Single Keyakizaka46 2nd [Sekai ni wa Ai shika nai] (2016/08/10)

@ukifune
Your chart is good at it is now. Simple, easy to read, impactful. Keep it up-to-date on each single release basis and all is good. Thank you for your hard work(again)!

No comment on tracklist. I'll just throw a joke that whoever is the center of the Aozora ga Chigau will have better chance to get solo next single, like Neru did lol.

On HS result(6th) however,

Spoiler: tl:dr, You've been warned!

 

This.

 

About Techi's push, it was expected. I mean, she's the face of Keyaki. Neru push, though... I knew management loved her, but getting a solo this fast + being in senbatsu + probably being a proeminent member in Hiragana (maybe even first row)... She's popular, but so are some other members (at least according to HS) who aren't getting a push like hers. This whole thing makes me wonder if management wanted to make her a front member/fundamental part of the group from the beginning and the whole "arrived late because parents..." narrative was planned as a way to help achieve this goal faster.

 

Big congratulations to Nanako (and to Mii-chan) for selling out a full set of slots at the handshake events. 20/20!!

In her blog just now, Nanako titles her post "Sold Out!" and goes on to thank everyone and say how unbelievable it is. She goes back over her time with Keyakizaka and says how she worked so hard to sell more at the SaiMajo events, and how much encouragement she takes from people coming specifically to see and support her, and even give her fan-letters and presents. "You can imagine how happy that makes me.... I'm someone who is thoughtless and can annoy and bother people. But people can even come to love someone like this. The support people give me makes me feel that I just have to change." She is really, really happy, and posts this pic:



@Midsummer Rain -- I don't think the parental refusal thing was concocted, but I do think it was massaged a bit in the telling. From how Neru looked in the little bit of audition we saw, I think management likely wanted her badly. When they lost a member, maybe they felt they needed her (and the new influx of the Hiraganas) and went back to Neru's parents and said they would like to have her, and promised to help her do her studies, and took the parents to the Nogizaka show to show that it was not a bad thing.

Now, I think the Keyaki-chans have maybe surprised management with how good they are, and how popular. But I think Neru is still the apple of someone's eye -- maybe Konno's, maybe even Aki-P's. So she is getting this big push. I love her and admire her ability, but I hope she is up to it. Maybe they see a similar kind of magic in Neru to what Hirate has, in her very different way.

 

I don't complain at all since hiratezaka46 is my number 1 and the most amazing talents still got a duet song.
I'll complain though if the remaining of the songs were rubbish

 

Definitely, it's getting rather hard to keep an overview all the time. I guess nowadays in the idol scene, it's difficult to have and understand everything. Solid job on your member chart; although I don't need it personally I'm sure this is very helpful to many users around here and generally written very well. There's some personal bias in a few member descriptions but it's not a big deal at all, and I agree with almost everything written there as many others will probably do as well.

Most things have been said already but I'll brainstorm a bit.

Cover A and B are fine with the exception of Shida being way too far in the background on B, and to be honest, I'm not fond of C and D. While the general shot and the environment is okay, there is no proper focus on the members themselves, you can even barely see their faces (on C, I had to take a guess who's who with the exception of Habu). This gives a feeling that there may be more focus on the members as a group or on the music itself but is inconsistent with the usual markting strategies in idol business where there's a lot of focus on the members as it was in SaiMajo and as it is within any Aki-P group. I don't understand the intention and concept behind this, it's as if only the first row is promoted (cover-wise - music is a different story again).

The Solo for Hirate doesn't come that unexpected for me. She's an extremely viable center and most of us will probably agree on that her abilities justify her popularity. In fact, with her main role in the Tokuyama Drama and her public image, it would even feel a bit odd if there would not be something exclusively about her. It's probably a normal thing that fans would like to have a change here and there, but it's too early I think. It's just about a year Keyakizaka is here and there's more than enough time for development to happen, why not solidify first what has been build up in such a fulminant way to go for experiments afterwards. With just so much content on Keyaki, it feels much longer, but the real debut with SaiMajo was just three months ago.

Spoiler: Shiraishi Discussion

Interesting points of view/comparisons with Shiraishi here. I see the point - Shiraishi is somebody you might expect to be a successful artist even without the marketing and image of an "idol". With her confident and eminent personality (to the extent she sometimes seems to be sort of a second captain of Nogi), dancing and singing skills, courageous photobooks and staying true to her more adultish nature (instead of trying to keep up an overly kawaii image), she may be one of the most complete idols we have in the business right now. Hirate has a completely different style but similarly to Shiraishi, she's just a girl that "has it".

I have two points of view when I look at the Hiragana Keyaki thing. For popular members, it's important to be highlighted in as many viable A-sides as possible in order to defend your current position and increase your fanbase. For unders, it's actually a thing to be featured in any marketable track or MV, as not having public appearance means you have no chance of increasing your fanbase anyway. I considered the founding of Hiragana Keyaki a pure gimmick as Neru was prominent from the very beginning anyway and now even comes with her solo (after already enjoying that much caretaking by management on SaiMajo and before). I agree with people here that it's probably management bias, who knows why. My personal point of view on this is that Neru may be among the closest to the "classic idol image" when looking at all the members and as such very marketable, but there's definitely more behind it. Let's see how much will be made out of "Hiragana Keyaki", whether it's actually something noteworthy.

And well, the Yuichanzu thing. Right now, Pon has to deal with being set back a bit but she has the inner strength to accept this and fight her way back up. For Imaizumi, I believe she'll hardly be satisfied with being further from center in comparison with SaiMajo and is aiming higher. Because of this, I consider the Bob Dylan thing okay for Kobayashi, but not that much for Imaizumi. Kobayashi can stay a bit more within the public sight with this, but I think Imaizumi would like to show more of herself. If this should turn out to be a guitar-focused folk song, it's a bit of a low progress for her towards center position/solo, I'd say. Not that I'd have something against it, Shibuya Gawa was my favorite SaiMajo song, but I try to see it from the other side as well. But heck, I may be totally overthinking this.

 

@ukifune , I don't think they invented the "arrived late because parents..." narrative. It probably happened. I think that when the parents agreed to let her be part of the group they may have planned using her story (before presenting her to the group/public) as a way to help make Neru get popular faster because they saw pontential in her (probably already in the audition) to make it big. People love to root for the underdog and see they make it, so I wouldn't be surprised if management used Neru's story as a strategy to make another popular cash cow.

Hope my explanation was clear. I'm so asleep.

 

re maiyan discussion,

Spoiler

I always felt mngmnt never favoured her much. Regardless of all her qualities, I think it is very fair to say she have gotten much less resources from nogi relative to her contributions & successes. For me, it's quite disheartening really; case in point, her first solo finally came after almost five years since nogi's debut! Not to mention the amount of time she actually got to centre.

Relating back to hirate, I think it shows how rare & precious of a commodity the chance to sing a solo is. & considering how evenly distributed the popularity of keyaki members are, it is definitely a missed opportunities to not have more members get more of these opportunities. The 2nd single's track list is highly similar to the 1st: hirate solo => hirate solo, neru bus song (almost a solo) => neru solo, yuichanzu => yuichanzu. These might very well be great songs we will all love, but I think it would definitely have been ideal if this chance was taken to develop the other members more.

 

The more they push Neru, the more likely it seems that HiraganaK will have a separate identity, at least for a few more singles, and with Neru as center they will probably have more of a cute idol feel to the group. Which is not my preferred option and seems like bit of a waste of resources, but it's not like the other realistic options, Nogi-style unders or AKB style teams, are much better.

Not a fan of solos or duets in giant girls groups, I don't think I have ever listened to a 46/48 solo/duet more that twice, but Risa is in a decent sized unit so I'm happy enough.

 

I still don't understand this whole Hiragana thing. What are they? An entirely different group that is somehow connected to Keyakizaka46? The second gen who are getting some PVs only to themselves? The under girls? Everything is so unclear.

 

First, I've listened to Shibuyagawa and Yamanotesen many times each, so there's that. Maybe K46 is different? Not that any of them (or almost any idol) seems totally secure on the actual notes.

But as for the idea that they may set up HiraganaK as a separate cute group, that seems like a possibility to me, too. To really do that, though, they might have to do some shuffling: there are some very cute 3d liners in K46 and a couple of not-necessarily-cute talents in HiraganaK that might fit the cool image better (if off-the-wall crazy is cool, in one case). For the sake of the current members, giving a second 16-member senbatsu some K46 members who are already popular and trying to make it leap to success is an interesting idea. Neru/Nanako/Miichan in a front row with some members from Meme-chan/Kyouko/Kageyama/Mirei? Maybe in the future one group can be centered by Techi and one by Zuumin?

Anyway, I'm eager to get the Hiraganas visible -- on KeyaKake, on stage, in HS events -- to see what they're like and to get them somewhat integrated with the Keyakizaka group and culture. I can see them being separate performance groups, but I want them in the same overall group, too, as with Nogizaka. If they've chosen and trained the Hiraganas as well as they did the Kanjis, there are a lot of viable performers there.

 

There are quite a few good singers in 46/48 groups, although not necessarily the front girls, and some good songs as well. It's just that I prefer idols in groups of 4 or more.

 

A bit late... I might be in the minority here to say that the new covers are just so-so. Sure, the girls (particularly Hirate!) looks very pretty there... but I wish that they would not have chosen the "ordinary" school uniforms there. I don't know, it seems to be "watering down" their image, reducing it to "just another idol group". (Those covers actually remind me of HKT48's 1st and 2nd single covers, or even Guru guru's). I feel that the covers don't match the tone and quality of the songs inside.

Just IMHO. I'm no graphic designer or photographer, so don't take it too seriously.

 

You do have a good point. I like the covers, but I agree with you that they are "watering down" their image. Maybe these covers wold be best used when they had established their cool image already, so they wouldn't reduce them to just another idol group, like you said.

 

"Watering down" their image is probably the best part of the cover. It doesn't feel shocking since there's still Techi there. And if by the next single we have another center, she doesn't have to stuck on cool image of Techi at all, which is "beneficial" for some girls.

Spoiler: tldr

I'm on the side of the reason why Yuichanzu doesn't get splitted, is because both Yui's image are conflicting. Both talented, both fresh. Pushing only one will render the other inferior. Which is not yet seen for now. And after all this gimmick works, regardless of girls interest.

Neru is one of the "GGWP" tactic by management. Nuff said. If you're kind of tired with Techi superpush, you should nominate one other girl who would raise up to be her antitesis, to be another center material. And what is Cool image counterpart? Cute. That's Neru, not either of Yui, not either of Watanabe. I dare say if there's another single center of Keyakizaka other than Techi, the first to do it will be Neru.

But it will kill her underdog status. If that's still remain. Also incite another rage wave lol

 

Management need to juggle between "solidifying/build a strong image, shape a member character" and "giving an opportunity to someone in order to grow, bring a fresh feeling to a single and being original". Keyaki is young and promising. They are calmly, yet firmly taking an edge in building their "cool" identity even beyond Nogizaka. Kataru nara mirai o is the perfect example of the style they are being led to.

Acchan was the ultimate center of AKB in her time. Results? 80% of face recognition. She was basically more known than AKB48 itself. To have a determined center help a lot in being pinned on the map. And you need time to make an unmovable center, which means she will still have the center feeling even if you switch her to another member like Nogizaka with Saito Asuka.

Another point to make, yes diversity is a good thing to succeed in music, but are other members good counterparts to get special song, or even a solo compared to Hirate Yurina? Maybe management considered the other girls are not mature enough so they stick with Yurina.

2 single with the same songs list pattern is fine with me, maybe make some change for the third.

 

The part two of the MV announcement is gonna happen tomorrow at 17:30 JPT at showroom (15 hours from now)
https://www.showroom-live.com/keyakizaka46

 

With Techi and Neru

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8.30? On Saturday? With Techi? I am so in.