How did you discover AKB48?

I first heard of them in passing on an episode of Japanorama. It was a japanese culture show and i was already really interested in anime and manga. The episode was called Otaku and it had a short clip about the girls and the otaku focus. But i didn't really look them up at that point. I really didn't get into idol culture untill i found out about Mika Todd. I thought i was pretty cool that there was a popular idol who was american. But the year was 2009, so minimoni and Coconut Musume (which i didn't like as much, go figure ) was long since dead. Time went by and i started reading the blog Wotaku Now by a guy called shirow. Who is hilarious by the way. And he did an artical on AKB48 about how one of the more popular members had resently gone into porn and for some unknown reason it made me want to find out about this popular group. I heard "Bingo" and the rest is history.

 

I came to know them from a k-pop site, and someone was spamming AKB48 stuff quite excessively there(could be someone from here ). I didn't pay attention and thought, wtf 48 girls in a group and got a little annoyed since that was a k-pop site, not j-pop.
Eventually, I decided to click on one of those video spams(Seifuku ga jama wo suru video with subs), and I kept on watching it over and over. Then I got interested and searched for stuff related to them.
I was a bit frustrated though because I couldn't find much variety shows on YT(obviously due to copyright claims by AKS) let alone shows with subs. Sorta got used to it now.

 

I knew about AKB48 for a while, like in early 2009. I ignored them cause I was only into Morning Musume. and it was easier for me to remember Momusu's members than AKB's. I only started to pay attention to them when "RIVER" came out. I became a fan of the group after watching no3b's drama.

 

I watched Kouhaku for the past 4 years so I watch their first performance at Kouhaku. But I didn't become their fan since then. When there was a rumour between Haruna and Tegoshi(I'm a fan of him), I just wanted to know what she looks like. And then I became a big fan of them. Pretty weird, right?

 

I was at a MM forum, and then someone posted a video of Keibetsu Shiteita and said "one of the girls looks like Kamei Eri." He/She was talking about Atsuko Maeda. lol. But anways, the song caught on. I've always been a fan, but for a good while, I wasn't really keeping up with the group. My fandom was renewed, and now I can't get enough of them.

 

I've known about them for a while, basically since the release of River and its subsequent success, but wasn't really interested because I was into other music genres at the time. I started getting into J-Pop around this time last year, but essentially listened to other, more established artists...
BUT upon returning to Japan this summer for my summer holiday, I definitely noticed them. They were everywhere! I began seeing them on TV, and since I frequent 7-Eleven, I noticed how cute some of them were (especially Acchan! ) in their promotional stuff there and began getting interested. On returning to the UK I forgot about them for a while, but after trying to find a DMM.com CM I had seen whilst in Japan, I came across their DMM.com CM featuring 10年桜. I got really hooked on the chorus; it was completely unlike the traditional J-Pop I was used to, and from there began to discover the rest of their discography and learn about the members etc.
Now a full-fledged AKB48 fan! (Although I do regret that I didn't discover them earlier) [boom]

 

I'm a k-pop fan and i saw someone saying something about AKB in an MV. So I checked them out on youtube and watched the baby baby baby pv and i thought they were awesome! then i watched their other pvs. But the song that really made me adore them alot is Oogoe diamond[:

 

Ooh I love telling people about my (AKB48) life story. Before learning about AKB48, I've never really been into idol groups. The first time I even heard the group AKB48 was when I first saw No Sleeve's drama, Mendol. I liked the theme of the drama and therefore decided to watch it. I think the first person I really liked was Kojima Haruna's character because she seemed the most, I don't know, normal [wonder] . Anyway, then I totally fell in love with Takahashi Minami because she was so funny . She was a major dork, but that made me like her even more . Unfortunately Minegishi Minami, for me, was a bit annoying at first but it's okay, because later, I really started to appreciate her.

At that time, I really like the songs in the drama, which was Oogre Diamond and Relax (not counting the Persona songs). So, I was basically like, "this song is nice. Who's AKB48? Who's No Sleeves?". After the drama ended, I was basically craving more of this stuff (because Takahashi Minami is awesome! [rock] ). I can't really remember what happened, but somewhere along the way, I gave up on the searching/researching about them. Probably because I didn't find much.

Fast forward to 2010! I heard about Majisuka Gakuen through this podcast that I listen to. 'Idol girls who are yankees in a drama and beating each other up... nah' was what I thought at first. I didn't actually start watching that drama till probably July or something. It was definitely sometime during the summer. I was most likely bored and having some post high school graduation depression or something so I decided to watch the drama.

I was hooked. Seriously missed sleep for that drama. I really liked Maeda Atsuko's character (by the way, she reminds me of Horika Maki sorry that's irrelevent) Then I saw Kojiharu! Takamina! Minegishi! (Sorry for the over excitement [blush] ) Basically the drama made me fall in love with AKB48. Then commence the searching for AKB48 stuff, got hooked, and here I am today. Yay.

Okay that is seriously long, I apologize.

 

I first heard (well, 'saw' actually) about AKB48 in the 2009-10 Kouhaku Uta Gassen (紅白歌合戦) on which they performed RIVER SURPRISE (RIVER + Namida Surprise). I found the song quite catchy, not to mention the choreography as well. However, I didn't pay much attention to the whole group at that time, seeing that it was an all-girls idol group, I lost interest immediately. I don't really like female group artists, since most of the time they all act cute, but have no real talent in singing.

Although, I took quite a big liking to Watanabe Mayu and Matsui Jurina(god they were cute) [blush]. I found info on Mayu quite easily, but Jurina was a whole different matter. I had no idea that SKE existed, and I've always thought her being a Research Student. About 3 months later, I went into another AKB craze, and started massing up AKB data again. It was only then, I really figured out AKB (SDN, SKE, sub units etc).

I started dl-ing their songs (I was only interested in Mayu & Jurina's look prior to this [sweat] ), and found that their songs were quite catchy, surprisingly. Wiki solved the riddle for me, revealing Akimoto to be the lyrics writer for AKB.

Start of October, I had a rough idea of about 1/2 of the members across AKB, and so I started looking for other media sources to further my knowledge on AKB. I was fortunately enough to stumble across AikyiTaizne's blog for ddl. [party] It was a gold mine.

And that's how my AKB journey started. A few weeks or so into Oct, I began to take a liking to other members as well. [cool]

 

First saw them in the singaporean newspaper announcing that there's a Singapore Toys Games and Comics Convention and that AKB48 will be performing. At that point of time, I decided to check them out but forgot about it. Then I saw the oricon charts for december 2010 and when I saw Chance no Junban ranking top, I decided to wiki their singles and youtube their singles and finally started listening to them full time.

 

I have only recently got into them! Beginner was my first single!

I am not usually a fan of idol groups, sure I listened to some Morning Musume when I was younger, but that's all. However I was completely addicted to Beginner due to constant play on music shows, so looked into their backcatalog. So basically shows like Music Station. However I of course was aware of shows like AKBingo etc but never tuned in.

 

First song was "Sakura no Hanabiratachi" i ran across it on Youtube and i decided to give it a go...and as i was listening to it, my memories from my childhood in China started coming back to me and it was very nogalistic. So i decided to go search up more of their songs, then I found BINGO! and Oogoe Diamond. The melody reached out to me and made me feel more at home than at home, went and did more research. And decided that THIS is where i belong in the world

 

I guess my story of AKB48 started with Ono Erena. I saw her pic randomly in a forum, probably in early 2010, and then I searched for information about her. From then I was aware of AKB48, but did not bother to dig into it more as there are so many people. Also, my first impression was that a group with many young girls probably can't sing very well.

In mid-2010, I clicked into the song RIVER when I was looking for some videos of Erepyon on Youtube. It was the first time I listened to their song. I simply loved it so much even though I didn't understand any words but a few English words. So I began to listen to their other songs. (I loved RIVER even more after looking at its lyrics some time later.)

But I only started to keep track of their news after reading a blog which talks about some history of Miichan. This was also how she became my oshi.

Anyway, I am not sure when exactly I started to fall in love with AKB48, but that's how it began, rather randomly.

 

To be honest...I'm not quite sure...it was a long time ago. But...if I remember correctly, they were mentioned in a certain manga...then I went O_O when I found out there were 48 members in a girl group. And well...after that I just youtubed them and googled. Originally...I didn't become a fan right away...but it was some time after that I suddenly got really into them.

 

Where do I start...

Started downloading Oricon Top 20 weekly ranking packs 3 years ago, as I began to explore more "mainstream" J-pop fare outside my usual anison selections, and Sakura no Hanabiratachi (2008 ver.) happened to rank amongst the Top 20 for that week. My first reaction? "man... so many members LOL"
Song was fairly good though, and had quite a bit of personal significance at that time too (quite a number of senpais I knew were graduating that year).

Didn't care for the subsequent few tracks afterwards (Oogoe Diamond, 10-nen zakura). Namida Surprise! was an interesting, catchy song though.

Then came RIVER. All my perceptions of idol groups (in general, let alone AKB48) were blown away. Such an incredible song, full of energy, power and a positively surprising/refreshing American pop-cultural influence; things I wouldn't have associated with an idol unit. And that PV... I just LOVED that gritty, gung-ho atmosphere and cinematography. (even more surprised when, being a bit of a camera buff, I found out a long time later that it was all filmed on an EOS 7D :-o ) RIVER pretty much started it all, really.

Sakura no Shiori was next. "Innovative" and "refreshingly beautiful yet simple" were my first reactions. Kamikyoku-tachi brought everything full circle. PoniShu didn't do much for me though, but Majijo Teppen Blues did. Was interested with all the speaking bits, and from there, did more research and started getting involved a bit more after watching Majisuka Gakuen. That's when I started putting names to faces.

The rest, as they say, is history.

(On a side note, I used to think SKE48 was some lesser, cheapo, B-grade unit and Watarirouka Hashiritai, after listening to Hatsuoki Dash and Kanpeki Guu~ no ne, some kiddy songs unit - they did look like kids though on the covers - ... oh how wrong I was... )

 

eee let see.. [think]
I think it was about 2 years ago, when I had hobbies collecting J~Dorama..
I was in DVD store and looking for some new doramas, but it was difficult since at my place it was so rare selling j~dorama, most of them are west and korea..

but then I found a dorama which cover attracted me enough, so I decided to read its summary behind it.
And yes. It was Men*Dol. Thinking the story is good, then I bought it. [clap]
The songs were really nice [rock] When I searched it on internet, I found more infos about them. Musics and PVs...And actually I knew that the actresses were singers from group called no3b which was the sub unit of AKB48
I am so glad coz on that time I had hobbies which made me knew about AKB48, the cutest girls from japan.

 

First of all I like the Japanese drama, looking for one, i found Majisuka Gakuen, and then I read about the story, I heard that resembled to Crows Zero, of course i like Crows Zero 1 and 2, I thought it would be interesting in the girls version, I saw the drama and I liked it a lot. Also I was confused about the title, called him "AKB48 Majisuka Gakuen", I wonder why AKB48, because i founded much about AKB48 than others titles and found information about whaatt AKB48, then i Understand, a group of beautiful idols named AKB because they are 48 of them, 3 teams A,K and B, I began to see their tv shows, AKBingo, Shukan AKB and etc.

Amazing lol

 

I was on a Morning Musume video, and I read a comment saying 'They are like AKB48 but AKB48's tv shows are not appropriate for children'. So I searched for AKB and found Baby!Baby!Baby! and I got to the bit where Acchan's dress falls down and I was like OMG IT'S PR0NZ!

Then I got scared...

Later, I found the video of Aitakatta. I wasn't terribly impressed.

So I became a hater cos they were a 'cheap rip-off of H!P'

Then my friend got angry with me for hating them and made me 'pretend' to be a fan. The next day, I realized AKB were actually amazing and being a fan was fun!

 

I knew AKB48 from my older sister. I guess she knew them in 2008 because of RIVER and when it happened. Last year, I also didn't really know them, but kind of got into them near the end of the year. So, practically after Beginner??? lol. That was the time when I really liked Takamina and Kojiharu. I still like Takamina, but Kojiharu just flew away from my Top 2...lol. Then after, my oshi was Kitarie. If you have noticed, my oshi used to be Takamina. That's kind of sad though! Haha! But, Takamina is still in my Top 5!

 

long story ..

Spoiler

I was on tumblr like last year when I saw a gif of heavy rotation, it just came out then and because of the controverse people talked a lot about it.
I decided to check the video out. I thought the song was catchy but didn't really was anything special, though the girls were amazingly hot and cute. I made a few gifs and such of them but didn't check them out further

A month later or so I saw a dance cover of "Beginner". that song, it was so amazing! So I checked out the whole youtube channel of AKB48 and I watched every music video that was uploaded on one day. Especially after seeing RIVER, I was impressed and crazy in love with them