[GENERAL] The AKB48 Thread

Actually I think AKB48 has too many members to be not split into teams

AKB48 has more than 80 members, contrary to sister groups that are teamless earlier, each of them has only like 30-40 members or even less

 

To be quite honest, I barely know which team each member belongs to, but I do know more members now than I ever knew before. I know almost all of them, actually. To be fair, I was 10 when I first started following AKB, so in those early days it made sense that I would have a hard time looking up stuff about the group and knowing all the details. That being said, though, I find I never got to know the members specifically by team. I just had a vague idea of who was where. So to me personally I don't see the teams as something valuable in order to get to know members. Plus, teams haven't mattered for a long time now, and this is an opportunity to promote the group as a group. Fans may even be exposed to girls they wouldn't normally be exposed to depending on how the theater stages are going to work, who knows? All in all, I can't say if this is a positive decision, but I think it at the very least makes sense, as opposed to a lot of other decisions by management recently.

 

The long awaited solo fanclubs are finally starting to open

• Onishi Momoka
• Gyoten Yurina
• Komiyama Haruka
• Shinozaki Ayana
• Taniguchi Megu

Or from the general platform
https://ameblo.jp/akihabara48/entry-12800970976.html

Meanwhile, Yuiyui's Youtube channel is dead in a dungeon

 

No, that's even make it more harder to notice some girls with 16 members performance coming back and they perform as the whole group, how they are going to rotate the member line up for each theater performance too ?

I like 8nin theater as a team more, it's easier to notice each of them

 

I would put money down that either the team “disbandment” won’t last more than half a year before teams are reformed, OR that they will be put into “teams” right away again but they just won’t be called Team A, Team K, etc.

 

I have the feeling that the team disbandment is to solve the problem of overbloated and the constant need to keep it bloated due to having an extra team but they are too chicken of the consequences of disbanding Team 4 only twice. Hence they just disband all of them and from scratch create new division.

 

Personally I like 16nin stages more. With only 8 members the stage looks too empty and the energy just isn't the same. The formations also look kinda weird. I get that looking for girls in the backrow is annoying, believe me, I know. I'm a Miichan fan, she was always in the worst possible spot. But it's not impossible to see the girls in the back row. Besides, the stages have units (not to mention the MC portions), so every girl would still get a chance to be noticed even with 16nin performances. Additionally, with the teams gone, fans who maybe only went to the theater to watch one specific team might now be exposed to girls from the other teams as a result.

As for how they will rotate the line-ups, I don't know. And that's precisely why I think the outrage at this change isn't warranted. We have no way of knowing whether it's going to be a good or bad change for the group, so I think waiting to see is the way to go. Not to mention that they might, like said above, create some other type of division, it simply won't be Team A, B, etc. And this will also probably not affect the theater girls much, they'll still perform just like they used to, so I don't see any outright negative sides to this decision.

 

NGT actually has only 14 promoted members and 10 kenkyuusei... it's crazy!

 

if the video does not show watch the video here

 

That’s 24 too many.

I think teams will be back eventually, but it’ll probably be just A, K and B. With Team 8 gone, it feels “incomplete” to have a Team 4 hanging around when the rest of the SG only have three.

 

if the video does not show watch the video here

 

Engsub full the story:

Spoiler

https://twitter.com/mayuumji/status/1652694860233691136

This is so heart-broken, I believe not only Masaru feel like this but also other 17ki, especially Erichan our big wota. I hope that each 17ki member can at least have a chance to perform as under in current team stage before this August. Also, with the new system, will be the 1st time Yukirin not a part of Team B .
I'm curious how they will decide the theater performance line-up after disbanding all Team. STU48 divided members by generation, NMB48 divided them by unit and NGT48 didn't have enough members to divide.

 

NGT48 and STU48 both divided members up further into small quasi-official subgroups (often with members in multiple groups). We've also had multiple non-team 16 member "special" stages with different primary lineups (though those lineups get diluted over time as more unders perform).

The one potential silver lining in losing the teams is Yuiri might be able to beat her previous days-performed-in-a-row record.

Spoiler

If she doesn't graduate first

 

Idk if the team disband was done when team was actually a thing I would be feeling something.


But now... meh.

I cant understand that member's overreaction either. Team K has been very weak for the longest time. Even team B and team 4, 8 have been doing much well than team K. Much more cohesive and tightly-knitted.

 

Weak in what way? If you mean hanashikai sales, I can understand, but other than that...?

I mean, Manaka for example is the team captain. Her and Ran-chan were at the same school and graduated high school together just around this time last year. Manaka just said earlier today how Ran-chan has supported her throughout her captaincy so far.

Shimoguchi Hinana is also, by far, in my opinion, the most supportive and encouraging of all members in AKB. She constantly hangs out with other members in her private time (also keep in mind, this is Hinana's 10th year in AKB and she's only 21. She's been "Team K Shimoguchi Hinana" since 2013. That's half of her entire life).

Even more so Yukirin, who's been "Team B Kashiwagi Yuki" for 17 years now.

The teams have only been in place they are for about a year now (April 25th, 2022), but there are quite a lot of members whose whole identity with AKB is attached to a team. After almost every shuffle or reorganisation, there is always a wave of graduation announcements (look at Eitos since last October). Members love their teams and the members in their teams.

I'm sure Kobayashi Ran is only the first.

 

Have you watched a single Team K stage recently? How can you even type this with a straight face? K is one of the most tight-knit teams and closest to its original image (cool, dance-heavy, bonds, underdogs), perhaps in part because it's so much the underdog in terms of treatment by management and the wider fanbase.

Teams still have meaning to members and to current fans, even if they've lost all meaning to management and ex fans.


I will not shed a single tear for the death of shuffles, which are what killed the concept of most teams in the first place. But to lose the teams along with them...

 

let's be honest. the only Team that have solid image and big fans was Team 8.
when we see member like yuiyui or kuranoo, we see them as a member of Team 8.
meanwhile when we see member like Ran, we know her more as a D3 member than Team K, zukki as 16ki, erii as D2, and chiyori as HKT48 transfer.
only a few members have a team image attached to them such as yukirin and yuiri.

a big shakeup is needed and if that means dismiss all Teams, then so be it.

 

A recent Bunshun article
https://bunshun.jp/articles/-/61988

Is it because of declining sales?” The deep reason why he transferred from AKB48’s “leading figure” King Records at the height of its popularity
The record company belonging to the idol group "AKB48" has transferred to the Japanese music label "EMI Records" of "Universal Music". Starting with her 61st single,, which was released on April 26th, she suddenly left "King Records", where she had belonged for 15 years. Big-name artists move their record company or go independent...that happens all the time, but is this transfer of AKB48 really a "positive" transfer? Or...
The “leader” of AKB48 at the height of its popularity
When I heard the news of the transfer, I was surprised, because AKB48 and King Record seemed to be "on the same page". The two-top girls, Atsuko Maeda and Yuko Oshima, had fought for the top spot in the general election for the Japanese pop culture and had become a social phenomenon, and they had won the Record Grand Prize two years in a row, with "Flying Get" in 2011 and "Manatsu no Sounds good! ..."
AKB48 and King Records. The relationship between the two is not a new one: AKB48 made its indie debut in February 2006 with the single "Sakura no Hanabiratachi" and made its major debut in October of the same year with the single "Aitakatta" on the "Defstar Records" label within "Sony Music Entertainment". The move to King Records began in 2008 with the release of their 10th single, "Oogoe Diamond" Former staff at "AKS," which was the management company of AKB48, fondly remembers the time when they first started working with the group.
It became such a hit that it could be said to be one of the group's best-known songs. King Record renewed and restructured not only the music but also the handshake system. They introduced a "nationwide handshake event" and established the image of the "idol you can go see" that has become synonymous with the group. Without a doubt, he is the "driving force" behind AKB48, which later became a major breakthrough and reached the peak of its popularity.
Is the drop in sales the only reason?
King Records has had a close relationship with AKB48 for about 15 years since then, and many people involved with AKB48 were shocked by this move. So why did they have to leave King Record, which had such a close relationship with AKB48? A writer in charge of female idols for gravure magazines is disappointed, saying, "It seems that the contract could not be renewed due to various reasons.
The relationship between King Record and AKB48's current management company, DH Inc. has been strained: since the management of AKB48 and its sister groups such as NMB48 and HKT48 split off from 2020, members of the sister groups have basically stopped participating in AKB48's singles. Inevitably, sales dropped sharply from the 58th single, "Nemohamo Rumor," released in 2021." (Gravure magazine writer)
Was the decline in sales the only reason for the move?
Distortions" created over the past 15 years
"The momentum of AKB48 as a whole was declining, and DH's kitchen gradually became more and more difficult, so they told King Records that they wanted to increase the profit margin from CD sales. From King Records' point of view, this was a tough proposition since overall sales were declining to begin with.
It is said that various "distortions" have arisen in the 15 years of history.
There are so many things that AKB48 management has entrusted to King Records. Some of them could be described as "throwing it all away. The handshake events and the annual general election are events that are tied to CD sales, so there may be some aspects that can't be helped, but the arrangements for music programs, including meetings with producers and directors, the PR work for TV and newspaper media for each event and live performance, and so on.... .... It was hard to see how busy the King Records staff was at the peak of their careers.
What "changes" are expected in AKB48 after the transfer?
The sudden transfer can be said to be a "comprehensive decision" by King Record.
There were several opinions within King Record. Although sales have decreased compared to the days when they had a string of million-seller hits, in this day and age, artists who can still sell more than 300,000 to 400,000 copies are still very valuable. Depending on the way DH came up with various proposals, a different conclusion might have been reached.
Now that AKB48 will belong to Universal Music, which is said to be one of the "world's leading music companies," what kind of changes can be expected?
For better or worse, I think efficiency will increase
One thing that can be said is that, for better or worse, efficiency will increase. However, as a foreign-affiliated company, contractual relations are dry and they tend not to do more work than necessary. Aggressive sales pitches to television will also be reduced from record companies. In the past, King Record had a passion for AKB48. There is no longer any way to compare them.
Where will AKB48 go now that they have graduated from their "partners" who have been working together for 15 years?

 

Lighthearted reply to above:
Maybe Universal promised better food supply?

Starbucks stuff from Universal on the 2nd day of recent hanashikai:

video: https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/1655058355134791681/pu/vid/720x1280/ZmFR_rBm6cPjDhN6.mp4

Other stuffs they eat in those 2 days:


Well I remember during the heyday King Records also supplied excellent food stuffs so I'm not sure whether they're cutting back cost or spending more here, relatively.

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Also members are seeing an increase on female fans coming to the hanashikai

if the video does not show watch the video here
The fans in the comment section seem to observe the same thing for theater shows as well.