[GENERAL] The AKB48 Thread

Since there are different costumes for DouSuki, for THE MUSIC DAY performance, they re-use them and give each member an unique uniform. Team Yuiyui is the girls wearing Yuiyui’s costume, etc
Zukky even went on Twitter asking her fan who was the 3rd members wearing her costume since she could only find Karen and Nonchan

 

Sorry the mod, I know 2 consecutive posts a day is forbidden but it's 2 different stories so......

THAT IS NO EXCUSE. Listen to Yoda:
“Patience you must have, my young Padawan. Have patience and all will be revealed,”

 

That's why I don't like this system where the girls have different agencies and management.

 

That wouldn't have helped the girls in the second story any.

There were only two groups of 2, most were 3+.

It's interesting seeing the variety of different opinions re: what she said on that stream. To be clear Sayarin only says this about herself, there's no indication in her stream that the rest of the members were similarly misinformed (though they might have been, especially if the 55 member performance was as last minute as it sounds).

 

When do you think they will do another season of Majisuka/Majimuri Gakuen ? Or at least another musical or play ?

 

How about none? I can't believe someone still discussing about new sister group when AKB48 itself is in survival mode.

Is it? Has any sponsor withdrawn after the recurrence of Johnny's SA's scandal? I bet there is none. If they even don't care pedo scandal, the NGT48 fiasco is nothing. Have never you thought it is simply AKB48 not hot enough for any big sponsor to care? Municipalities sound like the organizations to care more about public sentiment than say an apparel company yet, they are not shy away from AKB48. Neither it looks as if there is any considerable backlash from the collaboration.

It looks/sounds like that Nogizaka's rival group get much interest from Aki-P neither.

 

Comparing Johnny and AKS is stupid. Even during AKS hey day, they were not able to ban people from TV

Until recently johnny manages to BAN people from appearing on TV.

Plus, Johnny's scandals was not formally investigated by police. While NGT scandals did.

NGT scandals were perpetrated by MEMBERS themselves while in Johnny, members were the victims. So Johnny members gain more empathy from public while in NGT the reverse happened

More importantly johnny didnt depend on local sponsors lol. AKB did. NGT was sponsored by local government and so does STU and to some extent NMB and SKE. Dont forget team 8 was initially tied to certain car brand

As i said, akiP is no longer interested in akb48 and 46 groups or its derivatives (the last time he was interested is when techi was in)

 

Unfortunately no longer available

 

There're many theories on how 48G operates, especially their questionable decisions.
I myself think they're managed quite similar to Nogi, after seeing what happened to 1 of their members (Hayakawa Seira). Her situation reminded me of NGT's Maho.
They've been trying to distance themselves off those issues like moving AKB from AKS to DH, but idols are connected one way or another.

 

AKB48 on the way to 1 million monthly listeners on Spotify

 

Even before the Maho/NGT48 scandal, 48G have had different managements and I think the split of AKS et al happened a little before the scandal as well (someone correct me if I'm wrong). Technically, therefore, the AKB48 thread is not necessarily the right place to point out similarities between Nogizaka46 and NGT48. You can see there are quite a few differences among each individual 48G, just like how there are differences in how Sakamichi groups are managed.

For example, some 48G have teams (AKB, SKE, HKT, NMB) and some sort by generation (NGT, STU) and even AKB will soon dissolve their teams.

A difference I've noticed with 46G is how senbatsu are formed, while Nogizaka46 has a senbatsu system similar to 48G, Sakurazaka and Hinatazaka tend to include all members in senbatsu, sans some exceptions or the newest generation.

Additionally, most 48G have theatres, but the quality and equipment are vastly different. AKB's theatre hasn't had (m)any upgrades since it was built in 2005, compared to HKT's theatre that has a lot of extras. I'm not even sure STU currently has a theatre; and then there's SKE who's the only team to have new original stage setlists for the first time in years, while the others are still waiting (Sasshi, for example, wrote a whole setlist for HKT, which was never accepted). Who performs is sometimes dependent on teams, sometimes on generations, sometimes it's a random mix.

Also, from my knowledge, some AKB members have their own managers with their separate talent agency, and some AKB members have managers assigned to smaller groups, e.g. AKB's 17th Generation has their own manager (who used to work with Miyawaki Sakura during her IZ*ONE days).

TLDR: It's hard to compare the management of Nogizaka46 to that of "48 Group" because not all 48 Groups are managed the same either.

 

If i remember correctly the way akb operates is most similar to ngt and stu. But they are and will totally be different to NMB since they are under different companies from the start. HKT and SKE are a mix between these two "divides".

The theatre thingy is ... despite akb being the mother group, the local "franchises" do get a boost of local sponsors. And it is probably harder to find spots as strategic in akihabara given akihabara is the home of many chika tetsu idol

Yeah as @bonjourmarlene said, we can see signs of the "divorce" earlier but the true divorce (for lack of a better word) comes after covid 19. After that u dont even see groups collaborating. Even in the world48 concerts after that, they dont look like family anymore. They look like franchises.

It is also this divorce which forces akb to only rely on its members for single. Yeah i dont think the management ever realizes the importance of akb only single. Rather they were forced to. Since they are now no longer even in the same parent company or affiliated with it, the sister groups have became a true rival

What NGT did to Maho and friends is so Japanese though, playing bureaucracy and making use of the thick divide between honne and tatemae.


@Garapagosu what happened to hayakawa seira?

 

Power harassment, Retirement, bunshun hit piece,...
Her case with Nogi feels worse than NGT imo She isn't even gonna stay in showbiz anymore, unlike Maho.

For context - I posted the earlier reply was because of reading a Japanese tweet about their management:



"Nogizaka management and AKB (NGT) management have identical problematic people, who are also very powerful.
Even if it's just on the surface, there are people like Kubota and Kitagawa.
I have no idea what's going on behind the scenes."

 

I normally post in the Nogi forums, but I happened to catch this on the Recent Activities page, so here's what happened with Seira:

Spoiler

Hayakawa Seira went on a radio show and said that a concert director named Seigo berated Nogi members during a rehearsal, yelling stuff like “Die!” and (unjustly) blaming them for a past accident where Nogi member Kakehashi Sayaka fell off a stage and was seriously injured. Seigo has worked on most Nogi Lives, as well as some with 48 groups and Sasshi’s idol groups.
More context on Seira’s accusations here, and Sayaka’s fall here.

Management released a statement saying Seigo went too far in his behavior and he decided to resign, however it’s not true that he blamed members for Sayaka’s accident.

There are other details, but the main sticking points are (1) management allowed an asshole to direct members for years, (2) management basically said Seira is untrustworthy.

Seira announced her graduation from the entertainment industry less than a month after. Based on blog posts and overall circumstances, most fans think she'd already been planning to graduate (and that's why she blew the whistle), but there's no official confirmation on that as far as I know.

Without dredging up the details of both cases, I think Maho's case is a degree worse. There's more uncertainty with Seigo's history (if only because there wasn't an entire legal investigation like with Maho). Both are terrible though, and indicate rot stretching to high levels in the organization. (I actually think Sayaka's accident is a clearer comparison to Maho's cover-up, because management initially said Sayaka had light injuries, then revealed months later that she broke part of her face.)

Idol management is deliberately very opaque, so if you believe Nogi would cover up an assault like NGT48, then fair play to you. Not all 46/48 groups have had the allegations of weird fan-idol relations like NGT48 before Maho's assault, at least. I don't know what @Garapogusu's baseline is for corruption, cuz the 46/48 model inherently tends toward exploitation. (Young girls in high-stakes popularity contests, idealized parasocial role-play, inflating sales with handshakes, etc., do I really need to explain?)

If you're talking about "how the group operates" though, a lot of wota criticisms of day-to-day management can be chalked up to incompetence more than corruption. Although, if management is a bunch of grifters, then they're more likely to be incompetent or base decisions on private self-interest..

 

Nice insight.
Baseline for corruption... Corrupt is corrupt for me.
The main reason that made me feel for Seira more than Maho though, is Aki-P.
Maho was able to switch agency thanks to the old man, meanwhile what did Seira get? Not even a word of support.

I mean that's the thing: Is it really about incompetence? Private self-interest seems more of a priority to management.

 

Hey now, Seigo directed concerts for AKB48 and HKT48 with the explicit approval of Aki-P and Sasshi, and multiple people have said for years that he was angry at rehearsals. Just saying, there’s enough corruption for everyone to go around. I'm out.

 

I agree with @Gofindnova.

i think they are still related to akb.making the discussion more segmented might make sense if the forum is alive and crowded. It also makes sense if the discussion is about kpop or other idol groups (which has been ongoing even in singles). This is still related since we are comparing management's responses. It is still related since seigo used to (or still does?) work with akb. the forum is—as I emphasized again and again—already dead.

 

People here complaining about AKB's management this, DH that over stuff like: Graduations, Senbatsu, Teams, etc but there are things bigger than them all combined - at least to me.
Well then... I'm not gonna go further.