A little early this year but we will be discussing this topic in the next Takoyaki Party podcast (whenever that may be) and I thought it would be fun to get community feedback for it (and also its a fun concept) So, NMB48 Year End Awards (lets show some creativity and please avoid voting Sayaka for everything) Favorite Moment or Event of 2017 Most accomplished member of 2017 Favorite Song of 2017 Saddest Moment of 2017 Favorite Show or Media of 2017 Favorite Cattleya member (“new” talent) of 2017 Predictions!!! Your Breakout Member of 2017
Favorite Moment or Event of 2017: 5th Generation promotions. Most accomplished member of 2017: Yoshida Akari. Favorite Song of 2017: Boku Igai no Dareka (if it counts, it was released late 2016) Saddest Moment of 2017: Shu's graduation. Favorite Show or Media of 2017: - Favorite Cattleya member (“new” talent) of 2017: Yamamoto Ayaka. Your Breakout Member of 2017: Iwata Momoka.
Favorite Moment or Event: You'd think that with Miru getting centers left and right, one of those had to be my favourite moment of 2017 but actually I was rather subdued about them. It's like you're waiting for something so long that when it happens you more whisper a "Finally." instead of jumping up and down in your seat. No my favourite moment goes to Shu's piano performance at her graduation concert. Because of all kinds of mushy feelings and because Shu on piano is dope. As for favourite event. I really don't know. I can't remember anything from 24H TV at all (not even if it took place beginning of this year or end of last year). YNN Camp I get to see only now. The charity event in Kyocera Dome was neat I heard, though didn't pay much attention to it. 7th anniversary was better than 6th but still not something that blew me away. The concert without Sayaka was pretty good. Maybe I go with that one. Yeah. Most accomplished member: A year in which you can in good confidence name someone else than Sayaka. Because while Sayaka was mostly busy (and successful) with her solo stuff, another member stepped up as 2nd in command of NMB and at the same time managed through her own ideas and work to reach new fields of fans. Of course I talk about Yoshida Akari. 2017 was her year. Popular Youtuber, SSK senbatsu, AKB senbatsu, photobook and just today she won an award as Beauty Artist. Favorite Song: I go with Miru's solo song. Because it's quite good and otherwise there wasn't anything awesome released this year. Honorable mentions go to Namba Ai, Sa-sa-sa-saikou and the new Team BII song Futsuu no Mizu. Saddest Moment: This should be a no brainer with Fuuchan's graduation annoucement but actually Shu's graduation stage beats that by a few increments of sadness. We've been looking Fuuchan's possible graduation in the eye for a year now but Shu was just a shock and the biggest loss of a member for me personally since Kanakichi. Favorite Show or Media: Nothing can ever beat Naru's Amakarasan for me. It's not specific to 2017 but it is still the most enjoyable NMB show. I also want to mention the special Nu-san episode in Edo because it was really sweet and samurai Saepii was cool. Additionally Pokkupokku Hyakken Mogumogu Tabi and in specific the episode where Fuuchan and Saepii get chased by deer. Glorious entertainment. Favorite Cattleya member (“new” talent): That would be either Iwata Momoka or Uemura Azusa. Momorun because she goes at everything with so much positivity and energy and comes up with all kinds of cute things like her hand written travel entries and buddha finding updates. Azunyan because her being in front in the Cattleya stages has me gushing over her reinvigorated dance and "stage presence" and because she's still a rebellious dork. Predictions!!!: More disappointment, graduations and dispair. More "Cattleya" member and Jo pushes. More medicore singles (if any at all). More Miru centers, yay. Your Breakout Member: Without repeatedly mentioning Akarin, I guess this goes to Yuuri. Her hand shake sales really went up this year and so has her appearances in media. While I didn't find her much competent in anything until last year, she now can hold good MCs and dance well. She works hard until she literally passes out. The center still eludes her but it's only a matter of time.
Favorite Moment or Event of 2017: Seeing Akari rank 16th in SSK. It was a great moment and minus Ririka's marriage announcement (did she get married yet? lol) it was the most memorable thing related to NMB this year for me (good job to Miru, but we sort of expected her to rank high). Most accomplished member of 2017: Akari for sure~ Favorite Song of 2017: Are we counting Boku igai? But if we're not then I'd say Warota People is my fav song from them in 2017 (technically it's being released in 2017 lol). They really didn't release much this year. Saddest Moment of 2017: Losing Kinoshita Momoka. There really was no other idol like her in the 48-groups. She was a standout member and I know major popularity isn't her thing, but I'm glad for all the memories we have of her. Favorite Show or Media of 2017: ------- (I don't really watch much Japanese TV in general so nothing against 48-group stuff) Favorite Cattleya member (“new” talent) of 2017: Yamamoto Ayaka. She's impressed me a lot since her introduction. Predictions!!!: Definitely more graduations. Good chance Sayaka might announce her graduation in 2018, but she might not leave till 2019 depending when she announces it. Miru is taking over so the transition has been quite smooth for her to depart when she desires. I hope we see more of an Akari push in 2018 tho. I wanna predict Akari will stay in senbatsu next SSK, but the 16th spot can be iffy, but I'll say it anyways lol. Actually just for shits and giggles I predict Akari to outrank Miru next election lolol. Why not. I also predict more than one single a year from NMB. Your Breakout Member of 2017: Akari, again~
So our Year in Review Podcast has just been uploaded and we changed the awards around a bit this year. Here are the new categories: Certified Banger™ of 2017 Yamamoto Sayaka Presents MVP of 2017 Yamamoto Ayaka Presents Cattleya MVP of 2017 James Kaneko Award Favorite Show or Media of 2017 Like Mayuyu’s face…. Spotlight Stealer Award of 2017 Asian Father Meme Award of 2018 (Highest Expectations) Yume no Dead Body Award (Saddest Moment) of 2017 Burnt Tongue Takoyaki Award Favorite Moment or Event of 2017 To expound a bit on my winners this year Spoiler: And the award goes to... Certified Banger™ of 2017: Sasasa Saikou. I wanted to pick Kodoku Guitar, but since it was on the single from last year and missed the deadline by a few days I went with this. When the album first came out, I remember liking all of the new songs (all 3 of them), but I didn't think any of them had any lasting power. Then the theater edition came out and I instantly fell for this song. It has the qualities of the songs like SeiLap and Durian Shounen that gets you hyped up. It fun, energetic and is a song that the 5th Gen (at least those who were selected to perform) can identify with. I could easily see this song ranking in the top 3 if NMB were to hold a RH again. Yamamoto Sayaka Presents MVP of 2017: Yamamoto Sayaka. Oshi-bias aside, if you take the criteria that we based this award on, I felt that she did the best job of bringing glory and new fans into the group. She had numerous solo appearances on music shows, was selected to do a cover of a famous Dreams Come True song, solo album and tour, etc. Akarin really accomplished a lot this year and I was torn when choosing who I would give this award to. She is my second favorite member and I probably follow more of her stuff than I do Sayaka's now a days but I still feel like there is a wide chasm comparing what she brings and what Sayaka brings. Not to diminish any of her accomplishments but for all the views her videos get, the one guest appearance by Sayaka blew those out of the water. As I mentioned in the podcast, if you compare this to the NBA MVP, Lebron James should win every year because he is the best player (as much as this pains me to say) but they won't give it to him every year. They'll justify it by saying XX led his team to more wins or if you took XX off the team they would be horrible. I'm just giving this award to the best player imo. Yamamoto Ayaka Presents Cattleya MVP of 2017: Iwata Momoka. To me she exhibited the most growth this year. Coming from someone who could barely learn a dance routine to making senbatsu is a big step. She works hard, gets recognized by her sempai members and has a cute smile. She also talks very slow which I find charming. James Kaneko Award Favorite Show or Media of 2017: YNN NMB48 CHANNEL The Eccentric Short Drama Series "非ホロノミック系 茶店のガール" aka Saten Girl. If you like fun, cheesy and nonsense, this is the show for you. The premise of this show is Yuuri begins to work for a cafe and her co-workers turn out to be robots created by the owner. Yuuri has to teach them human emotions, like what spicy is, and hilarity ensues. There's even a twist at the end! Each episode is fairly short so you don't have to spend all day watching it and it's not too difficult to follow if you have a basic understanding of Japanese. I highly recommend you check it out (we subbed the first episode if that helps) Like Mayuyu’s face…. Spotlight Stealer Award of 2017: Suto Ririka aka Makurapon. Another award that I would have given to Akarin if Riripon didn't come out and snatch that SSK spotlight. I always felt that Riripon was poised to take a prominent role in NMB with her talking ability. I could have easily envisioned her being a top 3-5 member in the upcoming years but she chose to take a different path. Aside from her SSK speech, her apology and coming to Jesus moment with Momoka was probably my second most memorable moment this year. She also has done pretty well on the variety circuit post grad. I would definitely check out her Downtown DX and Ore no Jiron appearances, unless you're offended by that kind of thing. Asian Father Meme Award of 2018 (Highest Expectations): Shibuya Nagisa. I've been really impressed with Nagisa as of late. Her talking ability as improved miles over the past year. She used to be one of the worst takers during MC's and now she can easily direct the conversation and get the best out of the other members. She's the regular on WakeAri, co-hosted the M1 preshow, has 2 radio regulars among other appearances. She also made it to the 3rd round for the R! comedy competition, although she choked pretty badly. With Riripon gone, she's the one member aside from Sayaka who can actually represent NMB talk wise during their TV appearances. She's probably going to graduate soon because of her age, but I expect her to be one of the most visible members next year. Yume no Dead Body Award (Saddest Moment) of 2017: Manabukun going to 30min per episode. One of my favorite shows, and the one show that gives me plenty of material to translate on twitter. It's a shame that the runtime got shortened. While there were plenty of episodes that I wish were shorter, 30 min feels too rushed. There is always the option to spread the topic across 2 weeks like they have done before but most episodes won't warrant that kind of commitment. The saddest part is they had to cut the location segment, which gave some of the younger/non-senbatsu members a chance to get their name out there. I hope they can figure out a good way to bring this back in the mix but it's looking like it will be rare when we see this again. Burnt Tongue Takoyaki Award Favorite Moment or Event of 2017: My first NMB event! I was lucky enough to go to Japan this year and go to a handshake event. While the handshakes were memorable (link) I think I had more fun meeting up with the NMBros. We probably harp on this a lot but we really do have the best community. First person I ran into was @Matto and he was really helpful and I was really appreciative of him showing me the ropes even though it was the first time I met him. Our good friend @Sakuraism hung out with me the whole day and @zeroshiki treated us to dinner (thanks to all the Yuuri voters out there!). I really wish that more people would become interested in NMB, not only because the members are great but the fans are great too. Second moment was the "new" stages that debuted at the beginning of the year. I don't really stay up for too many events anymore (most stages/concerts air around 2am local time for me) but I was really excited for these performances. I think I was just hoping that I could relive the magic that KokoTen's shonichi brought. While nothing can live up to an original stage debut, I was still pretty hype for these. When N's first song came up, I was pretty pumped because I haven't seen Mokugekisha since the Mariko-sama days and was really excited when they did the different units (Shuu/Airi Scandalous FTW). I also remember laughing really hard when M went up and that Idol no Yoake band came up again. This was probably the most exciting time I had watching an event this year.
