It is how it is, STU48 is the least followed 48 group with the tiniest fanbase. The 7th single was just announced & I'm shocked that almost noone except for me was commenting on the thread. If Nogizaka46 plans a new release the community is getting crazy, but if it's STU48, there is zero attention. I think the group is underrated, what is resulting in its "down-going". That frustrates me, because in my opinion STU48's 4th Single "Mubou na Yume Ha Sameru Koto Ga Nai" has the most beautiful MV in JPOP history, I'm going that far by saying it is the most beautiful MV I've ever seen in general. Please finally see the beauty in STU48! I still have a question left: where do you see the reason for STU48's missing popularity and what hinders you from idolizing STU48?
I love STU48, I agree the 4th single MV is very beautiful and I especially like the 6th single coupling song 'Boku wa Kono Umi wo Nagameteru', I've watched the MV many times, the Setouchi PR Unit are good fun lol. In 2018 I made some last minute changes to my trip to Japan to head over to Shunan City in Yamaguchi Prefecture where I was able to get tickets for two STU48 onshore theater shows which was a tremendous and very memorable experience including high waves with the members afterwards. I'm excited about the 7th single and I'll be buying online talk tickets with my favourite members, something I'm not doing very much with the other 48 sister groups. I do post in the board especially for my current favourite members Chiho and Cuca. I'd like to post more about other members especially Okichan who is now my third-favourite but there never seems to be much news online although I do follow several members on Twitter and recently of course Yumirin has started tweeting in English which is great and I reply to her to help a little to encourage her to continue. Therefore I would claim that I do idolize STU48 but I agree that their popularity does seem to be missing something and most definitely the group is underrated. Is it that they're seen to be a small regional group? There certainly seems to be fewer stories about them in the Japanese media than for SKE, NMB or HKT even though Naachan is a member and she quite often appears in entertainment news articles. They do need to gain more attention but I'm not sure how they would do that especially while the pandemic is ongoing and it's probably difficult for them to hold concerts outside of the Setouchi region. Anyway, I will continue to follow them closely and I'll always post here whenever I find news!
I like some STU members and tried to follow the group before, I also loved their first 2 singles (Kurayami and Kaze wo Matsu), for me these are some of the best 48G a-sides. However I never became really a "fan" but that's mostly because I stopped following sister groups since around 2016 or so, and I'm only slowly learning about them again and so far I know HKT the most (compared to SKE and NMB, they lost less members so I still knew a lot of girls that I knew before, and I found new oshimens). I never learned about NGT and same for STU before. Some time ago when I wanted to learn about STU and tried searching for subbed content, I realized that they have a lot less subbed content than other 48 sister groups, I saw that they have one subbing team but it's not very active. So this makes me think that the reason why STU has less fans internationally is because they don't have a lot of fans to promote them, if many people talked about them and uploaded content etc. then I think more people would be interested to learn about the group. They're definitely a good group. I'm not sure what can make more people start talking about them... but I can try more ^^ (I want to know all the sister groups better eventually haha). I've watched some shows with Yumirin, Chiho or Hina in the past (they were without subs) and I found all of them nice and cute. I'll try to know the group better overall... and hope that more of their fans can be active online so that more people can become attracted to the group. it's actually kinda weird, because in the past, everytime a new sister group debuted (even with Team 8 who weren't a sister group but kinda felt like it with 47 members at once), they always managed to attract a lot of people who want to follow them since debut and then the popularity naturally happened. I'm not sure why it didn't work with STU. Maybe because of their concept with the boat, or (from what I remember?) their theater stages weren't revivals, maybe also because they took quite a long time to have their debut single, or their clothes (long dresses)... they were promoted a little differently than previous sister groups, I guess.
@Dokuro3313 Well, if you are talking about this forum alone, I d' say not only STU48. While there are some difference in interest between each AKB48's sister groups, there is a huge one between AKB48 and each of it's sister groups. Just the singles threads leangth tell a lot. Also, the interest has lowered for everyone as time goes on. When I joined this forum lots if not all the girls thread, whatever their group was recieving almost daily updates. Now a lot of threads are just updated from time to time and some didn't see any new messages for ages. (yeah there were less girls at the time, but still, it was hundred of time more active compared to nowadays) Or in a close exemple, you can almost count the number of active posters in the Nambattle thread with only 1 hand. Even myself thought at first that the event was going to get a lot of attention in these pages. So I guess people nowadays don't watch a lot of activities (even free watching), when it's not concerts.
In my case I have to admit that it's guilty as charged. The newer the sister group the harder a time I have getting into them and staying invested in them. That partly stems specifically from how much the older groups still interest me. In the case of STU I mainly follow Sakaki Miyu (Cuca) more than the group itself as I was a bit of a fan of her dance covers on YouTube before she was a STU member. I want to see where her idol career goes, but STU hasn't really done much with her. Beyond that I really liked the stage they did that featured Shima Uta and Amairo no Kami no Otome.
IMO (and I'm sorry if this is inaccurate, just would like to give my 2 cents), STU was formed when: 1) the idol market was so oversaturated with 48/46 Groups and KPop 2) The rise of KPop groups→more groups to follow + NiziU→the interests in 48G seems to be wearing thin 3) J-Pop idols (in Japan) gradually became part of the 'niche' rather than the mainstream/general public as people are starting getting 'bored' of idols and currently moving to support Kpop and male soloists (i don't think there is rise in female soloists, but a lot of male soloists have re-emerged and a lot of female fans might have changed directions to both of the above-mentioned 'theme' + Nogizaka. Most of the GP interested in 48/46G seems to be female (?) At the same time, there are lots of 'scandals' which probably turned off people on the 'fringe': a) NGT scandal b) Election 'scandal', namely Riripon and Jurina. Tbh the latter does not even commit crime she deserve the 'social punishment', she has been getting. even after she graduated! poor jurina . c) akb48 releases no single (or good singles for that matter) , so no hype(s) given to the rest of 48G. And perhaps most importantly: d) Sponsors seem to have withdraw/reduce their spendings on 48G. This is especially true for some sister groups, they do rely on the sponsors to certain extent (especially from local government). But these sponsors might have distance themselves to avoid further possible controversies (just like in Niigata case). More than its products, marketing is even more essential in this saturated market and due to this, their budget on marketing has been severely compromised. A lot of these prefectures spenT money to warm the hype out of their prefectures in time of olympic. But the olympic itself has been..... a hell of a ride (in negative way). so i don't see any reasoms for them to increase/maintain their spending. So yeah the idol has been niche, and even in this used-to-be-active forums, a lot of people have left and few new members have joined. I have taken a distance from the forum since around 2015 and I was surprised that I saw the same active stage48 members as I was in 2015. And a lot of 'enthusiastic fans' who I saw actively posting every now and then prior to my 'graduation from the group' have been missing-in-action. Regeneration of members has been stated again and again, but many seems to underestimate the importance of regeneration of fans. So yeah.. it's not STU48 that is lacking and not that STU48 is underrated but certainly 48G has been out of its peak so the fans size in 48G fandom have reduced by a lot, in the first place on the other hand, I hope this could give courage to the managements: don't be afraid to push the boundaries!
