Event / Concert AKB48 53rd Single Sekai Senbatsu Sousenkyo (2018/06/16)

You are overcomplicating everything. Someone said JuriSaku are literal whos to non-fans/public. If you only compare strictly against Sasshi then yeah but as a whole when compared to the rest of female J-idols (especially if you only look at 48/46G ) they are still very much the 1% and will be fine.

It’s like comparing the wealth gap between Arabian oil princes, they’re all still billionaires.

 

Her explanation is mmm... interesting. Like she thinks "Jurina or any other girls are not worthy enough for her to compete. Only Sasshi." Welp. Now I kinda want Jurina to win lol

 

Yes, actually, that's literally what it means.

No one said she's more popular, only more famous

 

My main query is if she's so concerned about HKT's overall rankings, why would she not join next year? With no sign of Haruppi returning very soon there's a real chance of zero HKTs in next year's top 16 if Sakura doesn't enter.

 

Hana has an entire year to win Sasshi, Sakura, and Haruppi's fans over.

 

Sakura's explanation makes no sense at all to me.
1. As some people mentioned, it is rude to other competitors like Jurina, Ogiyuka... It means they are not worthy for her to compete.
2. Because the senpais step out, the prominent young members have to carry the competition. It is their task. Particularly with Sakura, who has taken a lot of investment from AKB in recent years. SSK brings money to management and media attention to the groups.
Do the big members like Mayuyu, Yukirin, Sayanee... like attending SSK? No, it is so stressful. Many times they wanted to opt out, but finally registered due to their responsibility to AKB and to their respective group.
3. With her explanation, she should stop attending AKB senbatsu since her position is inherited from her AKB senpais.
4. She is irresponsible to HKT, particularly with their current situation. Like I mentioned before, management needs to grow a new HKT member to replace her, at least to stay relevant in SSK.

 

I don't like Sakura's explanation much, although it makes sense to me. Maybe it was worded poorly in the article (and I don't have Sakura's mobame, so I can't read over the Japanese text), but maybe Sakura didn't mean to say Sasshi is her opponent but she wanted to participate to show HKT's monumentum, to show how many people they can have in the top ranks of SSK. With Sasshi gone, maybe she thinks "maybe SSK isn't that important for us after all" and that's why she decided to drop out, but I can very much imagine she'll be forced to participate again.

With Acchan, Yuko, Sasshi, Mayuyu and Sakura gone, even Jurina's voters might not invest that much money and SSK isn't gonna bring them that much money anymore. I remember from a small show Yuko did together with Takamina, Aki-P had called Yuko after Acchan's graduation announcement that it's now on her and that he's counting on her from now on; although Yuko had been thinking about graduation before Acchan announced hers.

If SSK loses all its top batters, it's not gonna be the event it used to be. I think it puts a really high toll on their nerves so I've always felt it's a bit much but at the same time I enjoy watching SSK and those heartfelt documentaries.

 

IIRC even Jurina wanted to beat the senpai.
She'll never neither.

 

I'd wait for a reliable translation before making any judgement, preferably from someone with better English (no offense). It's very easy to misunderstand when translating (especially from Japanese lol), and when the word choice is bad in English it gets even more confusing. So far Sakura has expressed how Hkt members viewed Sasshi as their mentor/guide/mom but she's never disrespected her senpai nor has she ever intended to.
@ithebigc is translating her 4 long posts from sakumail. He already posted the first one in the Sakura thread.

 

Updated with Nikkan's updates from May 8 (Tanigawa Airi, Muto Tomu).

 

Yeah, um...I've never heard of that site, and it's clear they're not native speakers. Sakura is one of the, if not the most, eloquent and thoughtful speakers in the 48 Group. She's been stewing on the sousenkyo since March because she always wants to convey her thoughts perfectly, even though talking about the sousenkyo so late obviously puts her at a further disadvantage. To boil her four mobame sent that night, which cover a wide range of topics from her thoughts about her fans, the sousenkyo, and Haruppi, down to a short article with an abundance of grammar mistakes is an outright disservice to the time and thought Sakura put into writing them.

Japanese is a very nuanced language, make no mistake. In my translations, I try to capture the essence of what Sakura wrote as well as I can, and that takes time (and even then I wouldn't dare claim I translated it 100% perfectly). I know in this day and age we want everything fast, but that doesn't really go hand in hand with a good translation. I'm not blaming the author for it, but if anyone wants to discuss any of Sakura's Long Posts™ you really need to read them in full before doing so. As @Dubkau said, I posted the first one already in her thread here on Stage48 as well as my Twitter account. With any luck, I'll be able to finish the second one by tonight too, which is the most important and longest one regarding the sousenkyo, so a little patience would be nice.

 

Yeah I really don't think any disrespect was intended towards Jurina, nor should it be inferred. It's like you people want to be offended.

 

Well the jshowbiz article does read like it’s one step above a Google translation.

 

Yea, that doesn’t look right at all.
I’m going to wait for a real translation, or better yet I’d rather just read the original Japanese. I’ve been on this forum long enough to see how fake translations have been put out in order to affect everyone’s opinions...

 

Well Sakura said what she said. Whether she used fluffy language or not makes little difference to me.

 

i mean, it's not really about whether she used "fluffy language", but more that we're not sure if the translation is fully accurate. Even minor mistakes in translation can completely change the meaning of a sentence, and if the translators aren't native English speakers, then a lot of the nuance has probably been lost. We should wait on a more reliable translation, because we don't know if that is actually what she said.

 

lol that's true I just realized it. Amongst all 48g members, she's the 6th most senior. (Miichan -> Yuki -> Oya -> Myao, Sasshi -> Jurina)

And in the current election senbatsu, she's probably going to be the oldest one (seniority wise).

 

I had to give this a like for the understated high-level sarcasm.

 

And I know a lot about “high”-levels myself.

 

I think the short translation was far from complete and only focuses on one point (rather than fake) which then changes the meaning and complexion of what sakura was trying to convey. Sakura had a lot of reasons and thoughts. And there's no disrespect to J, she did say winning ssk is very difficult (for her). And she's one of the last persons who will disrespect HKT. The part about not carrying on the responsibility of young members to compete in the ssk may not be addressed though as her concern was about her fans and HKT. Anyway, as people have already said, let's wait for ithebigc's translation. The 2nd and 3rd mails are the more important ones imo.