Hello. It's long so read if you have the time. A Few things about myself.. I'm a 19 year old male University student studying for Computer Science. My current favourite hobbies are watching the NBA and playing basketball. I immigrated to North America when I was 11-12 years old (grade 7) In this thread, I will express my feelings and thoughts about the time I got incredibly depressed after watching AKBINGO. I think this forum is the most appropriate. I will start off by talking about my history. I moved from school A to school B, on my transition to the 8th grade in elementary. I did not like my experience at school B at all. I became an exremely quiet and an ultra shy person who had 0 (zero) friends. My year in school B was probably the loneliest and depressing year I have ever experienced in my entire life (until recently). I would atleast cry once a week at night because I felt so lonely, weak and useless (for real). However, after grade 8, I've changed drastically and made TONS of friends. I have never been depressed nor lonely since. Throughout those years I've also learned about Korean and Japanese shows by myself. Note that I am neither Korean nor Japanese. My favourite 'Asian' shows were Gaki No Tsukai Batsu games (Japanese), Running Man, and Family Outing (both Korean). In my huge circle of friends, I'm definitely the only person who watch these kinds of things. I don't necesarily tell them about it because I just know they are going to make fun of me. I did recommend it to one of my best friends and he liked it but he got bored of it really fast. So In a way, watching 'Asian' shows became my alter ego. 2 weeks ago, after watching the recent Gaki No Tsukai Batsu Game that was subbed, I had soo much fun watching it that I wanted more. So I spent my night trying to look for other Japanese variety shows and came across AKBINGO. First episode I watched was around episode 60. My first impression was wow.. are these girls forced to do these things? Phrase museum was weird, those little bits of videos of them saying 'I love you" was hella weird, and the outfits they wear was just too damn weird. I mean it seemed that they were media/social slaves who do things to satisfy men's needs just so they could survive. But obviously that was not the case. It was a matter of perspective. I learned to see it in a different way. In fact now, I think these girls, who are idols, are waay more real and true to themselves compared to Western artists/singers. They overcame hardships and worked hard to achieve their dreams. It was really respectable. Anyway, after learning that they are not actually "media/social slaves". I went to the beginning and started watching AKBINGO from episode 1. And I definitely got hooked. The people involved are just waaay too funny. The activities they have were just so creative and fun to watch. The personalities of each members are hilarious and interesting, their reactions are priceless, and the bad boys duo are great. If I were to rate this show, it would be a 10/10. I'm not a fan of their music however nor do I listen to it, BUT I still think they are pretty good and catchy. Bad Boys, Matsui Jurina, Oshima Mai, Ohori Megumi, Noro Kayo, Miyazawa Sae and Akimoto Sayaka easily became my favourites. For that whole week, watching AKBINGO was the moment I've been waiting for everyday. After watching serveral episode I eventually came to the point Where Oshima Mai left because of her 'Graduation'. I definitely teared up a bit but I moved on pretty quickly since it was just 1 member. However it did sucked since she was one of my favourites. The show got a lot more interesting as I learned more about the members. And as I learn more about the members, I felt a little bond with them. It's like when you read a book, and as you read it, you create this bond with the character. The same happened to me, but instead of a book, its a show. Then I came to the point where Ohori and Noro stopped appearing. Now this is where I start feeling depressed and lonely. At this point, I can recognize 90% of the members, so I could actually tell who are missing and who aren't. They didn't really have an announcement on the show why they (Noro and Ohori) stopped appearing, so it was a bit of a shock. Furthermore, the show suddenly became inconsistent. There were members who wouldn't come after 3 episodes and sometimes 5. Maybe this has been going on since episode 1, but now I am actually realizing it. What made it worse is that, since I don't understand Japanese I have rely on subtitles. And apparently, in episodes 91+, the subs are inconsistent and tend to skip 5+ episodes leaving big gaps in between. It came to the point where the 1-5 generation members BARELY went on to the show. This is where I became REALLY depressed. The depression I felt was incredible. I have been depressed before as I said, but not like this. This was WAAAY worse than my grade 8 experience. It felt as if someone I knew died. I felt incredibly lonely. I didn't want to stay in my room because It reminded about the older episodes where it was complete. If you have watched the movie UP, this experience felt the same as the one where they showed the grandpa's timeline except it was 100x more sad and real. Good thing is I knew how to cope with this from experience or else I might have committed suicide. I ended up watching more AKBINGO and not sleep for the night because I felt so depressed. Anyway, the golden age of new members episode was total shit, I didn't find it funny because the members there were not the older ones.. I started skipping episodes that didn't involve the old members. And eventually I'm just watching AKBINGO not because I wanted to laugh, but because I wanted to see the old members. I realized this show is not the same as Running Man or Gaki No Tsukai Batsu game. The members are not comedians, they are idols. They have other things to do such as concerts, fan related events, dramas, and other shows. I started reading recent news/articles about them, and watching other shows they were involved in. Now I am in a phase where I feel my day is incomplete if I don't read or watch anything AKB related. I feel like I have to wait for the other AKBINGO subs releases in order to be completely happy. I just had to write and share this because it might help me stop thinking about it. I really wished I didn't know about AKBINGO until they have fully subbed everything, so that it would ATLEAST show the slow transition of the newer members. Getting extremely depressed about this small thing was definitely a suprise. And hope I won't have to experience it again. Anyway If you read this, thank you, and I am glad you did. This is the only way possible for me to express my feelings since It's just too embarassing to do it in real life.
I'm not entirely sure how I'm supposed to answer to this specific problem, so I'm going to be wonderfully general: Everything ends. There are things you enjoy. Then they end. When "The Dark Knight Returns" started in cinemas, people knew it would be the last of the series and the last time to see Bale as Batman. When the Spice Girls got too old to hop around on stage they disbanded. Yamaguchi Momoe left show business at the height of her popularity because she wanted to marry the man she loved and she never appeared anywhere again. It's too bad but such is life. Everything passes. Cherry trees bloom once a year to peak for only a few days in spring and it's all over in just a bit. But isn't that the beauty of it all? It's too bad that I was born almost two decades after The Beatles already weren't anymore and years after Elvis had left the building - I'd have liked to experience those artists in their time. But what am I to do? Why pity myself for not being there at the time when I can enjoy the wonderful legacy they left us? Idols graduate. They leave the group they were a part of to go on doing something else. The AKBingo episodes you've seen are from years ago when AKB's roster looked much different than it does today. There's a shelf life to being an idol. All you can do is get the best out of it as long as it lasts. Maybe this isn't the kind of reply you were expecting or looking for and it might not help you in any way, but it's what comes to mind.
Thank you so much for replying! I didn't really expect any reply, but I thought to check out the thread anyway. What you said is really sticking in to me. From my experience, moving on was easy and effortless. It might be because I didn''t love something hard enough. I've always thought why can't people move on faster? But now I've realized, if you TRULY love or enjoy something, it will be A LOT harder to move on. So I'll have to make an effort on moving on, which is something I have never done. AKBINGO was truly something I genuinely and really enjoyed. Which is pretty crazy, since out of all the things in life, my brain decided to love AKBINGO. I'm going to see this experience as a learning experience. Since there's definitely going to be more experiences like this in life, but harsher and more real. I'll have to learn how to put an effort on moving on. Instead of seeing things end in a bad way, I'll find the beauty in it. I'll have to stop worrying about when things end, and start enjoying while it's happening. Your reply helped a lot, so thank you!
the title sounds stupid, but that's what makes me come here hahaha I actually feel the same. I miss the old member, and the old games i also only watch the episodes with subs available. and after 120th~ episode, the subs is missing, so I jump to 130th~ episodes (where the new gen challenged to reach a certain level of rating), and I think "what the hell has happened to the show?? this show isn't funny anymore" and i starting to loss interest on AKBingo. and the newer episodes doesn't seems getting better, so i really stop from watching it hahaha this show helped me a lot to know more about AKB members, but i guess its era is over.
I was trying to get through AKBINGO as quick as possible however after reading your post I think I might watch them slowly and savour them old episodes
Weird, i just found out about this thread today, but this exact situation is why i wouldn't try to convince my friends to get into akb by watching Akbingo, because they will only fall in love with the akb of the past and not have any fun following akb now. I ended up recommending HKT to a friend who was interested in getting into the idol game and he fell in love overnight and to fun fact for him is the group isn't going to suddenly change into something else by next week, it will instead be the same group he fell for since then. Anyway if you want to fall for good members try watching Hakata Hyakatten.
