[GENERAL] The AKB48 Thread

When regular Theater shows resume on 1/5 management will set up a donation box for the purpose of supporting the disaster-stricken areas of yesterday's earthquake:
https://ameblo.jp/akihabara48/entry-12834871611.html

 

Yeah but can Naru cut a promo like William Regal?

 

D-GENEREITO Z!



And if you're not down with that, we got two words for you: SUKI DAAAAAAAA!

 

As long as she doesn't come out and put members randomly One-on-One with The Undertaker, I'll have my doubts.

 

It's Starto (previously known as Johnnys) especially Arashi that carried Kouhaku for years

Absence of AKB48 Group didn't really matter, 2020, the last time Arashi was in Kouhaku, the rating was pretty good though AKB48 was excluded

 

Kouhaku ratings have been declining for at least a decade. I agree that with Johnnys, maybe the fall in ratings would be smaller this year since they have a large loyal fanbase but NHK Kouhaku appeals(or at least tries to)to general public and Johnnys reputation took a massive hit this year.

 

Soukantoku concidentally gets translated and shortened to "GM" funnily enough.
---
Also for the OGs out there, I uploaded the Verbatim pictures from 2009 to archive.org (based on Google Drive upload of it by @nagekinohina). While researching the promotion to write the description text, I don't get how were the images were available - old posts here suggests the available images were randomized during the promotion period? The Wayback Machine of the promo website being broken doesn't help.

 

Misia, Yoasobi, & Ado are the top 3 https://twitter.com/cloverblossoms_/status/1742084818035474705?t=t__R9ED5clgTxUa7YUOX6w&s=19

Yoasobi & Ado define Jpop of the gen Z, meanwhile Misia is the most favoured among older audiences

 

this is might be off topic considering the current posts. but im just wondering what other thik about sister groups involvement with akb48 activities. for some reason i cannot keep up with the current member of SKE NMB HKT anymore, this could be because their lack of interaction with AKB. and i cant help but feel like it hurts the whole 48 groups franchise’s image a bit. i know it was all rooted with NGT scandal that they think its wiser to separate the groups in case one of their reputation are hurt, the rest wont be affected negatively by it, but still i feel like they could come up with other solution without feeling like they have no correlation anymore whatsoever.

kinda missing the old days when Mayu, Jurina, Sayanee and sakura were performing in one stage.

 

Manaka is as appropriate to the role as Juri was.

 

Ah is that what happened to make them all separate? That's rough.

I agree— it does feel like they're not really connected anymore as groups, and I also feel like I can't keep up with any of the groups either other than my main (NMB). I don't know if that's caused by the increased separation, or if it's my own inability to keep up in general and the separation making it worse, but I do feel the same way— it's less "48g" and more "individual unrelated groups doing their own thing (but they share a name)". With the main sites the girls use to post determined to deter people without accounts from viewing their content, I barely know what's going on anymore even with my oshimens, let alone anyone in the other groups!

I don't particularly mind it myself right now, as I usually focus on members I know and it's easier for me to watch stuff where I know everybody, and personally I like the individual images each of the groups develop without outside influence, but it sure makes it harder to discover new members or get into the other groups! I'm neutral on it as a whole— I can definitely find pros and cons.

 

Even though the 48G were together for most of their existence so far, and even for the majority of my time in the fandom (I found them in late 2015), it still kind of throws me off when I watch old performances and see non-AKB members in senbatsu. Not necessarily the big names you mentioned, but Shiroma Miru, Yoshida Akari, Suda Akari (the secondary big members). What I'm trying to say, I've gotten really used to AKB only.

That being said, I also agree that it's really difficult to keep up with other groups this way. I know all the names of AKB members, including non-senbatsu and kenkyuusei, whereas I always struggled with this. For a long time, I didn't know 16ki and 3rd Draft; as I found AKB in 2015, 16ki onwards are the only gens I live-witnessed joining the group. At the same time, how many members of the sister groups would I recognise...? Honestly maybe a handful each, and it's mostly long time members or centers.

I consume quite a lot of JP media, including variety shows and dramas, but the 48G members I recognise on those shows are graduates. For example, a recent drama I watched (Oshi ga Joushi ni Narimashite) had three members: Kodama Haruka, Yoshida Akari and Takayanagi Akane, all graduated. I try to watch all of Hitomi's and Yuiyui's dramas, but the only other 48G member I remember seeing in any of their dramas so far was Tanaka Miku (very tiny role, wouldn't have known it was her if I didn't know her already).

All 48 groups besides AKB are now kinda local chika-idol groups to me. The members don't get paid enough to live off of either, as Lee Siyeon (NMB48) and Unjo Hirona (HKT48) have confirmed. Unless you live in the group's prefecture/city or really make a conscious effort, they're not really present

EDIT: If you want to see some cross-overs, I recommend watching the available concert footage of HKT48's Live Tour 2022. They invited sister groups to the different cities. I think every sister group appeared at least once but I don't think every concert was recorded/livestreamed.

 

Good news,

The movie Girls Drive, will be available to watch in different stream services from 01/19 to 03/18, check the list in this link: https://tc-ent.co.jp/sp/girls-drive/vod/

https://twitter.com/girlsdrive2023/status/1743943058645750076

 

It's the same for me and to add to that it also throws me off when I see kennin members in sister group MVs, e.g. Yukirin in NMB's 'Rashkunai', Milky in SKE's 'Bukiyou Taiyou' and Kitarie in another SKE one 'Choco no Dorei'. Recently I've found it something of a struggle to keep up with newer gen members in SGs (especially in HKT where Nanachan is still the only one of the 18 6th Gen members I can recognise) but on the other hand at long last I can recognise every single AKB member and I hope I can learn about every new 19th Gen member as quickly as I learnt about all the ones in the 17th and 18th Gens (which was rather faster than with the 16th Gen!).

I came into the fandom in early 2015 and I remember watching some then-recent concert videos and struggling to recognise even some more popular members. However I persevered (in no small part thanks to our Wiki!) and I soon got to know all of the most popular members not just in AKB but also the sister groups, and I found myself following SKE, NMB and HKT as much as AKB (and also NGT and STU when they started). I drifted away from NGT during 2019 for obvious reasons but more recently I've found HKT more difficult to follow and if it wasn't for their 'SSK' which NMB had a couple of years ago I'd have been much less familar with that group's current members.

However for whatever reasons I still find myself quite closely following SKE and STU and I'm happy to see that those two groups together had some collaboration concerts last year. But yes I too miss the old days and a couple of weeks ago I played the MV for '#SukiNanda' which had randomly popped up in my YouTube recommended videos and it brought back a shedload of happy memories.

 

Did they have any other collaboration besides the mobile game sponsored concert a few months ago?

(For those that don't know, this was a joint concert organised by the creator of SKE48's and STU48's mobile games, which are similar to AKB48's Dobbon game iirc. I think the creator of the SKE and STU game is the same, that's why this happened. I added the setlist to our wiki a few days ago and it's honestly really cool, SKE did some STU songs and vice versa. I hope we get a recorded version of it, as I haven't seen one so far.)

 

Not as far as I know - the most recent concert I know of was on 11/20 in Yokohama which was part of the collaboration project.

 

6 AKB48 Members having their Coming of Age Day today.
Erii Chiba, Minami Sato, Taguchi Manaka, Ota Yuki, Mizushima Miyuu, Narita Kohina

https://mdpr.jp/news/4136337

From AKB48's Twitter
https://twitter.com/AKB48_staff/status/1744196659457007785

 

Congratulations to the new adults!!
According to the news articles,
taking inspiration from the Dragon year,
they are called :
『これからトップに立つ世代』 [Kore Kara Top ni Tatsu Sedai]
or 『立つ世代』 [Tatsu Sedai] for short
basically : the 'Generation that will stand at the Top'

Explanation by Bard:
The Japanese word "tatsu" (辰) can mean "dragon" or "to stand". In this context, Chiba is using the word "tatsu" to refer to both the year of the dragon and the act of standing at the top.

EDIT:
Some articles not covered above:
https://popnroll.tv/articles/37156
https://popnroll.tv/articles/37156/images
https://www.oricon.co.jp/news/2309555/photo/14/
https://encount.press/archives/566827/2/
https://www.bubkaweb.com/2024/01/101623/

Some images of the procession:



Sadly there's no livestream this year as well.

But there will be some backstage footage at 17kenkyuujo episode tomorrow at 19.00 JST!

https://twitter.com/akb48_17ken/status/1744192277705277905
Presumably the focus will be the 17ki girls there, Mizumin and Yukitan

IPPACHI Room tomorrow might also have some, and future AKB48 Chiba Erii's Erii GO youtube channel might also have some footage (since her manager is there)

EDIT 2
Another group pic from AKB twitter:

as well as some tiktoks, source and links here:
https://twitter.com/AKB48_staff/status/1744214064031801542

 

WWS Channel:


if the video does not show watch the video here

JIJI Press:

Spoiler: Sources

https://twitter.com/jijicom_ent/status/1744262513343209685
https://twitter.com/jijicom_ent/status/1744256782984474666
https://twitter.com/jijicom_ent/status/1744256403743883726