Every year, Dave Meltzer of Wrestling Observer Newsletter awards the "Most Disgusting Promotional Tactic" award for actions/things that's deemed disgusting by the pro wrestling community for various reasons. I've tinkering if one exists for things other than pro wrestling... so what actions from Japanese idol groups would be worthy of the Most Disgusting Promotional Tactic award? (This could've a S48 Countdown topic, but I've decided to make it about all J-pop idols, not only Akimoto managed ones.)
That photo of Hirate Yurina holding a lit flare stick on the back of Glass wo Ware cover looks tasteless enough to me. To make a readily understandable analogy, imagine if they put Annin or Kawaei holding a bloodied handsaw on the back of the AKB single released right after the 2014 Iwate incident, and try to picture the backlash that an ill-advised move like this could have possibly caused among people not so willing to excuse everything as ~freedom of expression~. Spoiler It also highlights a sad fact: that, for being an idol producer, in reality Akimoto is and has always been pretty inept at handling the multitude of human resources at his disposal, and doesn't have enough creativity, tact, and talent to adequately utilize them and keep up popular interest with music, or performance, or any other real form of entertainment alone. Sadly, this also means he doesn't know better than repeatedly fall back on lousy enjou marketing for the sake of some short-lived bursts of attention, forcing groups into these cheap controversies that'll only come back to haunt the whole group's reputation (and their fans' peace of mind) for the time to come. After so long, it's about time to go ahead and say that the king is actually naked. The less he is involved in the production of the groups he creates (and leaves them to self-manage themselves), the better. This doesn't apply to those groups in the "Popular" "Republic" of China, of course, they may rot in their hellhole for all I care. Actually, it also higlights another fact: that Keyakizaka desperately needs to have a figure like Takamina within their ranks, someone with a spine and two balls like a bull's, who is capable of speaking on an equal standing with the management and talk some sense into their brains and have them back down, when they try to put profit and marketing before human matters. Put next to Takamina's firm reaction at the time of the incident, Keyakizaka's collective response to their own incident was a real embarrassment for how money-minded and weak it was. For a group that sells a "rebellious" image as their main draw, it is pathetically ironic how it has been shown, again and again, that they are actually the group that is kept on the tightest leash by the management, made completely docile by them, and willing to comply to their whims without raising an objection. I wonder if their fans have caught on to this contradiction already.
It was brought up in the Glass wo ware thread here: http://stage48.net/forum/index.php?...s-wo-ware-18-03-07.21300/page-53#post-1437865 The comparison was a bit of a stretch. A bloody saw is clearly less ambiguous than a flare stick in its violent implications. Also, in the saw incident people were actually seriously injured while (thankfully) no one was hurt at the keyakizaka handshake. It was way more notable too, I mean I heard about the incident for the first time on msn news here. Putting a saw on an AKB album jacket would be much more disturbing and to many more people. Yurina with the flare stick just looks pretty badass. Assuming she was ok with it and all.
In light of recent events, I've decided to fill out some of the "winners" of Idols' Most Disgusting Promotional Tactic award for certain years: 2013: Minegishi Minami's head-shaving incident (and management's response to it) 2014: ??? 2015: ??? 2016: Keyakizaka's Nazi costumes during an Halloween event 2017: Tied between Riripon's marriage announcement during SSK and Keyakizaka's (alleged) overworking of Techi 2018: Rika Nakai's "bubble wrap" remarks (early nomination) If anyone can fill in the blanks, and perhaps do make nominations for before 2013, I would, once again, welcome it. (Doesn't have to be from an Aki-P group.)
I've finally filled some of the blanks: 2010: Rina Nakanishi adult video debut 2011: BiS nude MV 2012: Tomomi Kasai pulling out from TV Asahi 10,000 Yen Challenge 2013: Minegishi Minami's head-shaving incident (and management's response to it) 2014: Nogizaka's lack of punishment against Sayuri Matsumura following her scandal 2015: Mari Yaguchi's showbiz comeback despite scandal in 2013 2016: Keyakizaka's Nazi costumes during an Halloween event 2017: Riripon's marriage announcement during SSK and Keyakizaka's (alleged) overworking of Yurina Hirate (tied) 2018: Mnet mistreatment of Japanese Produce48 trainees (provisional)
Sashi's was far from disgusting and was almost a 'non punishment'. The move was packaged as a celebratory one with a commercial with the plot where akb girls are sending her off with a party. Then months after, it turned out that transferring members is something managment would do with the like of Oota going to HKT as well. *** Overworking Hirate as that big a deal? Didn't know it become a 'scandal', though maybe I'm just unaware.
Given the circumstances and incidents prior to the transfer, it surely generated a controversy amongst wotas. I'll change it to Tomomi Kasai pulling out from TV Asahi 10,000 Yen Challenge, though. --- I'll also post some runner-ups: 2013: Mari Yaguchi's affair, Kasai's photo book, allowing graduated members to join SSK (supposed to bait Acchan, but scandal convict Hirajima ended up ranking instead) 2015: Kaori Matsumura encouraging fans to buy Yua Mikami (née Kito Momona)'s AV on a radio show 2016: Haruka Komiyama graduation threat should she fail to rank in SSK, Mari Yaguchi in that cup noodles CM --- As always, your own nominations are always welcomed.
Itano's cancelled photobook? Don't you mean Kasai's? And it was only a temporary delay, it did come out later. Also Komiyama's thing about graduating was hardly a promotional tactic, it certainly wasn't an official one. I seem to remember Erepyon doing a 2-shot event for her solo album in 2013 where she would hug fans. I recall Meetan doing a hug event or something for her solo single, it was in one of the ooooooooooooold AKBingo episodes? When I started on this forum I used to read the old threads to find out more about AKB, I recall people saying AKB used to sell "Gachi Balls" before 2009 in the theater with various prizes in the balls. I recall someone posting that one of the prizes was a night out with Togasaki...I have no idea if this was true or just a tall tale but it sounds like it would be fun Of course the worst AKB promotional stunt was the 44-poster scam with Sakura no Hanabiratachi 2008 which drew down the ire of the Government's Commerce authority. I just remembered another one.... "Ex-AKB48 Mori Anna has lanched crowdfunding campaign to pubslish her photobook! 200K yen gets you a date with her!" I have no idea if the prize was ever claimed The 48 and 46 groups are mostly above board though, I imagine more odd stuff probably goes on in the underground idol scene,
Deep digging into Wikipedia, C-ute casually glorifying Adolf Hitler in an episode of Yorosen may be one of Most Disgusting Promotional Tactic candidates of 2008.
With Senbatsu Sousenkyo over, the current candidates for this year's Most Disgusting Promotional Tactic award are: Rika Nakai constant attention seeking (bubble wrap remarks, scandal announcement during SSK) Keyakizaka46 cancelling Kanji portion of Budokan concert over Yurina Hirate's absence Produce 48 as a concept/whole Former 48G idols turned AV idols launch K-pop group in coincidence with Produce 48 (Honey Popcorn) Sally Amaki English-language tweets taunting 22/7 management
So for this year, it seems that NGT48 management response to Maho Yamaguchi's situation gets an early lock-in for the award... For the record, since Produce48 in general doesn't appear to stop mudslinging from both J-pop and K-pop fandoms (and sometimes, accelerated it further), I'll give the 2018 MDPT award to it.
I'd mention the very first scandal that made me discover AKB48: When they released the 2008 version of Sakura no Hanabiratachi they gave away a random member poster with each theater purchase, if you could collect all 44 members you'd get a ticket for the Spring 2009 concert. The news was mentioning that the offer was cancelled due violation to antitrust laws. That was the very first time I heard about AKB48 and while it wasn't until the following year when I watched a YouTube clip of an AKBINGO cosplay video, it made me a pretty deep impression (a group with 44 members? What the heck?! moment).