How did you discover AKB48?

I've decided to narrate my "journey in discovering about AKB48" and it turned out to be a wall of text so I think it deserves the spoiler tag.

Spoiler

Although I'm no stranger to Morning Musume, Momoiro Clover, Berryz, and other H!P and idol groups, I never was strictly into idol music before. I preferred the likes of Ayumi Hamasaki, The Brilliant Green, Aqua Timez, Ikimono Gakari, (and a whole lot more).

While browsing a Japanese music blog around October 2009, I saw that AKB48's new single 『River』was among the featured/top downloads on the site (I also remember finding Miliyah Kato's『Why』somewhere next to it - the cover attracted me, thus, made me notice AKB48). When I saw the cover of their single, my first reaction was, "(。_゜) AKB48? Seems new. Don't tell me there are 48 girls in the group. And the title, why 'River'? Are they really singing about a river?"

I downloaded the single out of curiosity and after listening, I admitted that I like the song but it didn't have much of an impact to get me hooked to the group yet. I didn't listen to them for a short while and then one day on Youtube, I decided to look up the song again because I missed listening to it. I didn't know back then that『River』had a music video so I checked it out and to my surprise, I found myself nodding in approval of the girls, the song, and the video itself. After that, I came across Nina's video, songs got stuck in my head so I checked out some of AKB's older music like "Aitakatta", "Bingo!","Ogoe Diamond", etc.

During this period, AKB48 was spreading throughout the interwebs already and I've seen numerous fan comments/testimonies/reviews about them surface in several Japanese blogs I visit.

I was only an occasional listener and it was only until this year that I finally admitted that my perception of idol music has changed and I think I can honestly accept it in my life now. I had a chat with an online friend (he goes by Chrismellody) a few months back who was very much into idol music and he recommended『Beginner』to me. I'm very thankful to him 'til this day since it was because of this song that made me realize that there are many things I like about this group and it was evident for me that I've grown into an AKB48 fan. I got into looking up more and more stuff about them and I eventually took my time to learn about the members (my face was like this majority of the time →（￣へ￣）because it was still hard for me to familiarize myself with every girl), thus, more 'researching' led me to join this online community. Well, another reason was because I'm a fan of Detective Conan and found out that Sayaka played the role of Suzuki Sonoko in the live action movie. I think she was great.

Just a few weeks ago, I've gotten around to recognize Yui, Maachan, Mayuyu as my other favorites ♥ and presently I'm still learning all that there needs to be known about AKB48. I plan on checking out AKBingo and Majisuka Gakuen over my school break too.

My journey to AKB fandom was a rather lengthy one (such as this post ´･ω･｀) and it took me a very long time to admit that I was a fan but I know that things have changed for the better. I will continue loving the girls and I believe this forum will help me create many, many happy memories with them. ♥

 

I am very much the same with you. I'm sorry if I'm reusing your words here, bcoz you just speak my mind.
It's Majisuka Gakuen that drown me into AKB's ocean.
I am always into manga, anime, JDrama JMovie about school life, girl power, fighting, martial arts.
I was in long holiday, I started to search and got these: Keiko Suenobu's LIFE, Karate Girl, Crows Zero, and finally Majisuka Gakuen. I never watch something like Majisuka Gakuen before, which full of cute girl who can kick ass. Now I can rewatch it several times and never get bored.

 

Like many others, through Majisuka Gakuen. Acchan kind of bored me but I loved Sae and Mariko, so I decided to check out singles, and later on stages and I enjoyed the stages so much that I was hooked.

 

Two weeks ago. I feel kinda dumb, like I should have known they existed all along. A mate of mine is on holiday from Japan and he showed me this video with all these super kawai bishojo's. They were dress in neko lingerie, eat sooo much cake and then the one girl kissed the other one and wagged her tail. From that moment on I was in love.

 

hi, newbie here
I got hooked awhile ago when i first saw the AKBingo vids on youtube when searching for random Japanese game shows after watching more of their videos i decided to look them up on google and found this site.

 

About two months ago a friend of mine from the U.S. working in Japan posted on her FB status the Heavy Rotation PV and quoted that she wasn't sure how to feel about it. After watching the the video say, oh maybe a half dozen times or so, I told her that I thought the group was kind of cute, the tune was catchy and very visually pleasing. It looked to me that the girls were genuinely having a good time during it's production and that a lot of hard work went into it. Any bad feelings toward the PV belonged to the watcher and had nothing to do with the intent of the group itself, which was basically to make us all smile. I had previously never even heard of J-pop, so the style of music was pretty unique to me. Now after watching many different AKB48 videos over the past two months (and a bunch of them today even), I can safely say that they make some of the most positive and uplifting music I've ever heard. I guess now I'm an addict.

 

I'd heard of AKB48, it's kind of hard not to if you're in the Japanese fandom at large. I'd seen them around on music shows and news a bit, and then on the show DERO. But I started having feelings about them when I clicked on an article about Sayaka resigning the Team K captaincy. There was a link to audio of her radio show, when she resigns and when Sae bursts in. Listening to that and reading about all these people rushing out in the middle of the night to support her, I thought there was really something worthwhile there. To be honest, I still don't like a lot of things in about how AKB is run and some of the ways they are packaged to their fans. I really love the women themselves though: the strong friendships build up over the years between them and how hard they work at what they do.

 

When i was wondering around those manga anime news website, i saw the Ice no Mi CF. That's when i found out about AKB48 [party] then i watched the Making of the CF, and immediately had a crush on Mayuyu. Days after days, i spent time downloading their AKBINGO!s and concerts and performances, and now i cannot get them out of my head anymore. They just became an very important part of my life

 

First time I know AKB48 is while i'm random streaming on youtube and found out their ponytail to shushu pv, it is one of my favorite songs now..

 

I used to hate AKB (I'm sorry...) so I ignored their videos and articles but then I realized part of why I hate them was because I really didn't know anything about them. So one day, I was flipping through fashion magazines and came across some adorable AKB girls. I really liked their fashion styles and I was looking for makeup and clothing styles for inspiration, so I started looking at their blog pictures frequently. From there, I started watching their PVS and shows like AKBingo and enjoyed them, so here I am [blush]

 

The first time I got to know about AKB48 was in 2009 when I studied in Japan for a year. It was during karaoke and a friend of mine sang aitakatta. I actually found it quite disturbing and didn't like it at all It was around here that I decided just to listen to visual kei instead because it suits me better.

When I came back to Norway, I decided to give J-pop a chance, started to listen to Arashi, Kat-tun, V6 and SMAP(all Johnny's). And then I started to watch variety shows with these groups. And for around 4-5 months ago I saw an episode of SMAPxSMAP when they served AKB48 sweets. It was here I noticed Itano Tomomi and got blown away It was because of her that I decided to watch AKBingo and it was in AKBingo I listened to Ogoe Diamond, and now I'm addicted to AKB48(and my grades going down )

 

Got into AKB48 because of Moshidora, I wikied for the anime infos and found out it will be out in live action with Acchan which leads to her bios and Majisuka Gakuen plus AKB48.

The Op and Ed songs attracts me to them. Of course that is before Beginner, Heavy Rotation ...

 

I remember watching their first appearance ("Skirt, Hirari") on Music Station - at a time when I was still regularly checking it out. At that point I knew nothing about them and they weren't really much the talk of the town like they are now. I looked them up online but wasn't really convinced. Never having been interested in Morning Musume or other girl groups (besides the occasional song at karaoke), I didn't expect too much of it.

Once "Aitakatta" got out, people started mentioning the group and the song evolved more or less into standard karaoke repertoire for most of my female friends. Thanks to the growing exposure through TV variety shows etc. I starting checking out each of the members, got their 1st Stage albums, but never really bothered looking for a foreign AKB forum.
While doing a Google search last week I stumbled upon this forum, so yeah, that's my story.

 

*First post*

Since most of the music I listen to is Idol Music and Jpop, It's hard NOT to know about the ***48 groups ^_^ Since they're all so pretty, talented and just well...easy to idolise, I was swept in by the AKB but more so SKE wave!

 

The first time I had ever heard the name AKB48 was when the news reported on that Aimi Eguchi thing, but that is not when I actually started following them. When I started to take a serious stab at learning Japanese a few months later, I went onto to Wikipedia to look for popular musical groups in Japan, so I could get better familiar with their culture, and AKB48 was listed on there. I wasn't (and still not) really interested in their music, but I like how innovative the group is compared to the other pop groups, so I did some researching on Google. I was then led to this site, which I guess is how I truly discovered AKB48 since almost all information about them and who they are is listed on this site.

So in other words, Stage48!!

 

Mine is quite a strange story.. Can't really say I knew them from the start..

What happened was my friend introduced me to K-POP a few years ago.. Yes K-POP.. I thought it was pretty cool for a few months then I sort of lost interest. That was until I saw Super Junior M on YouTube homepage near the start of the year, which re-ignited my passion for K-POP.. After a few months of K-POP, I discovered J-POP.. I thought it was ok, but what really made me discover AKB, was when I came across a K-POP vs J-POP vid on youtube.. I think it was SNSD vs AKB48.. The song was Ponytail to Shushu.. I immediately thought "wow, this is very catchy, and they are all pretty cute".. I think I sort of forgot about it for a few weeks until I was sitting at home, bored, when I remembered that song.. But for some reason, I had completely forgotten their name, and the songs title.. So for the next few weeks, I aimed at finding this group.. Then one day, I found the video again. And from then on, kept watching their PV's and discovering all the girls..

 

Salutations all
I figure as my first post I should tell my story of how I discovered AKB48.

It was probably around the time of release for Keibetsu Shiteita Aijou I was watching the PV for it and liked the message of the song. So I looked up more vids and watched the episode of MusicFighter when AKB did Aitakatta and thought the girls were interesting but the fandom didn't really sink in.

Over the few years I didn't really think of AKB that often, due to the fact I'm really into Morning Musume. as well, so like the time of release of River and I saw the total sales. My jaw just dropped when I saw that 180,000total. I couldn't believe it, how they were able to sell that much and looked at some pics of ppl buying bulk amounts. My first thought "Whoa~ obsesed?" or "Wtf ppl waste that much money on singles?!"

From that I kinda began to dislike AKB for a bit and towards the years I was jealous why AKB48 was getting called the "Top Idol Group" because I was rooting for MM. to get back on charts Basically just jealously is why I didn't get to "know" AKB. Then Autumm of 2010 came for the first time I watched Heavy Rotation, I got to be honest, I didn't like it at all. Not that I thought AKB were sluts(can't think of a better word sorry [sweat]), I was just weirded out with the girls being in lingere is all. Then when I read the "Truth of HR" I understood the whole story la-di-da.

NOW I'll say why I got into AKB48.
About February I decided to give them a chance and started watching the TV shows, which is really hilarious and the Fandom just started to grow on me I guess. Then when the Great Tohoku Earthquake happend, I just wasn't feeling it. If you understand, so basically the reason why I got into AKB48 was because they cheered me up.

Sorry if I went overboard, once I started to type I just had to go on and on

 

I think my intro to AKB was through Shinoda Mariko way back in 2007, I think I downloaded a lot of her magazine pictures I know she's in AKB but I don't know AKB at that time, all I know is that its an Idol group I don't really care about J-Pop then. At that time when I hear idols all I imagine was Ogura Yuko. Fast forward in dec 2008 I was watching random videos in Youtube and saw a PV of the then recently released Naichau Kamo of Morning Musume, it was my introduction to Idol groups. I follow them quite a lot, watching all of their PVs and checking every release.

Then came August 2009 when I was checking Oricon for sales record of Morning Musume, I was frustrated at that time that AKB outsold MoMusu. I check them out watching the latest release at that time and it was Iiwake Maybe, I admit the girls are kawaii but I thought there is so many of them. I thought those at the back were back-up dancer and they're wearing School Uniform I thought It's kinda Ecchi, I stop.

When MoMusu graduated Koharu Kusumi I got tired following them. I watch AKB videos and I think well it was good to watch there are story in the PV unlike in MoMusu. RIVER was release at that time and I think it was a big news being AKBs first 100k sale single. It kinda interest me and from then on I kept following AKB on wikis, blogs and forums. I even put a list of the girls name in my mobile phone, its really hard to memories such numerous names even with a list.

 

When they are practically in most of the news. But that didn't make me look at their group. Until i decided to listen to Sakura no Ki ni Narou when it was released, i was astounded. So i followed them till now.

 

I saw videos of them on Youtube in 2007 and saw so many members in the PV then I thought thats crazy. I didn't gave much thought about them.

Then I started to go into Jrock and Jpop in early 2010. I didn't really care about AKB48 all the way till June 2011 when I saw their performance with SMAP at SMAPxSMAP. I got really hooked to the Ponytail to shushu. Then I went to google and youtube and I was completely hooked onto by Yuko and Mayuyu at first. After that I started to like more and more members. They're also hilarious on shows.

Ponytail to ShuShu is still my jam and currently the most played song in my iTunes