Single AKB48 58th (Ne mo Ha mo Rumor) [2021/09/29)

I watched a scoop on Thai BL market in Japan and it might somehow relate. A fan said an edge of Thai BL was that Thai BL actors interacted in real lives and they let fans get glimpses of their personal lives, showed some corners of their homes, posted clips of them hanging out with friends/family members etc. while Japanese actors kept their personal lives very private. Thai BL fans grew more attached to Thai actors as persons not just actors.

A fan who was a sociology professor at Oita U said women were more repressed then men due to cultural norms thus, they had stronger need to relieve stress and more invested into showbiz. Thai BL drama which was unrealistic and light-hearted became a nice relieve. Usually, fans saw celebs as imaginative romantic subjects but, BL fans looked at BL actors more as third party watching someone's lives.

It was a Japanese scoop on IZ*One and, according to the show, these were IZ*One's fortes that made female fans love it
- fashionable costumes
- good performance, spectacular sync formation especially
- very close relationship of members resulting from the dorm system

I am a fan of no boy group so, I don't keep track how many copies each K-pop boy group sell each of its single/EP. I saw a thread on the sale of INI and BE:First and that piqued the question on me. I was very surprised to see INI, which was fresh from the oven, easily outsold AKB48 and the cheap fresh BE:First outsold AKB48's sister groups. Not every survival show has decisive fans' vote. I'm following the survival show "Who Is Princess?", where deciding power was on the hand of the trainer, and not very positive that you are right. I guess decisive factors are more of the quality of members, the level of the promotion for the group and the concept rather than the show itself, which is not heatedly interested.

Men and women are both humans. I believe we share many qualities. What works on women may work on men too. Someone shared about different gimmicks. Will male fans buy more if AKB48 enclosed high quality random version of booklet? It seemed like the demand on photobook still was very strong. What else are tactics that boy groups have used but AKB48 hasn't? And, may they work on AKB48?

More data should be considered if 300k is a good number such as, how well other groups doing under the same situation and why.

Korea is a very herd society. The Korean has very strong group culture, female especially. Thus, K-pop fans usually team up for these and those projects.

I don't believe your theory about male fans is true. For examples, a male fan bought presents for Wonyoung costing few million won in total without demanding anything in return, a male fan personally spent over a million yuan to buy billboards to promote Lisa's solo EP without demanding anything. You can also see male football fans buying several costly merches and only want the team to perform well enough to be qualified for UEFA Champion League.

Fromis_9 and Weeekly do not seem to be badly affected by COVID regardless.

 

I was gonna say that as well but I wasn't sure if male groups do handshakes or not because I don't stan any of them.

Of course. I'm a 24 year old woman and the same age as a lot of my favourite members (Komiharu, Naachan, Yuiri, Tano Yuka, Jurina, Yuami, Nappi, Macharin, Sasaki Kumi, to list some girls born between 98 and 96). I don't really see myself as having any relationship with them. It would be a lie to say I'm not attracted to anyone, but as the girls are getting younger and school girls are entering my oshimen list, I just see them for what they are – young girls performing on stage. I love Ranchan, Hiichan and Kanabun, but they're too young for me to find them attractive, but not young enough for me to see them like daughters.

Yes, it is oversimplified to say (male) AKB48 fans all see the members as their girlfriends, but I would argue that that is a large majority. As a straight female fan or a father-type of fan, you don't want to see the gravure, I'd say, but sex appeal and gravure are an important part of 48G members, so they definitely target that boyfriend-type of fan audience.

Anyway, moving on.

AKB48's got a few performances of the song lined up.
https://twitter.com/AKB48_staff/status/1457586895643238403

November 11th, 19:00 JST – Yomiuri TV / Nihon Terebi (Best Artist Kyousai)
November 12th, 20:00 JST – TV Asahi (Music Station)
November 17th, 19:00 JST – Nihon Terebi (Best Artist 2021)

 

I see them as my girlfriends and my daughters.

 

I see them as idols.

 

The MV took months to climb to 2M views

 

And? It's nothing new. Btw, 1st verse dance pracitce and full song dance practice also reach 2M views.

Fromis_9 and Weeekly sold their albums in Japan? When they can sell many as AKB48, we will talk about it again.

 

I guess this is gonna be my last post answering @welp 's comments.

First of all, a lot of ppl here have brought up interesting points about how male idol groups* don't have to resort to handshake to sell well. Yet, did you notice that a lot of female idol groups tend to rely on handshake-related events? Not all ofc , but a lot have adopted similar concepts. (Low selling male idols do use this tactics as well so yeah it's not all..)

About photo gimmicks, I'm not sure. They are kinda similar in a way for this case. AKB used to release tons of versions with different photos and didn't some fans treat them as collectibles too?

In fact, Johnny idol groups sell more photos and fan items separately at their own store. Similar like AKB, but Johnny's items from the official store seems to be very difficult to get esp if they are of popular members. I'm not sure about Be:First and INI though.

I'm not saying that female fans are better than male fans (or vice versa) and i apologize if that's the impression I was giving. It seems however that female fans TEND to spend more (in long term) with the least benefit given to them, while male fans seems to be RELATIVELY more dependant on the benefit (i.e handshake). That's why male idols don't have to resort to meet-and-greet events. In fact, Johnny idols used to sell their 'exclusivity' until 2020.

(I do believe the systems do play a part in this. Like male idols were crafted to sell on loyalty but female idols always favors regeneration? not just in AKB but it's like regeneration is a concept in female idol groups more than male one).

Again, female fans tend to be more forgiving (sometimes, blindsidedly) when it comes to supporting their male idols. again, it's relative. Well even that scumbag matchy still had their fanbase after that Nakamori Akina scandal LOL. Also EHM Yamapi. EHM Tegoshi Yuya. (Also there was this actor who had moderate female fanbase. He was found to be a crazy cheater and womanizer. And guess what? he made a cameback by making his cheating into a gag. he didn't get as many project as before ... but he still sells... that's japan for u).

Anyway, Japan vs Korea have the same problems with herd mentality. Yeah, 'rebellious' songs and movies are popular but the country is largely conservative and treats heterogenousity (出る杭は打たれる) with a much more careful, pragmatic view. (That's why woke concepts are not widely accepted there. even among youngsters) So i'm not sure why u even bring that up. I guess what u meant was UNITY. Within akb, fans formed a birthday committee, showing up at HS and planning good suprise for their idols. That's just within AKB group, anyway. So they are equally organized? Korea just has better visibility on the English-based social media. (and the truck thingy didn't seem to be a common concept in Japan..but japan and korea fanbases can be equally dedicated).


ANYWAY/ TLDR: Comparing female idol groups to male idols are like comparing apples and oranges. Even within female groups there are so many different contexts so why add another confounding variables?

TLDR2: 300K is not perfect but it's good start! (and tbh i'm relieved they didn't do another let's-dance-together songs like Koichun lol :')

i'm writing this in the middle of dawn so i'm sorry for the grammatical errors in this post LOL. (as always anyway)

ps2: on the other hand female fans can be very antagonistic towards female idols they once like, though. ehm Ayu and Koda Kumi hahaha.. what a strange world tbh

 

STELLAθ cover:

if the video does not show watch the video here

 

and I thought @Aka -neck's post was weird
I was wrong

 

Chinese dance troupe Mr.kids

if the video does not show watch the video here

 

Team B members (from Chori's YT channel):


if the video does not show watch the video here

 

Said that to the one comparing I.O.I to Wannaone in the first place.

Actually, male idols did some physical contact events too. It was a news about Nu'Est, before it got big, scheduled for an exclusive event in Japan where 40 obasan fans would get their feet washed by the member. Someone said such activities was not that uncommon in J-pop and the ticket for such event would be very expensive. (The event was later canceled due to harsh backlashes from Korean fans.) I also read about a Japanese boy group selling tickets for an exclusive party.

I saw a fan commented that AKB's photoset was released too frequently that it became over-supplied thus its value lost. The quality of collectible items enclosed with J CD was poorer than K one too. (Also applied to the quality of K-pop groups' K vs. J releases.)

South Korea has much stronger collective culture and it results different K-pop fan culture/fans' behaviors. K-pop fan culture is extremely group-oriented. That special purpose team thing you brought up was leagues beneath. You now can see cross-over as some fans supporting supporting both K-pop and J-pop groups.

The image/concept of the group results how vulnerable the group is to scandal. Zoc was a female idol group but, the damage was mild when a member was exposed of a bad scandal.

Your idea on male vs. female idol definitely is gravely flawed. K-pop agencies always use same tactics on both their male and female idol groups.

 

@welp No one cares what government subsidised K-pop does.

 

@welp in short what are you trying to prove ?

 

off topic post deleted. (see dutchie's post above)

 

'Ne mo Ha mo Rumor' performance today on 'Best Hits Kayosai' (credit to uploader):


if the video does not show watch the video here

 

AKB史上最高難度
The hardest ever in AKB history. That means it is even harder than UZA.

 

Seeing naachan with open mic, I’m curious, out of all senbatsu members, who else other than naachan, yukirin and yuiri that we can trust to have open mic?

 

I think it is.