BATTLE ARENA

I don't get the argument about Kami7?

Kami 7 is literally just the top 7 girls that people recognize as a Member of AKB. They're the members who are "God like" in terms of their popularity.
The SSK to Kami7 is just something that further shows who is a Kami type member.

For example, no one could beat the original Kami 7 (until Yukirin beat Tomochin). So they are members who are the Kami 7 of that period.
From 2008 - 2011 the Kami 7 was Maeda Atsuko, Oshima Yuko, Shinoda Mariko, Watanabe Mayu, Takahashi Minami, Kojima Haruna, and Itano Tomomi.
From 2011 - 2012 there was a shuffle of members who were at the same state of popularity as the original Kami7 eg Yukirin and Sasshi.

Now I would say that the "new" Kami7 (5) would be these members.
Watanabe Mayu, Kashiwagi Yuki, Sashihara Rino, Matsui Jurina, and Matsui Rena.

Takamina and Kojiharu aren't at the same level of Kami as they used to be but are still referred to as Kami members. I see this as, they are still seen as Kami because they're the Original Kami members but for this new generation, they're no longer Kami members.
I didn't include Itano, Yuko or Mariko because they've graduated.

If we're referring to the new additions to K7, Yamamoto Sayaka and Shimazaki Haruka, i feel like they have to prove that they're still Kami7 level throughout this year until they can be legitimate Kami members. Like, people didn't refer to Wmatsui, and Sasshi as Kami until they proved be be staple 48 group members.

But essentially, until someone can overtake Takamina and Kojiharu, in terms of popularity in general (not just in elections), they can't be considered as Kami level.

 

I understand Jurina being frustrated, but like (sorry I forgot your name) said, she gets her position because she is MATSUI JURINA. She's spoiled and entitled.

 

Yesterday, during the election, they said they had arrived to the Kami 7 (or something of the sort) before announcing the 7th place.

So, management uses, the MCs use it, the girls use it, but still... somehow... you think it's used wrong? Kudos!

 

I don't think your examples are that applicable in this situation. In the example of the Olympic athlete, it's about personal effort in the event and before in training. They may have expected a higher result, but did they put in their full effort? Have a bad start? Do enough training? It's about the athlete vs the other athletes in that one event. And the billionaire losing money could have caused it himself with bad investment decisions and choices. Again it's about personal responsibility. And losing money is a potential problem...well, maybe not if you're a billionaire.

However, I see the elections as something different. The girls do their best throughout the year to gain more fans, etc. Once the election starts, it's totally out of their hands. (Even before that, it's still out of their hands. I mean, you may do your best to get that person to like you, but for some reason they still don't.) Ranking and ranking high is based solely at that point on how many fans are willing to vote for them and how much they are willing to spend to get them there.

So Jurina may have expected a higher result and is disappointed in not getting there. At this point, what is she disappointing in? Her lack of effort during the year, in not having enough fans to get it done, or the fact that the fans didn't spend enough? While it's natural to be disappointed, saying she is disappointed at her rank may sound to some as saying "I am disappointed that my fans didn't do enough to get me the rank I wanted," especially since her rank when up, not down.

 

When did I say it was used wrong? Please read what I say carefully before putting words into my mouth

I said that personally, I think that the two people who I favorite, have to really prove that they're legitimate Kami members because to me, their popularity isn't on one of a Kami's yet. This is me basing them off what I see from them everyday etc.

 

I wish they would stop using it. It's something from the past

 

They are Kami 7 now. They don't have to prove anything else.
Takamina and Kojiharu are not anymore. That's how it is.
Next year might be others. I don't see Rena staying up unless her Nogizaka concurrency works wonders.

 

^I personally think they do, to me at least. As if to say, let's see if the position we gave you was worth it. We didn't vote a bunch of times to see them slack off lol. If they work hard and prove that they can do it again, i'd say it's Kami material and not just a fluke like people said sasshi's win was (in which she later proved them wrong).
One thing though, battle arena or not, don't make your opinion look as if it's a fact.

 

After watching the election yesterday I realised that I'd like this kami 7 thing to stay. It adds more excitement in addition to all the talk about who will reach undergirls, senbatsu etc. Besides, senbatsu consists of 16 spots, which is a lot. Maybe it's a good way to distinguish the top members, the faces of the group, more or less.

Regarding Jurina, I don't think she's self entitled, arrogant or whatever, nor any member for that matter and that's why I like this group. I think it's part culture and part their environment and the way the group is set up. They live by strict rules, the bars are set high, rehearsals can be though and dance instructors etc. can be very strict and harsh. Acting like a spoiled brat is certainly not appreciated. Also, as we all know, they are not your regular group consisting of the same 5 members. The competition is fierce, girls are rising and falling all the time, new members are continuously added. You could be worshipped one moment and be dropped the next if you don't live up to the expectation or some more interesting face or personality comes along. Jurina might be very popular now, but there's no guarantee that there won't be another Sasshi surpassing her and preventing her from ever reaching nr. 1 like it almost happened to Mayu. Not even girls like Acchan or Yuko could hold on to their nr.1 position, so there's really no room for arrogance and expecting everything to be handed to you, no matter how popular you are.

Also, when Suzukake ranked high in RH, Jurina was crying during the performance. Now I haven't seen the whole thing and I'm not sure why she cried, but if it's because that song ranked high then it shows that she is very grateful for everything she gets. Even when she had won janken, you could see that she wasn't taking it for granted as just another center position out of so many. She works very hard and gives her all in whatever she does, you don't do that when you're a spoiled brat who expects to get everything handed to you.

 

It's no secret though that Aki-P practically worships her. Yes, everyone works hard, but Jurina doesn't have to work to get in the spotlight, just work to stay in it. Other girls don't even get a chance now with management just handing it over to girls like her and Mako if they say the right things at the audition. Meru didn't ever have to prove herself before receiving the center position of HKT48, just because she said things at the audition that Aki-P thought were ace-like. Other girls work perhaps even harder because try as they might, they will not be able to get the spotlight. People may think that, well, of course management will push people but really it's up to the girls, buy it's really not. It's really just, if management likes you, you're in Senbatsu, if they don't, well, sucks to be you. Look at Kato Rena, she never ranked until management decided to push her, then all of a sudden she's the next big thing (well, Undergirls, but come on, it's a huge leap). And it's not like she went through some big change that made her great. She's just the same as she was before, provided maybe a little more motivated thanks to get recent success, except that now she has management's endorsement.

 

Kato Rena was hugely pushed for the past few years, not just the last year. Along with Annin and Ricchan, she was part of AnRiRe, a unit that was used as "backdancers" (but really up front) in Sasshi's single Ikujinashi no Masquerade. She was also a main character in a string of murder-mystery CMs a couple years ago. Despite all her pushing at the time, she didn't rank in the election and no one was really interested in her. Most considered her a failed push, but management kept pushing regardless and it finally worked. If they had given up on her before the past year, however, I wonder if she'd have that rank - or any rank - now.

Moral of the story is, not every push works. Especially not right away. Sometimes it's a long game and takes years. It is up to the fans whether or not they warm up to the girl being pushed. Some girls just don't have "it", whatever it takes to appeal to an audience, regardless of how hard they're pushed.

 

WingsofAngel, Kato Rena has been doing things before this so called "push". If anything, her push started with Choudai, Darling!, but it tapered since then. AKB48 fans bashed her more often than not because she was "poor" at everything. To say she didn't go through a big change means you haven't been paying attention at all! She used to be weak at performing, now she's strong. Her singing has improved and she has more of an aura. I have supported her since before Team 4 and have seen her transform into an UG worthy member.

Jurina? She isn't entitled at all either. She works more than any 48g member - remember, she hurt herself in a performance and kept going. She gets super hurt and she doesn't rest because she is constantly "proving" herself. She aims for the top, and...? Is that bad? Don't all the girls wish that they were #1? When she was new I'd say that's when she was "entitled", but she has always been a superstar for different reasons. She was 11 when she joined SKE48 and was absurdly talented so of course she would get a push. Look at Mayuyu, she was young when she joined as well. Is she entitled?

 

The two words, "Jurina" and "spoiled" should never appear in the same sentence. Anyone saying this obviously knows nothing about her.
If you're a spoiled brat, you don't perform in a theater performance when you're on the verge of collapsing.

 

I can feel Jurina's frustation for not getting into Top3 but as I read these posts....I have mixed feelings about this matter. Until now, I still believe Jurina can win sousenkyo in matter of time, but it's not now. She has already done everything to prove herself so I guess she thought herself deserve better position. She worked hard. And SO DID OTHER GIRLS. Just because she injured herself and did all the works as many as possible, it doesn't mean she works HARDER than everyone else. What's the point of getting yourself hurt and couldn't perform your best? You want to show people this? > "hey I'm hurt but I'm still performing so I'm great" or you want people to pity you because of it? We, fans really appreciate girls' hardwork but we don't want them to force themselves to the point they don't even care their own health/life. She is already SKE's ace, and she wants to be AKB's ace so badly...why didn't she audition for AKB back then? She will win in the future surely...so please be patient Jurina. "Your time has not come"

 

Jurina would have to be one of the most talented and hard working girls in 48G

It is like she has to go twice as hard to get to where other people are.

She has never looked or acted that cute ... its been hard work intelligence an talent.

 

Actually, regarding Jurina, while I completely think her attitude is understandable and acceptable as stated in my previous post, I do think her fans should be less protective of her, for her own career sake. Pretty much most of the time when I talked to a Jurina fan, or saw any online discussion regarding her, there would be talks about how the girl should rest more, or that she is overworking herself. While it's nice to see her fans worrying about her health, I think it's rather over-protective now.

Being under 18, surely, her workload isn't the heaviest among 48 groups (although I won't doubt it's one of the heaviest). It's true that she collapsed and hospitalized once, but it's just... once. It could be a bad combination of physical health, stress, diet style and such, not just due to her heavy workload. If it's just that, a tons of other top girls (random example on top of my head: didn't Mariko only get to sleep at 2 and had to woke up for work at 4-5 for a number of days before? That would be a lot more tiring) would have collapsed. I don't think we've seen any girl died yet, do we? If she couldn't handle that, how would she fare after being 18+? With night radio show, TV and such. And without working extremely hard, it will be difficult to make it big being an idol, getting supported can only carry you so far.

Moreover, I'm sure her family / the management would do everything to prevent it from happening again. The girl has also grown up. Maybe it's time for you guys to trust her to take care of herself more instead of keep bringing up that incident as proof of her exhaustion and tell her to rest

 

There are certain associations in the fandom that will always stick no matter what actually happened in reality, for example Takamina's heavy burden and Jurina being overworked. Can you think of more?

 

Jurina is one of the most hardworking girls because she got hurt on stage and continued performing? How we do even know how hard any of these girls work? Isn't Jurina absent from a lot of theatre shows for the teams she's in anyway?

So how do we measure jurina's hard work points and how do we compare them to the other girls? Or are we just going to assume that's she's the hardest worker because she's injured / absent a lot?

 

Does anyone has any idea why nmb members's ranks drop so dramatically this year?
I thought Kecchi would at least make it into UnderGirls and now she's only a Future Girl < and upcoming for Akari >. Even with all the push, Mirurun was only able to rank 43 and Ripopo 61
I could understand Miyuki was out of Senbatsu because of her recent scandal but why does this happen to other members too?
Is it true that nmb fans decide to vote for Sayanee to be nmb's main representative since they lost faith in Miyuki? If that's so, i doubt Sayanee's rank would remain the same next year
Somehow it feels like even HKT has surpassed them in popularity...

 

@rka: Sae being the Genking, even though Shoujiki Shougi already proved that it's a huge strain on her.

Kyu ju kyu ten kyu pasento! Hehe jk.

As for Jurina, I'd have to agree with sania, Starshard, and Discotheque on this. Even though I really like her, I would never claim that she is the most hardworking girl in the 48G. There's just no way to prove this. Even if you slap a calorimeter on her and take readings 24/7, it still wouldn't be an accurate measure of how much work she's putting in compared to the other girls.

There have been so many girls that have worked through exhaustion and injury over the past 8 1/2 years, so we can throw that argument out of the window. And like what Discotheque mentioned, she has missed quite a number of performances (except for the major ones, of course).

Now when she actually does perform, I would say that she is one of the most energetic performers in the group. Maybe that's what the others are getting at, I don't know. But if that alone leaves her exhausted, then it sounds like she suffers from a weak constitution. She's just not sturdy enough to handle the workload she's given. She's a sprinter in a marathon, and that just doesn't cut it in this business.

Unless you're like...you know, favored by the big boss.

So yeah, she is undoubtedly a hard worker, but let's not get carried away with the statements.

As for being spoiled, well...I'd rather say that she's being coddled. She is Aki-p's baby after all.