[GENERAL] The AKB48 Thread

Not to be racist, do him and most of his fans come from a certain country where one of the intl sister group is based on? If so i think they will still probably thrive because their fans can be lunatic

 

Okay yeah I get it now. I thought it was first week for everything and the person I quoted was showing first day sales instead.

Here's the link to the post I quoted: http://stage48.net/forum/index.php?threads/general-the-akb48-thread.180/page-1430#post-1801161

I don't understand why anyone would want to do that. I can't imagine that was genuinely the intention? I just think he's not kept very good track of numbers and mixed them up. If you look at the numbers as they are posted, then it looks like they steadily increased sales with every release. I get that the numbers for the 2 singles in the middle are incorrect, but it doesn't feel to me like he was intentionally/maliciously trying to make NmHmR look bad. Why would anyone care to make a single look bad? Make a group look bad, fine, but a song? What would he gain from that?

No, he's European. I have noticed a lot of his followers seem to be JKT48 fans, but I think that's just because a lot of them are on social media and speaking English, compared to the fanbases of other sister groups who seem to be more comfortable in their own language circle.

Also, the account (48RH) had an official request from Vernalossom in the past for collaboration and MNL48 Sheki held a Q&A on that account. Overall, having a popular English speaking account is great, but it's just one guy running the whole thing and he's ruining his relationship and reputation with other news based fan accounts.

 

I was the one who he blocked after I noted down that he was wrong in Nemohamo Rumor data. And he never fixed that, so... intentionality or not was not important, the problem lied in his behavior.

 

AKB48 will be attending the 55th Plumbing Equipment and General Equipment Exhibition in Tokyo on 7/25 where they'll give a 30 minute talk at 11:30:
https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000000015.000058505.html

(It doesn't sound quite as glamourous as the Japan Expo in Paris, France where Sakurazaka46 performed on Saturday but hopefully it'll still be a success...)

 

[Yuuki no Hammer] time? The tools will be perfect for plumbing stuffs.


But seriously where else does AKB48 and Plumbing intersect?

Apparently members who will attend has been decided:
https://ameblo.jp/akihabara48/entry-12805276648.html
https://twitter.com/AKB48_staff/status/1663470575938072578


Odaeri, Yukirin, Miion and Yukinee!

 

AKB48 just reached 900k monthly listeners on Spotify, now very close to 1 million, omedetou




Seventeen is the most played AKB48 song on Spotify last 30 days. As expected that AKB48's popularity on Spotify is carried by Indonesian/JKT48 fans as Seventeen is popular among JKT48 fans but since JKT48 version hasn't been released yet so they listen to AKB48 version, at least until JKT48 version gets released

But yeah, as a Jpop artist, AKB48 doesn't sing theme songs of highly rated animes, doesn't have songs going viral on Tiktok, & I don't know which members of today's AKB48 who speak English. So how AKB48 can get popular on Spotify, the most popular music streaming app worldwide? So indeed need to thank to JKT48 fans

I've been told that AKB48 fans or idol fans in general in Japan prefer to use Line Music while Spotify is more popular among anisong & vocaloid fans. But since Line Music service is only available in Japan, so Spotify measures international fame better, as well as Apple Music. Most Japanese musical artists popular on Spotify & Apple Music are because they usually sing popular anime songs, or have songs viral on Tiktok, or they're fluent in English so they can attract international audiences

 

Maho x Erii short video from ANA:


if the video does not show watch the video here

 

I read that Line Music was the most popular music streaming platform in Japan in general.

In term of oversea expansion, to start within Asia is more pragmatic/realistic. Asia's 4 biggest entertainment markets are
Japan
Korea
China and,
India
China and Japan are isolated. Korea and India are impossible to set a foot in. So, these markets cannot be used as springboard to better international reach.
Then, there is Thailand, possibly the fifth largest. Thai market is smaller than the 4 giants above by a long long shot yet, it is within a realm of possibility for a Japanese group to carve a space within this market and, Thai homo romantic drama has a solid international following. (Biggest consumer is China followed by Philippines possibly.)
Perhaps, if DH collab with GMM TV to produce a lesbian drama, it possibly will garner some foreign attention to AKB48.

 

In all seriousness, Thaïland isn't an option, for 2 main reasons which don't require particular explanations.

And seeing how things are actually turning, oversea is surely the least of management's concerns.

 

This is preposterous.

As u stated urself, it is a MUSIC streaming service. The languages the member speak has little bearing on how much people listen to their song.
It is funny how u mention anisong singer. That alone is enough to bring down the rest of ur argument. Jpop fans listen to jpop because they are in japanese (esp those weaboos,in a good way) or because they are a jpop group with japanese vibes on it. Either way, very few is going to think "ah this song is in English / the members speak English .. let's listen to it!".

Akb does have an english speaking members (hirari, rena, etc). But those english speaking members never become popular even overseas not when their personality is not relatabe by either japanese or foreign market. The most popular jpop or anisong or virtual singers (ado, etc) did not speak an ounce of English. But they are popular. Look at ado and the english cover despite ado not being in huge agency until recenntly

Before anyone says "well ... but BTS relased an English song and they are successful. They also speak decent english". Well they are successful because they are BTS, because the song is a bomb regardless of the language, and because they had put a lot of money on its marketing. Dynamite was shoved into our face everywhere. Bts was invited by the UN or whatever it is.. u get my point.

Arashi and even JKT tried to churn out english songs and they did not manage to upsell their original language songs anyway. It is enough to make us excited but noone is gonna put on it repeat just because they are in English. That would be a simplistic way of looking at things. Not to mention they bucther the English anyway.

It is true they could have marketed their songs better. And it does not always mean to english speaking members, just make their content accessable and be english subbed.

it is presposterous, in anyway, to say that akb sells that good because of one sole reason that is jkt. And even more preposterous to suggest that is because "jkt speaks english"*

 

In all seriousness, you did not sound reasonable at all. Thailand was successfully used as a springboard to K-pop. If something managed to be hit in Thailand, it could possibly transcend to most parts of SEA and that could be something to work on. Also, I don't think you have any clue how popular Thai homo drama is internationally (within Asia at very least).

Don't you know, seeing how AKB has turned into, oversea surely has been more of DH's concern? Japanese music labels won't care about oversea market unless the domestic business has been cool.

This is heavily ludicrous.

MUSIC has never been the sole thing idol sells, possibly not even the primary aspect. Thus, English is crucial. Do you think why all big K-pop agencies make their idols learn English if it is non-issue?

"J-pop fans"? How many are they? Have not it ever come across your mind that J-pop wants to reach out to more audience, to make it less niche? How to do so? Just doing the same old things? Not at all trying to attract more casual non-weeb audiences?

But, if English is not a key to BTS' success, why the group keeps releasing more English songs? (You know BTS' members said they would never release English song?) Also, do you think why K-pop idols keep releasing Japanese version of their Korean songs?

It is illogical to believe JKT held no influence on the interest toward AKB in INA.

 

Are we talking about a japaneese idols group or an acting company ? And since Thaï drama isn't the point.
AKB48 has little to do in countries where they allready established sister groups.

Why the mother group would try to eat it's children's plate ? That's non-sense.

As for the current situation, the management is fully centered on itself, applying it's restructuration plan.
I highly doubt looking out of Japan can improve anything. International fans don't provide enough.

 

Why are people booing you? This post is correct.

Spotify is a pretty decent way to gauge international popularity because, as some other people confirmed, LINE music is more commonly used over there. JKT fans listen to unreleased Indonesian versions of songs in Japanese.

The English speakers mentioned by @souchan48 are no longer active. The comment above says "I don't know which members of today's AKB48 speak English". Currently, as far as I know, there's only 18th Gen Arai Sae who can be considered a fluent English speaker. Someone please let me know if there's anyone else whose English is good enough to have a little chat, besides phrases like "I love you" etc.

It's also true that anime OST and viral tiktok songs are popular Japanese songs to international listeners. Idol by YOASOBI has been huge lately, and Kawaikute Gomen and Tabun are also popular.

The latter two factors could also definitely help with local popularity. @Mana has said it before, when the Twintail song went viral on twitter, AKB didn't act on it. They did try a little bit to make a Tiktok hit by creating a special hand-only choreography (was it for HisaLip or Moto Kare desu?), but it didn't fully hit the mark.

 

This discussion comes around every now and then.

The Jpop industry is very happy being as insular as it is. It's literally the second biggest market in the world. Why would they care if they're known overseas? They... don't.

The core of idol groups' fanbases are local fans (wotas) who open their wallets for seconds of interaction. Us international fans haven’t mattered since the days of the Google partnership.

 

That's very true however it might be worth keeping an eye on what Sakurazaka46 could be doing in the coming months. Their performance on Saturday (a 30-min mini-live) at the Japan Expo in Paris is being discussed in this thread so I won't say too much detail about it here but maybe their management wanted to test an overseas market? The group had a very positive reaction at the event (in spite of some audience queuing snafus) and perhaps they're planning to return to Europe (France at least) for further performances?

EDIT: I've just remembered about AKB48's appearance at a similar matsuri event in Barcelona in 2019. Nothing followed on from that but of course the pandemic happened a few months later.

 

Groups participating in this kind of events means absolutely nothing (except that they get a nice cheque from the organisers).


if the video does not show watch the video here

if the video does not show watch the video here

 

Exactly. There is a reason why Korean markets themself to Japanese.
Japan is one of the largest music industry AND it brings actual money to these record companies. Not just streaming, but literally flocking to concerts, BUYING their goods, etc.


Bts making effort speaking english is NOT to generate direct revenue. How? Bts publishing English songs are actually part of branding. They, by themselves, don't make enough money thru those English effort. But it will cement their image. And people will think and take a look at it because "that is the group that people keep talking about". What we can learn from BTS is NOT that they speak English, but that GOOD MARKETING and PR STUNT is necessary.

Ps: akb did try have international performance during its hey day. They tried everything, even singing oogoe diamond in foreign languages. Having that google+ live where they speak international languages. At the SAME YEAR, oppa gangnam style became very popular. Ironically sty didnt try to speak English LOL.

Ps2: i brought up those past english speaking members to show that in the past, none of those english speaking members become a hit INTERNATIONALLY. @bonjourmarlene

People seem to fail to see that his original hypothesis is that "jkt48 brings more listeners to spotify because many of its members speak english". That is the underlying premise. That is why i brought up those names, who spoke english fluently btw. Did it ever get any result? Hirari was pushed in google+ bfw.

Now, let's address the elephant in the room. Does jkt48 members speak good english? Ehm... i have been working in indonesia for the past 3 years. Trust me, they dont. They are a slightly better speaker than japanese.

also they are more like a niche, but they do have enthusiast followers who i can see putting the songs on repeat on spotify. But again it is not because "they speak english" . It is because indonesians are among the largest internet users in the world (they spend 4-5x on the internet more than my home country).

 

The only visit in the west a 48/46 group did that was followed by something was AKB48's travel to Japan Expo Paris back in summer 2009 (Ogoe Diamond in English, Sakura no Hanabiratachi choruses in french), followed by the MIDEM in Cannes in autumn. These 2 were the origin of oversea sister groups creation.
Since then Nogizaka visited the exhibition in 2014, they had 1 concert (around 1h), lots of interraction with fans in a huge booth . Just nothing came after.
And now Sakurazaka46, wait and see if anything happens.

We can thank Kamieda Emika for the Barcelona trip.

 

Literally in every platform, more popular Japanese music are artists or songs related to animes. Maybe it'll always be like this

 

I don’t know why this conversation started, but without bothering to find out why I’ll chime in. (Because thats what we do here) Watarirouka Hashiritai did the closing song for anime Fairy Tail brought me to the fandom.

In 2018 team 8 performed at Anime Expo in Los Angeles. It was 115 American degrees in the city and the performance was at a smaller venue near the colossal Staples Center. The billing was poor, the sound was bad, and some fans tried to get a chant going but aside from the members getting to visit LA im sure it was a big waste of time from managements POV

These six members performed



MC was handled almost exclusively by tanigawa in decent English