from second to third. The exact amount of sales this week are 2,152 copies sold, which brings the total amount of copies sold to 39,780.




39　32　**2,152　*,*39,780　*4　ERIKA 「Destination Nowhere」
32　22　**3,842　*,*37,628　*3　ERIKA 「Destination Nowhere」
22　*7　**7,162　*,*33,786　*2　ERIKA 「Destination Nowhere」
*7　--　*26,624　*,*26,624　*1　ERIKA 「Destination Nowhere」

Closed Note DVD Release - March 28, 2008

Erika's latest movie, Closed Note, will be released on DVD in March of 2008. It will be released in two versions, a special 2-DVD limited edition, along with the standard edition.

2-DVD Special Edition:
Release Date March 28, 2008
Duration 198 Minutes
Features Movie, Special Reports, Trailers, CM, Making-of, Interviews, Previously Unreleased Footage, Event Footage, and More.
Price ￥4,662 ($40.00)
Order Amazon.co.jp










Standard Edition:
Release Date March 28, 2008
Duration 138 Minutes
Features Movie, Special Reports, Trailers, CM
Price ￥2,953 ($26.00)
Order Amazon.co.jp

Google.co.jp 2007 Search Ranking

Google.co.jp has released the rankings for the most searched things in 2007. Erika came in at #2 for the list of celebrites.

01 Nakagawa Shouko
02 Sawajiri Erika
03 Hatsune Miku
04 Leah Dizon
05 Kojima Yoshio
06 YUI
07 Aragaki Yui
08 Nagasawa Masami
09 AAA
10 Asao Miwa

Erika Causes Traffic Accident

Actress Erika Sawajiri caused a traffic accident in Tokyo on Monday. Fortunately, no one suffered any injuries.

Sawajiri was driving in the Meguro ward of Tokyo at around 9:00pm on December 17. She was making a right turn at an intersection, and her car came in contact with a motorcycle making a left turn from the opposite direction.

The driver, a man in his twenties, was not injured. The police are treating the incident as a traffic accident resulting in property damage.

Stardust Announces "New Erika"

Erika just returned to Japan from the Led Zeppelin concert with her boyfriend Tsuyoshi and immediately is in the topics of newspapers again. In the past we heard several rumors about that Erika's schedule for 2008 is blank, that according to some people she wishes to study abroad (like Great Britain) and so on. Now Stardust finally makes a move and even already has a replacement for Erika, the so called "post-Sawajiri". "The belonging office, Stardust Promotion is giving Sawajiri a special holiday, already announcing the promotion of a "post-Sawajiri". This "post-Sawajiri" has already been decided and will be the pure and innocent actress Kaho (夏帆), 16. Her character may be the exact opposite, but Kaho already is at the same level of Erika when it comes to acting. The announcement of her taking the leading role in the upcoming dorama "4 Shimai Tantei Dan" has been a great push for her popularity."
So the rumor about her studying abroad might be true, but this actually hasn't been quickly decided after her riot at the press event. "Her manager said that long before the riot, about six months ago, in meetings she already started to ask for a one year long paid vacation. That's why even the autumn schedule hasn't been fixed for a long time and that's also why there still is no schedule for spring 2008. At first the office didn't want to give her the allowance for this paid holiday, but she kept on bringing up this topic again and again. When looking at the riot, she probably only did it to finally get the permission, don't you think?"
So from now on Stardust will keep on pushing Kaho's career instead of Erika's. We will have to see how well she will do in the tough competition among the actresses, but so far it looks like that she is going to have a bright future... at least until her own riot....

Written by HPriest

Erika at Led Zeppelin Concert (News Clip)

Erika in GDC (2007-08 FALL/WINTER COLLECTION)

(HQ) Erika in Oricon Style 12/10 Issue Scans

Erika Is #2 Top Female Star in 2007

Oricon has released the results of its end-of-the-year survey asking men and women who they thought was the most successful young star of 2007. With two thousand people participating in the survey, the answers were actress Yui Aragaki and comedian Yoshio Kojima.

Aragaki has had a phenomenal year, which included her first starring roles in film and television, the start of a music career, and an increase in commercials. Erika Sawajiri, who ranked 2nd among female celebrities, also saw similar success this year, though it was marred by the "Closed Note" PR incident.

The rest of the women's top five were Kanako Yanagihara, Sumiko Nishioka (the oldest of the list at 33), and Maki Horikita.

Kojima easily topped the men's list, as he was ranked first by all age groups. His silly routine has become amazingly popular, and his catchphrase "Sonna no kankei nee" was named one of the top ten "buzzwords of the year."

Shun Oguri was second in the rankings, followed by Yu Darvish, Ryo Ishikawa, and Toma Ikuta.

ERIKA's Rank in Oricon Top Singles of 2007

ERIKA's debut single FREE has ranked at #67 in the Oricon Top 100 Singles chart of 2007 with 119,817 copies sold. Destination Nowhere would have gotten into at least the top 200, if it wasn't for the release date being the very last week of the Oricon year.

67 - 119,817 - FREE / ERIKA - 07/07/04

Sawajiri, Takashiro spotted together at Led Zeppelin concert

As was reported last month, Erika Sawajiri was invited to the Led Zeppelin reunion concert in London that took place on Monday. She flew to England at the end of last week with her manager, but her real companion while she was there was her boyfriend, media creator Tsuyoshi Takashiro, whom she was recently revealed to be dating.

The couple was seen enjoying Led Zeppelin's concert together, and photos of them after the show have been published in Josei Seven this week.
Daily Sports also took pictures of them arriving together at Narita Airport on Wednesday, dressed in similar outfits (black jacket, sunglasses, and jeans). A friend of Takashiro met them there and took their luggage while the couple walked calmly to the parking lot. They apparently were not disturbed by the people around them staring and taking pictures, though they silently ignored all questions.
Josei Seven reports that Sawajiri and Takashiro have plans to visit England again before the end of the year.

Erika at Led Zeppelin Concert

There it happened, the big reunion concert of Led Zeppelin. Many fans still hope for a whole tour, since only 20,000 people were able to see the show live. Over 100 million people applied for a ticket and through auctions those tickets have been sold for up to $170,000 (19 million yen). The special guests didn't have to pay this fee, of course. While a lot of celebrities from around the world (Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger, Jeff Beck, Naomi Campbell) came to watch the show, there only have been three seats reserved for Japanese stars. As we all know, Erika got one of those three seats. Accompanied officials said that she has been completely thrilled and stood during the whole show in pure excitement. In Japan she has to worry about a lot of things that went wrong during the past few months, but at the concert she was able to let loose. In an earlier interview she mentioned that this chance is like a "dream come true" for her and that Led Zeppelin influenced her a lot, regarding her musical career.

Written by HPriest

MTV Long Interview with ERIKA

MTV Japan has updated its website with a special page for ERIKA's interview that aired earlier today. You can view the interview, which includes more making-of footage from Destination Nowhere at the special page, here. The interview will be up from December 12 to December 19, so watch it before it is too late! The interview will also be available to download here later.

Destination Nowhere Week 2 Sales

Erika's second single Destination Nowhere ranked at #22 in its second week on the Oricon charts with sales of 7,162 copies. This brings the total amount of copies sold to 33,786.

22　*7　**7,162　*,*33,786　*2　ERIKA 「Destination Nowhere」
*7　--　*26,624　*,*26,624　*1　ERIKA 「Destination Nowhere」

Making of Pepsi Nex XMAS Version CM

Destination Nowhere on CDTV (2007.12.08)

DivShare Download

If you like these songs, and videos, we ask you to please purchase the single

Pepsi Nex CM (Xmas Version)

Erika has shot a new CM for Pepsi Nex, this time it is a Christmas version. You can stream the commercial on the site below.

Special Stardust PEPSI NEX Page

Takashiro Denies Pregnancy/Marriage Rumors

Takashiro Tsuyoshi (43), the reported lover of Erika and creator of "Hyper Media", has been at a public event the first time since the news about their relationship circulated in the news. It was the announcement party of the new model of the "NISSAN GT-R". A reporter bumped into him and pretty much straightforwardly asked him, "Any marriage plans?". "No, no," Tsuyoshi immediately replied. "That's what everyone says when being asked the first time." Tsuyoshi then stopped the interview, said "Please leave me alone." and walked away with a smiling face, adding "And I am not becoming a father either." Later they happened to bump into each other inside of the GT-R again. Tsuyoshi sat on the driver's seat and while sitting on the passenger seat, the reporter tried his luck again. "You can drive it with your girlfriend," but Tsuyoshi repeatedly asked him to please leave him alone. To sum it all up, no marriage plans and Erika is not pregnant.

Translated by HP@ESN

Destination Nowhere Week 1 Sales

Destination Nowhere has ranked #7 on the weekly charts for its first week, with sales of about 26,624 copies. This is about half of what FREE sold in its first week, and still less than what it sold in its second week. It looks like this single will have trouble to (and probably not even be able to) reach even 100,000 copies sold! Erika's recent behavior may be the reason for these sales, or the fact that people just weren't as interested in this single as they were with her past releases.

Destination Nowhere
Daily/Weekly Ranking:

Mon	--	11	x
Tue	4	21	x
Wed	4	23	x
Thu	6	x	x
Fri	7	x	x
Sat	6	x	x
Sun	10	x	x
Week	7	x	x

Week1: ~26,624

Sales/Ranking table from ESN.

(LQ) Erika in Oricon Style 12/10 Issue Scans

Erika's Oricon Style Interview

The "Revival of the cold and blunt Erika" or similar are the headlines at "Rakuten" and other news pages. What are they talking about? They are talking about the interview in the "Oricon Style" (issue 12/10, released: 11/30) magazine.
Now Oricon Style published a very long 9pages special about ERIKA this month. In the beginning everything is normal and nice. You have the nice pictures and a very interesting interview. Here a quick translation of some parts of the interview Oricon published on their website.

The lyrics for her new song "Destination Nowhere" have been influenced by her trip to the desert. The whole song is somewhat based on her experience there. She talks about the complete emptiness and how gradually the whole scenery changes with the sunrise and sunset. Especially the sunset left a really great impression. The sunset alone already is an amazing spectacle in the desert, but once you witness the clear night sky and all the stars..it's just great. "You completely forget the time while watching such a clear night sky", she explained.

This impression also continues when it comes to the case jacket design. She describes the theme as being "psychedelic" and somehow resembles the feeling you have in an empty desert. Erika herself wanted it to be this way and for the PV it is the same. You can find similar images like on the cover in the PV, making the "psychedelic" theme complete.

Oricon also is interested in her feelings towards her first live performance of the song.
"When thinking about performing on stage, I am really in high spirits." There are a few small concerns like how is it going to be and whether she will present it the best she can, but she is really looking forward to it. Erika thinks a lot about the performance and therefore often seems to be completely absent. "People often ask me 'Hey, are you okay?' Actually I am 'super' happy right now. Well, there are a few things to be concerned about and I also have to think about some other concrete things, but I still want to do it at any rate."

Hydetetsu already wrote about the press event of Kanebo's new cosmetic brand "COFFRET D'OR" and that Erika has been pretty cold there already. However, she still kept a smile on her face and talked about things like her shopping habits. All in all it was still a somewhat normal interview back then.
Now Oricon Style published a very long 9pages special about ERIKA this month. First everything seems to be nice. You have the nice pictures and a still normal interview during the first pages. When asked about 'Led Zeppelin', Erika answers "Of course I will go. To see Zeppelin is...unbelievable!," still in a very nice mood.
The magazine then comes to a corner where fans are able to ask artists, Erika a questions. This is when the bad thing begins. For 11 of about 24 fan-questions, Erika only answers in very cold way, often even with one word only. A few examples:

"What kind of (casual) clothes do you usually wear privately?"
Erika: "Rough."

"Do you treasure something (a personal item)?"
Erika: "I don't."

"When do you have the most fun?"
Erika: "Bed time." ["...and I enjoy to work", she adds later.]

"Erika is really beautiful, but has she already been popular during Junior High School?"
Erika: "No."

"Is there a message in your songs." [or: "Is there a message for the people who listen to your songs?"]
Erika: "Not really. You can feel whatever you want to feel."

Erika should really think about what she is saying. Such feelings towards your own music and towards your own fans can easily be described as 'exploiting'.

From HPriest

Erika on Oricon Style 12/10 Issue

||||||||

Oricon: Beauty in Boots

With boots in style for the winter, Oricon surveyed a thousand men and women to find out which female celebrity looks best in boots.
The top two answers were pop singers Namie Amuro and Ayumi Hamasaki, in that order. While Amuro was ranked first by women, she only made #3 on the men's list. Hamasaki was the opposite, topping the men's list while only being ranked third by women. Model Yuri Ebihara was second on both sexes' lists, placing her at #3 on the overall rankings.
Model and actress Karina placed 4th, one spot ahead of Erika Sawajiri. The bottom half of the top ten were Yu Yamada, Kumi Koda, Rinka, Alisa Mizuki, and Nanako Matsushima (tied with Mizuki).

Destination Nowhere Wallpapers

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Also, 'Destination Nowhere' has stayed at the #4 spot on oricon charts today!

Destination Nowhere Debuts At #4

xx->01 - TOKIO - 9448 (x1.75) = 16,534
xx->02 - Acid Black Cherry - 9361 (x1.75) = 16,382
xx->03 - Berryz Koubou - 9244 (x1.75) = 16,177

Destination Nowhere has ranked at #4 on the first day of release. However, the top three singles are all extremely close in sales, only around 400 copies difference from the #1 to #3 singles, so I expect that Erika is right on their tails.

Oricon Daily Singles

Oricon Special 'Destination Nowhere' Page

Oricon has put up a special page for the release of 'Destination Nowhere' with information, preview, and more photos.

Visit page here.

Erika on GDC Cover (Vol4 Fall/Winter Collection)

11/28 Releases You Are Most Interested In

For this week (26 Nov to 30 Nov), there's a couple of new CD releases other than ERIKA's Destination Nowhere, artist like Crystal Kay, Salyu, TOKIO and Kazumasa Oda will be releasing their Albums/Singles as well.
Yahoo! Japan Music has set up a poll to ask visitors for their vote of the Albums/Singles which managed to interest them the most. ERIKA managed to top the chart with a overall percent of 19% (567 Votes), Currently Kazumasa Oda holds the 2nd place and is just short of a few votes to win over the 1st place.
Hopefully fans will be able to cast their votes to help ERIKA maintain her 1st place spot.

To vote, first go here. (music.yahoo.co.jp)

Scroll down until you see this:


Select ERIKA, and submit the vote!

Download FULL Destination Nowhere Single

01 Destination Nowhere
02 ESCAPE
03 FREE -overrocket101007 mix-
04 Destination Nowhere (Instrumental)

Click 'Read More...' for download.

DL: Sharebee

This is to preview the single! If you like it, please support ERIKA and purchase the single!

Credit to KMC!

Destination Nowhere CD+DVD Scans

Click 'Read More...' for the rest of the scans.



Credit to ESC

Destination Nowhere #2 On Ninki Scale

Erika's second single 'Destination Nowhere' has gotten the #2 (61.40) position for 11/28 releases on Oricon's Ninki scale. She is only second to TOKIO (whose sales haven't been all that great recently) If you don't know what this is, it's just a poll given to about 400 people to see how interested they are in upcoming releases, if they plan to purchase or not, etc. Of course this is only 400 people, and this is never 100% accurate, so the ranking may be useless. Even so, it shows that the single will probably do moderately well. Erika's first single, FREE, was #8 (26.70) on the Ninki scale before its release. Do you think Destination Nowhere will have better sales? After all it has a drama tie-in, she will perform it on CDTV, and the Ninki ranking is higher (but this might have no effect on sales at all). There has been a lot of negative attention towards Erika in the past few months though! We will have to wait and see.

Erika #8 In Wonderful Voices

In a recent survey, research firm Oricon asked 2,000 people, "Which celebrity has a wonderful voice?"
Among male celebrities, popular actor and singer Masaharu Fukuyama ranked first. Akira Kawashima of comedy duo Kirin came in second, followed by Shosuke Tanihara, Hiroshi Tamaki, and Hiroshi Abe. Akira Nakao and Leo Morimoto tied for 6th, ahead of Takuya Kimura, Gackt, and Koichi Yamadera.
On the women's side, actress/singer/seiyu Keiko Toda topped the list. She was chosen partly for her range of voices in anime, which includes Matilda from "Mobile Suit Gundam" and Anpanman. Nanako Matsushima, Yukie Nakama, Sayuri Yoshinaga, and Masami Nagasawa filled the rest of the top five. Hitomi Kuroki tied with Miwa Yoshida for #6. Erika Sawajiri and YUI tied for #8, while Ai Otsuka and Hikaru Utada tied for #10.

Yuu Abiru Criticized For Defending Erika

Erika's close friend, actress Yuu Abiru is now being criticized for trying to defend Erika. Abiru probably thought that nobody would talk about this scandal anymore, but her harsh criticism in order to defend Erika backfired and now her thievery-scandal is back in the headlines. In 2005, NTV brought up the news that Abiru has been involved in a group theft when she was a 3rd grader. A 2month punishment by her talent agency "HoriPro" and a police questioning has been the result of the uproar followed by the news. Abiru then stayed under the radar for almost two years and came back in November 2007 with a full-scale schedule. She often appeared on various shows, released a photobook, a mook and even got the leading role in the horror movie "Tomie vs Tomie". During one of these events, they somehow started to talk about her friend Erika. ZAKZAK quotes her the following:
"Nobody except Erika herself knows the reason for her sudden bad mood during the event. Whether it was a bad or a good attitude is not really the problem, the problem is that people anonymously started to write very bad things about her. I really hate people who do that." The Fuji evening paper later commented that Abiru's comment has been more than thoughtlessly, confronting a huge enemy.
The net soon is filled with counterattacks, asking her "how she can say that attitude isn't the problem, when she doesn't even know the reason herself." and things like that. On 2ch the users didn't stop writing about the speech of Abiru and soon became a popular topic.
Entertainment critics also say that it was very foolish of her to comment on a delicate matter like this and newspapers commenting like "Who does she think she is?" or "Did she learn nothing from her own scandal and the uproar of the public back then?".
All her recent efforts like the marathon she attended, her mook and the new movie seem to be worthless already. The media event wants a real explanation about the thievery scandal and not just an apology like 2years ago. Let's hope that this won't affect her career that much. After all she seems to be a good friend of Erika and even tried to defend her in public, even thought she could have done it in a more careful way..

information/translation from hpriest