Single AKB48 44th [Tsubasa wa Iranai] (2016/06/01)

do you know which country the PV was shot in? i could probably go to the SNH forum and figure it out...but i've been in Africa so i would love to know which country.

@Silenka maybe management is trying so hard to divert everyone's attention to the sister/international/rival groups lol. seeing how long the wotas will hold on.

 

Told you "subject to rounding" once again, and another one of those "rounded near but actual value is slightly lower"...

 

I'm not sure what you mean lol
1.4407 will always be rounded to 1.441, that's just normal rounding taking place

 

Probably - GONE forever. I figure it went down like this - As AKB48 became more popular & the girls became more popular for being AKB48 - it dawned on "some of them" that they were 'established enough' that they DIDN'T HAVE TO submit themselves to the rigorous act of dancing in a bikini, in the HOT sun, on a fun beach, and exploit their bodies for AKS's Money-Grab... realizing they get paid the same either way. The "Established" girls are tired - yes, I said TIRED. They paid their dues & now they just want it their way....and I suspect people like AKI-P was like "ehhh- who cares. Wota's are Idiots they'll buy it anyway"- Why Prostitute themselves?... I'm guessing that's how it went down.

But something else more cruel & cunning is going on & it's CHOKING AKB and I personally think it's TOO Late to save them.

Spoiler

In a Nut-shell - How did AKB48 get popular? What kept the lights on in those 'early days'??? was the Music THAT GOOD? was is the Dancing?....Nah, it was the Otaku-class (Extreme WOTA's)- You know the average 2Chan guy- who crushes on these Hot Nubile Idols- We see it time & again- w/ the KKS & With HKT48 (to some degree w/ Team 8) and now NGT - Guys like the Young Fresh inexperienced (at FIRST!) Idols - those Diamonds in the Rough. When AKB was just starting girls like KojiHaru were 17-18? remember how young & fresh Yukirin & Mayu were?- that was a rush for some people. Japan does love to "Idolize" Youth. A Bikini exhibition was the prime result of that...But now ALL the Ruling Girls (anyone 9th Gen & Older) don't "Feel the Need" to show-off for your attention... See??

ALL the Fresh new FUN girls can't do anything w/out it upstaging the Sempai "Older Sister" Class...and it's killing AKB48. That "Otaku class" (the Perv types) the WOTA's will simply move on to a girl/product/team/group that "suits their fan style" & it's going to leave the Younger Girls in AKB48 with Nothing.

Imagine HYPOTHETICALLY if the Summer Single was: KojiMako, Mio T, Sakura, Okada, Yuria Kazaki, Saho, Nagisa, Juri, & Ikumin in Bikini's and the Older gens in NGZK46 style Conservative clothing during ANY AKB Single....How Long would it take for Popularity to SHIFT & for Comparisons to happen? The New girls (many of them) could over-take AKB in less than a year! Why don't they? Because they'd make Older AKB girls- LOOK "Older by comparison" (let us say). Remember Dancing?? Now we have songs w/ benches for Sitting!! God forbid the girls actually "sweat" the way KPOP girls do for 1 song! Every MomoClo song looks exhausting.

You'll never have another Bikini Single- because AKB already "used up" their 'Fan Service' audience - now, they're established & those Pervy dudes who fanned the Flames into Stardom are DISCARDED & thrown away for "Better Upscale" fans....but for How Long? The New Girls can't break thru because the "Wota class" that would've voted for them are dwindling or moved on. Sure a Bikini single was "excusable" when you're trying to get attention but like every "hot girl" who lands the Big Catch of a Guy, she's gets compfy & lazy! She puts on sweat pants & starts wearing 'Mom Jeans' and tells you not to hang out w/ the guys & stop being such a perv. (*remember when people joked about how KojiHaru couldn't even bother move her lips in "KNP" 1st TV Live). What are some "fans" doing? Checking out AKB's younger sisters - trying to get that "Idol Rush" of Youth again??

One by One male Wota's are waking up going "what happened to the Hot 17-19 year old singing about Love & Sun?" in a Cute Bikini??...she's now a Progressive chick singing about Protests from the 1970's (before she was BORN!).

This is just 1 way to look at it. Just 1 opinion.

The Question is- Which of these Two types of Women are the Face & Ruling Class of AKB48

"Where have all these flowers gone, Long time Passing. Where have all the Flowers gone? long time ago.... I might just take this song & edit previous Bikini Vids & Gravure/Modeling vids of AKB48 girls & say HERE's the FINAL Summer Single!

Spoiler

if the video does not show watch the video here

Where have all the WOTA's gone? Long time passing- Where have all the WOTA's gone, Gone new groups everyone....when will they ever learn...

*** I still Laugh even now when I remember reading in this thread - "No one should be THIS Thirsty for a Bikini Single!"...lol. I will treasure that comment always.

 

Whether or not your theory is correct, that's a nice analysis.
While I don't see myself as a hard-core 48/46 fan, I (unconsciously, perhaps) have an apparently similar sentiment. In the Kimi wa Melody single, for example, I was actually rooting more for the Next Gen song (LALALALA Message) rather than the A-side. Why? I guess the simple answer would be that they sound and look "fresh".

 

I'll concede that there is intended fanservice from management (especially in the beginning), this is Japan we are talking about. Although, I don't feel there is anything "wrong" with bikini singles either, even if they do show skin and act cute on a beach, there's gravure if you want to see a more mature side to them. The summer single was the fun single, but it's obvious that AKB is trying to appeal differently now, they want to show some diversity in their approach and it is pretty noticeable that some of the older members do start to tone down and get more comfortable as time moves on.

NMB probably had the most beach fanservice anyway, when they had Sayanee, Nana, and Milky at the front, lol.

 

I agree with that comment though. No one should be.

Anyway, I don't think the bikini single is gone forever.
It's simply one of the things management changed a bit so the releases weren't as predictable.

For years it was always "sakura ballad - bikini fun - triumphant ssk single - cool/dark song - janken christmasy crap" and while it worked, people can get bored of it.
In the last couple of years, they dropped the janken senbatsu, they changed the fall single theme, they forgot about the usual sakura theme and so on. It goes into their shaking up things narrative to drop the bikini single for a while.

You say the girls are TIRED (IN CAPITAL LETTERS).
I say the girls have literally no say in what they do while they're in the group. If management wants a bikini single, you can bet that Yukirin will prance around in a bikini as she's told to.
If a member doesn't want to, they can always refuse to appear in senbatsu like Annin did with BwT (and Milky with TwI).

If management felt that they used up their fan-service, we wouldn't be seeing so many PBs popping up these days (I think more PBs have been released in the last few months than in the last entire year), so it's not really about girls not wanting to put on a bikini in front of the camera, it's just that management wants to try new things.

Pervy wotas were not the ones who made AKB's popularity explode. Handshakes did.
Their first #1 was RIVER and I don't remember bikinis in that one.
Their next single (Sakura no Shiori) doubled RIVER's sales (from 178k first week to 317k). What were they wearing in that PV? KIMONOS.
So no, don't say that it was the bouncing boobs were what kept AKB going because it's not like that.

You ask "was the Music THAT GOOD?" and I answer you that YES, it was. And it still is.

To be honest, I can see them going back to the whole bikini thing next year.
If Mayu/Yukirin/Sayanee/Paruru/Kojiharu and god knows who else are sitting out of the election, they will need to showcase the new gens in all their splendour.

 

BIKINI wa iranai

 

great post here (why do we not have an applause emoticon listed?)

It is one thing to be crass and cynical about facets of AKB's success and quite another to attribute that success entirely to showing skin. Lots of things made AKB successful but the fact is that people are attracted to idol groups for things other than bikini MVs, and AKB's whole success certainly doesn't ride on how little the girls are wearing. Old timers who have followed the group since day 1 often say that AKB was "successful" in a normal sense long before the kind of success we're seeing now - which means long before bikini MVs became a norm for the group - regardless of management's dramatized narrative of AKB's early days.

Also no, the girls have little to no say in what they do since most of them do not have a direct line to Aki-P/the rest of management (the known exceptions to this are Takamina for AKB and Sasshi for HKT, and one of them is gone now). However, many of the girls do have personal managers from the talent agencies they're signed to who may dictate terms with AKB management on certain issues.

Music being good is of course subjective. I think most of us here generally enjoy AKB's music (even if most of us can recognize that it's not really full of talent). When AKB has a "good song" that gets public notice and acceptance like Oogoe diamond or Koi suru fortune cookie, of course that helps out in promoting AKB and probably individual members as well by keeping AKB in the forefront of public consciousness. But aside from public-facing cases like those, the music is merely a vehicle to sell the girls' faces and names in the CDs and MVs and is thus not neccessarily written to be good or innovative, but rather to be extremely catchy and stay in your head long after you've listened to it. Addiction is the keyword here - AKB tries to get you addicted to the experience, the music, and the drama. That is what ultimately makes the group successful and causes people to spend half their year's salary on voting in the election.

 

Is bikini single so important ? I like how mngmnt try something new actually., did akb rise up because the bikini type ? In the beginning era did the fans allways waiting for the bikini style ? Does member allways have to show their skin and other ? Somoene who say "akb's song now is boring without the beach and bikini, i think i will stop following them " seriously just for beach mv?
I think mngmnt really think hard now how to survive and rise akb again, they tried their best even many fans don't like the idea
I miss the beach song too, not because the bikini's but because the happy and fun feelings

 

Except for when they're releasing a solo photobook.

Nogi's attitude to gravy is a bit hypocritical, most of the time they take a snooty attitude to bikini gravy as if it's something that only the "lower classes" in AKB do but then they're quick enough to whip out the cleavage when there's a solo photobook to be flogged.

 

They're idols, from a country (more so) that isn't offended by promoting sexual or physical beauty, although they outsell many other models and idols who probably would depend on it.

There's a reason AKB and anything of that sort could never exist here. It's not important to their success, but it certainly adds appeal in some ways, if not increase a fan's loyalty I would guess?

I think it's normal and probably a bit gender-based in it's implementation (to some degree), but it's not bad as some people make it out to be. They're idols, which means they will do whatever it takes to be "idolized" by their fans. Everyone gets to like a member in a different way, there are choices.

 

AKB was successful when they were just another underground idol group as well, but since the management are vocal about stuff like not wanting to lose their sponsors I guess they're not really trying to go back in that direction completely even if they are declining (and the sky is falling oh no!~) hence why they do stuff like revive the old kami7 for the last single, pimp takamina as long as possible and vouch for the gradual transition to newer members rather than the drastic shift in senbatsu that fans here would prefer.

The bikini single discussion has been informative to me since I always saw it just being about... what summer is about! Freedom, fun, friends, running into the shower fully clothed screaming and dancing in slow motion because a ferocious chihuahua barked at you (Ponyshu reference) Just being having fun and being a girl and being cheeky, and even being a tease because that's part of being a young girl too and it's normal, I don't think it's dirty or anything.
Since people view it slightly negative though talking about pervs and whatnot, maybe that could be why they took a break from it from the mothership singles since I guess AKB wants their mainstream image to be marketable. Nogi's image the most marketable and stylish atm, even if they do the same routine with a different pretense.

And as usual I'm putting disclaimers before anyone has a temper tantrum- yes this is obviously just my thoughts and assumptions. I'm not trying to be an expert on anything~

As for the single itself, I actually didn't mind the PV, the story was sweet, normal fluff. Overall this is a hole in AKB's discography for me. Still far above the likes of So Long and Kokoro no Placard though.

 

Yea that's really the point with me too, while I enjoy bikini pv's a lot, it's actually the type of song that comes with those older summer singles that is the most important part. That summer sound has been synonymous with a bikini pv, which is why I call it a bikini single. Tbh I only watch pv's maybe 10 times and then I don't watch them anymore so it's not that big of a deal if they're in bikinis or school uniforms or whatever, but that style of song is what I've missed the most for the last two years. It's summer, I want to have a fun upbeat single to listen to all summer long, and the last one was 3 years ago.

And for me, this is still the worst single they've released in ages, I tried listening to it more and more but I just can't like it. The last time really I didn't like an a-side was so long, so it breaks a 4 year streak for me. Still, I'm hoping for a really good ssk single.

 

A lot of great posts about the whole "bikini single" subject, so I'm just adding a larger perspective.

I don't think gravure is "essencial" for the success of idols. Considering the whole idol world I think this is obvious (Just look at Momoiro Clover Z, for example). But it does play an important role sometimes, especially on the last years for AKB Group, in my opinion (A lot of gravure/PBs coming out lately). Some members like Miion, Keicchi etc. gained a lot of attention with this and groups like Kamen Joshi are heavily sustained by gravure. But, like it was already said, this doesn't create the success of a group (or a member) whatsoever. Nobody it's gonna spend tons of money on Sousenkyo because a member has large boobs Taking Miion as example, she is extremely charismatic and an awesome performer.

This can be pretty tricky sometimes, indeed (Anyone remembers what happened with Ami and the whole "I don't like gravure but I'm doing this for the sake of the group" thing?), and I think a lot of members just do it because is "part of their job". But considering names like Takamina and Miorin (Plus Annin and Milky not wanting to join Senbatsu, like it was already mentioned) I think it's possible to say they do have some kind of voice in all this. And let's not forget some members openly stated they like doing gravure. Of course we can discuss how much pressure is put on them etc. etc., but please don't start with the old "omg AKB has pervy fans" talk.

And yes, music is important for idols. AKB48 is known for great songs like Iiwake Maybe and Heavy Rotation, for example. Koi Suru Fortune Cookie didn't sold a bunch of extra copies (compared with other singles) for no reason.

 

See...this is nice. I don't feel so "alone" anymore - Valid points all of them. The WOTA Era - the Otaku era I was referring to was that time when it was like more than 50% Otaku types going to the Theater several times a month & buy up the Merch & handshakes ect. If you watch "AKB48 the Secret Past Untold Story" where Mariko Shinoda takes you on a tour of the AKB theater. The show is about those early years (like Pre-"River" and such) and they have have actresses play Itano, Acchan, & others - they do drama reenactments of Togasaki & Aki-P brainstorming about how to excite the meager crowds at the theater. It's REALLY Good.

The BEST Bit AKBingo had (in the Early Days) they really should bring back!!

Spoiler

The REALLY early days of "AKBingo" where the girls did things like "Moe Cosplay Battles" - where they'd sit 5 relatively "older" guys on a panel w/ flashing red lights on their head & the girls would cosplay as a sexy or Moe character and attempt to "Turn on" or Moe crush ALL 5 guys (make their lights flash)- If they lost they had to have a 5 minute "speed date" w/ a creepy perv who grossed the girl out on purpose (make her squeal in disgust)- it was CLASSIC.

This is what an episode was like http://www.show48.com/akbingo-ep-12/ It's got Aachan & a super-young Jurina. Here's some clips of girls getting "punished" for Losing

Spoiler

if the video does not show watch the video here

It was too funny. I have a bunch of these subbed from before youtube killed them all.

Other "weird stunts" & sexy gimmicks AKB48 tried. You got a pair of AKB48 Panties (NOT Used!) if you bought their calendar (2012?) http://www.tokyokinky.com/akb48-2013-calendar-akb-idol-panties/

AKB48 offered a special fan club in 2011 where you could merge your picture w/ the Oshi of your choice & see what your Baby (offspring) would look like- Because who doesn't want Yuko to have their baby? NO, this is real - Not Joking! http://www.japantoday.com/category/...-akb48-member-what-would-your-child-look-like

The Infamous Glico candy Ad that had the girls passing candy Mouth to Mouth which implied Lesbianism somehow - ever wanted to see Yuko kiss Mariko? Mayu kiss Sasshi? here's the TV ads

Spoiler

if the video does not show watch the video here

"Heavy Rotation" alone was (IS) the Sexiest thing they've ever done - can you even imagine Team 4 girls doing something even 1/2 as risque? NOPE. This is just 3 examples of AKB's early WOTA/Otaku friendly past - AKB48 used to be FEARLESS when it came to "testing How Sexy" Idols could go in terms of Image. Beloved Acchan, Yuko, Mayu, & Mariko were at the heart of most of this - I'm sure it's probably "embarrassing" now- but hey, it got them "noticed" & kept people talking about them in a "What will AKB do next?" type of way.

Now we can't even get them to wear simple Bikini's on a beach?? Are they ashamed? They used to Milk & Pander to the Idol Otaku/2chan type & were masterful - The money made off the election alone is proof of that. They don't do Crazy Fun stuff like this anymore.... That's where I'm coming from. I didn't just wake up & say "Bikinis" - the AKB that knew in 2012 knew how to have fun & wasn't afraid to be sexy and Otaku/WOTA friendly. But I guess those days are gone.

Someone commented about the "music" - Yes, the music good. I would argue that some of the "STAGES" songs (like Pajama drive, Night Butterfly, Tsundere, Cherry Boy, Candy Candy, ect ) are better & more memorable than the A-Sides. We can all agree it was a Mixture of things - I really just wander why AKB is so above scratching the back of it's 1st (original Wotas) or do they just think their above such displays....Either way it's Out of Our hands.

I think we all bonded a little over this song- lol Maybe this Election will usher in a NEW Beginning & we can all laugh about the Drought of Semi-Average songs from the "2014-2016" Era - lol

 

@Slacker13 decide what story you're trying to tell.

Because there's a difference between "AKB got popular because of the bikinis" and "AKB has done risqué stuff before".
Most of the stuff you link to are things they did ONCE THEY GOT POPULAR and not before.

Btw, they keep doing the whole moe thing in AKBingo.
And the girls keep kissing each other at every chance they get (Renacchi isn't the Kiss Monster for no reason). Just because there's no CM showcasing it doesn't mean it's not happening lol

Heavy Rotation is EARLY HISTORY in AKB?
C'mon now...

 

You're not following the "cause & effect" - it's all there. Really FAST.....
1. Early days - back when ONLY the creepy otakus were the only one's going repeatedly in small droves to the theater - THEY are Originals...
2. NEXT AKB slowly goes from "curiosity" to TV ect & the fan base widens and then they did more "Stuff" that was "Attention getting"... still in the spirit of "pushing the envelope" & gain more 'attention'
3. Examples of some things they've done during the Acchan days
4. Acchan leaves & Yuko takes over (sorta) and AKB kinda tones down but still has Bikini singles & is generally Otaku friendly (still)
5. 2014(ish) on...Trying to be more "Family Oriented" and not really doing anything 'Risque' anymore.

The original opinion as ALWAYS been - why no bikini single? then I explained in numerous ways how they often went (and succeeded!) for the 'low hanging fruit' and made $$ Press & sales. They USED to pander to the "Originals" - now they don't even try - I gave examples. You wanna play "tit-for-tat" PM me. An Opinion is an Opinion.

I thought Newer People might find those earlier gimmicks "Amusing"- to see what AKB used to do.
I wonder if ALL the Scandals (like the Geesh head shave) made AKB48 gun shy about getting "bad press"- it's one thing to be called out for being "too sexy" but another for being "Shamed" over a scandal.