Agency plot to relive AKB48 glory days with Shimazaki Haruka

Hello 48 stans and fanboys.
Here i am going to share my theory on how the AKB48 agency tried but failed to relive their glory days using Paruru.

1. Ace member graduates.


Ever since the graduation of our beloved AAchan, no one has ever been able to fulfill her spot as the face/center or AKB48. Unlike other girl groups, being center matters ALOT to AKB48 members. But being center didn't really matter back then when AKB48 was still young and no one really knew about them so they needed to have a common face to lead them on by the one and only OG members with AAchan at the forefront.


When aachan finally graduated the question of "WHO'S NEXT? WHO WILL BE THE CENTER?" circled among the fans. Everyone was bidding their own oshimens and started making their own theories that this certain member will be the new face (Yuko, Mayu2, Yukirin, Etc)
Yes indeed the fans were happy that their beloved oshimens will finally be able to be the center of AKB48, but that wasn't what the management wanted.
While everyone was bickering about who will become the next center, the management was busy molding THEIR OWN CENTER.


A then young Team 4 member who nobody really knew about but only had a pretty face going on.
The management probably thought that if they could mold an aachan then they can always mold another one.
They then proceeded to do lowkey exposures like adding her into senbatsu singles such as

• Manatsu no Sounds Good!
• UZA

And they played the safe card by using the jankenpon tournament to finally push her into the AKB48 fanbase.


Because honestly, if winning rock paper scissors was ur only chance of becoming one of AKB48s top members then well..


Nevermind... Anyway.

2. Eien Pressure.
Ah yes the first single she ever centered in.
In all her interviews if you did look back at them while they were promoting this single she received nothing but hate and was extremely awkward (like aachan) the management probably saw this as a history repeats itself moment. No one wanted her there (Except her fans) they wanted people like yuko, mayuyu, sasshi maybe and yukirin to finally get their chance leading the group. The fans thought that these girls DESERVED to be there not HER.



3. Extreme Pushes
Shimazaki haruka, the girl in Team 4 who got lucky in Rock paper scissors becomes a staple members of the AKB48 system.
After eien pressure it was like her face was every where it was scary.



She got better stage positions and more exposure than the OG members and even proceeded to be part of the 4 center single sayonara crawl.

4. The bomb from hakata.
When sasshi scared everyone (esp yuko lol) and won the 5th senbatsu election and koi suru'd right into our hearts, lil paruru after extreme pushes and exposures finally got into the senbatsu fair and square through voting and remarkably went above 11 ranks higher ranking 12th overall.
The management probably saw this as part of their baby steps towards their goal of making her the new ace of AKB48.



5. AKB48s star players graduate one after another.
Yuko announcing her grad; mariko, and itano finally leaving, AKB48 was left with a scarce number of star members. They were suppose to be the MOTHER group, the one every other SISTER group looks up to. But with the lack of elite members it looked like they needed to rush their ace making program pronto.
But, with the 6th senbatsu elections coming up, and paruru still taking her sweet precious time to bloom, the management had to go for another route in the mean time.


6. The labrador holding a placard takes over
So everyon knows what happens here lol.
mayuyu takes over and leads AKB48 in the mean time. Finally winning the senbatsu election, centering 2 singles consecutively (kokoro no placard and kibouteki refrain)


BUT THERE'S A TWIST OH OH.

7. Formula for potential rival (Agency plot to relive Yuko vs Aachan)
Not only did Mayuyu lead AKB48 in the mean time, but the Agency also centered her with an HKT48 member.


This was in my theory, their way of giving paruru a rival when the time was right (maybe when mayu and sasshi finally leave ugh)
Fast forward to Bokutachi wa tatakawanai.

8. Finally giving her a chance.
So by this time takamina announced her heir would be yokoyoma yui (who is also parus bff fo life) and then paired with this was another big announcement, the announcement of paruru leading a single (freaking finally) it was not only her time to shine but also a test to see if she was really the one capable of taking on aachans responsibility. (because come on, by this time AKB48 was way tooo reliant on sister groups they needed someone homegrown to finally lead them on with the old GM x ACE formula)

(oversized photo removed by moderator)

The single was a success Akimoto himself even said this was his favorite single, and paru even had her own TV show, but were the fans willing to make paruru their favorite center??

9. The plan backfires.
Paruru lost to sakura. All that advertising went down the drain. She ranked lower to a member from a sister group (wow when will this be new lol)
AKB48 is losing to sasshi vs mayu and paru vs saku with jurina both tailing them on.
Akb48 was losing their fire and paru had enough. The agency lowkey slapped her on face when they made sakura center kimi wa melody WITH the legendary OG members and aachan and yuko by her side.
This was a big insult to her and to mayuyu.


10. Paru realizes she's not the center everyone wanted her to be and that's ok.
Adding insult to injury by seeing sakura outrank her again, paru realized this wasn't her thing and announced her graduation.
The agency was kind enough to let her lead AKB48 one last time with high tension.
She didn't bother for a fancy stadium graduation and instead chose to graduate simply within the AKB48 theaters.
Because she knows that in her heart mind and soul she was, and always will be a member of AKB48.
By graduating within the theater she not only left a big mark as being one of AKB48s most unique idols but she was the almost "to be center" of AKB48.
But she gave it her best, she wasn't cut out for it but she will always be loved.
She's now off to do better things.

(oversized photo removed by moderator)

Before i end my theory, i would like to say that you cannot mold an idol into your own bidding.
You must let them be free to grow into the industry, let them breathe, let them experience being themselves.
Other idols can learn from paruru. By rebelling to most of the world of idols ethics of being cutsey and head over heels to all forms of male fans (milky lmao) she didn't. She was labeled as salty, boring, frank and didn't like to act cutsey/sexy on cam because she knows that's not her thing. She didn't care what people said about her and she did her own thing. She made a label for herself as the first ever salty idol and chose to go her own way in the end.
She didn't meet the expectations the management wanted her to be, she didn't become what they needed her to be and probably during her stay she left a mark and led AKB48 her own way.

 

I'd say that to reach the very top of 48G, one doesn't only need the management push but also enough fan support.
And Paruru never had both at the same time.

Side note: I find the 1st portrait of her you used more creepy than pretty.

 

Maybe I'm just tired or something but that whole post just comes off as word salad to me.

 

they should've forced her into center right away tho. lyk make MayuParu lead ALL AKB singles since after KFC and yet they went with old lady haruna. Green Flash should've also be given to Mayuyu or Paruru (or both) but they went with the golden girls instead (good for Yukirin tho).

the problem with management is they can't seem to stick to a consistent push. ofc AKB members will lose to Jurina & Sakura. even if management slow down on their AKB push, they still have their respective groups, while girls like Mayuyu, Paruru, Yuihan, Mako, Mion only have AKB.

 

Maybe not Kellyanne Con-Way-level deflecto-ccine... but yeah, a lot of assumptions made in that post.

 

Yes AKS' stint with Paruru was an epic fail in terms of AKS' attempt at making a home grown super star for the flagship team but I think AKS' greatest fail was how they let Mayuyu slip through their fingers as the center of the group. If they had pushed her properly instead of getting distracted by Sakura during Kibouteki Refrain era, she would have won Sasshi proper during the 7th SSK or at least the 8th SSK.

Green Flash would have been amazing as a MaYuki wcenter or a CenNezu wcenter or even a Mayuyu x Sakura wcenter but Mayuyu didn't even get to appear in most of the PV. Next single, while Bokutachi wa Tatakawanai was perfect for Paruru so I wouldn't ask for the center to be changed to Mayuyu, Mayuyu was barely seen again! At least put her in the top 5?

Paruru and Mayuyu are only born a few days apart from each other, I don't understand why they kept treating Mayuyu as though she's an old hag especially since the Post-Acchan Mayuyu was very different from the Kami-7 era Mayuyu and she was also actively trying to give herself a new image. I believe that if she was properly promoted in 2015, she would have been able to beat Sasshi since the gap between them that year (well with Yukirin in between) wasn't that big. Don't even get me started on anything post Kuchibiru... I honestly wonder if her instagram scandal made her fall out of favour with AKS cause IDK it really seemed as though AKS hated her.

Paruru well... It's just funny how she tanked after centering one of AKB's best single. Like it really fitted her. The song was great. The concept was great. Man. I don't think she would have been the center nova but if she hadn't flopped I think it would still be worth trying her out as center again for Kimi wa Melody but well. That's just life isn't it? It never turns out how you wanted.

 

You mean that troll account made by a troll with the intention of trolling? At the time people rightly dismissed it as being complete bs but it's amazing to see years after, that people now drag it back up like it was legit. That had zero effect on AKS and her agency, AKS just got into this strategy of rotating the center picks and not having a fixed center like in Acchan's era. One might think that was a mistake but AKB are still running with a million streak 5 years post-Acchan and I'd bet few people in 2012 would have predicted that. From my own point of view I think Mayuyu was a little hard done by, she should have gotten her shot at being the "face" of the group rather than one of 5 or 6 and had a solid 2 or 3 years of being center .

 

How do you know it's fake? It had her personal photos. Those photos were not taken from her public sns.

 

Ugh, go back to the old threads, it was debunked years ago, I don't feel the need to rake back over it in this thread.

 

1) That MV/song is still good to this day lol~ and 2) I always figured management hated her attitude. Fans always called her salty and hard to communicate with. She got a lot better near the end of her idol career, but u needed like 2 years to get use to her. She tried to even get into the fashion-world, but her style book was really not good imo (which I assume was suppose to grow her female-fanbase). Her idol career was still really good tho. She could have easily ended up somewhere like Yukari from Team A (just decent and relatively known).

 

It is.

Like this topic even needs its own thread when there are tons about aces, centers and whatnot.

 

paruru actually was one of ths rare kks that was ranked before she was pushed lol

 

The thing is that there are lots of threads on the whole center thing.

On absolute center:
http://stage48.net/forum/index.php?threads/will-there-be-another-absolute-center.6905/

Even talking about Mayu and Paruru:
http://stage48.net/forum/index.php?threads/mayuyu-as-center-and-paruru-as-next-acchan.5954/

To me this thread looks more like someone who posted something on tumblr but didn't get any likes to their so thought post and just wants to show it somewhere.

Plus, Paruru's ben gone for almost a year now, so...

 

Who is our current main ace girl in AKB anyways? I use to think Mion was leading up to that, but she's been pretty pushed back this year no?

 

One thing about the 1st message bothers me.

it explain a theory on how the decisons were made about Paruru's push, management side and the title start with "agency plot" but the whole post doesn't even mention the agencies role ??

One thing that could also explain why the Shimazaki push didn't work as expected compared to Acchan's might all be the agency.
You have to take into count that Acchan and pretty much all the golden girls then were signed in a powerfull agency and the resulting push was mostly due to the agencies doing.
on the other side, Paruru was signed in an agency who did not push for solo debut or something which gave a lot to her seniors. She mostly had to rely on the AKB management.

 

This is precisely the problem with AKB. Acchan leaves and they push Mayuyu as the new ace, but sasshi beats her in the election and the mayu push stops. Paruru gets pushed as the ace but then they dropped her for Sakura which made Paru loose momentum. Mion gets pushed a little then management stops pushing her the moment she ranks in senbatsu. Not even going to talk about Kojimako's push.

The inconsistent pushes aren't working in their favor at all and if management don't sort it out they will never have a face for the group again. A part of me thinks maybe they should just stop the "ace" thing and stick to a rotational center. No member has had a back to back center position since green flash, so maybe if they continued to do that but instead airdropped random (well, not that random lol) girls into the center each single, it would make fans more excited for each single because there is a chance of their oshi being picked. girls like renacchi, mako, yuiyui, hiwatan, seina, naachan, etc could all be centers for at least one single.

 

Sounds like a good idea actually. Could create hype for AKB. The girls would have to count on their own agencies to get work so as to remain relevant though since they can't count on getting exposure via AKB anymore.

 

It kinda makes sense, Paruru was supposed to be the next ace, but it did not work out so she became more like a "tomochin" successor. Her, Jurina and Sakura were supposed to lead the "next gen" but she wasn't able to mantain the level of her "rivals". But i don't think she's a fail, she was one of the most recognized and appreciated members by the public (and female fans) and she did good in sousenkyou reaching kami 7... I think the reals "fails" recently of new aces have been the Yuria and Rena duo, or probably Mion as it seems recently, but she has the chance to blow up so we'll see but surely we can already say that she's not gonna reach Paruru's success.