[GENERAL] THE HKT48 thread!

? I'm so puzzled

 

I wrote something akin to this on a couple other threads already.

Sashihara wrote in her book a few years ago that haven been in AKB48 where there was a very clear permanent senbatsu to the point of it not even worth bothering to announce it because everyone was always the same, while everyone who wasn't in that elite group... they just gave up to one extent or another. There was no point in their efforts.

She wanted to make HKT48 a group where everyone got a chance. Basically she didn't want anyone to graduate without having been in a senbatsu at least once....

It hasn't worked out that way. Instead, the list of permanent senbatsu members has kept growing and growing to the point where now... basically 14 of the same people are "guaranteed" to make it in every single time... Only 2 slots left for the other 34 girls in the entire group to be able to enter and only 2 singles a year. As a system, that totally sucks. What is the point of the other 34 girls even being in the company? Why not just have HKT be 16 people if that is all that ever matters or all that has ever or will ever get a chance. Naturally those who always, always, always get to be the spotlight and have all the attention become way more popular than the 34 background girls who you might see if you turn up to a theater or maybe see on a variety show when none of the top 16 can be around for it and is otherwise just a random dancing body in the background of concerts.

The whole system gets messed up. Unless one of the top girls quits or.... goes on a date with a member of Johnny's... no one else is ever going to beaten them in terms of popularity if never given a chance to shine.

Yeah, some others have gotten over-- by dropping one of the permanent members and then focusing 100% of the marketing on them and showing popular people going ape over them. They proved they can do that... they did it with Paru, they did it with Sakura, they did it with Hana... so you can create 1 mega superstar out of your new batch and the rest may as well be discarded.

The only solution for this is that maybe you have your top 3 or 5 or... maybe even 7 would be okay... and then the rest of the senbatsu should be girls who haven't gotten a chance yet. If someone at least gets featured once, there is a chance they could kind of compete with the top girls.

Now, it really hasn't been as bad as I am making it out to be. Because in the early singles there were less permanent members, truth is that most 1st and 2nd gens have been in an HKT48 senbatsu, in the very least on an AKB48 CD. There are only 7 left who have never been in the senbatsu of any big HKT48 song and nearly all of them are 3rd gen. (Ueno Haruka, Yamada Marina, Sakamoto Erena, Tsutsu Riko, Hokazono Hazuki, Yamauchi Yuna, and Murakawa Vivian)

There are 4 more who haven't been on an HKT48 CD A-side, but at least got one of those big songs on an AKB48 CD (Imada Mina, Kumazawa Serina, Fukagawa Maiko, and Ui Mashiro)

Of course, I am not counting the other 6 KKS that aren't in this because I don't think KKS should be in senbatsu regardless. (Unless you are in a position like NGT where half your members are KKS and they have been there as long as the "members")

The only way these remaining girls are ever going to get their chance to be in a senbatsu is if fans accept the idea that being in every single senbatsu after being in one is not automatic and being set aside to rotate in someone else is not a punishment or a vote of no confidence, its just giving someone else a turn.

It would have been much better had this been accepted as the way of doing it earlier because both the member and the fans see not automatically being in every senbatsu permanently as a grave insult and seem to suggest that there must be a reason, a grave transgression they committed rather than just saying "it's her turn now!"

 

^
You are talking about the mindset.
And mindset is something people can't adapt to in a short time.

That means either of 2 choice,
by the next single they returned to usual senbatsu locks with minor surprise, a safe choice with the established norm from fans.
Or, HKT do this move AGAIN, in succession, to further shake the common belief.

Both has implication of course. Good things it's management who must decide. We only discuss.

 

^Pretty much agree with above two posts. I heard the single is supposed to be for an Anime but why would the anime not use the normal senbatsu members? Either way management has stirred things up.

Why Sasshi center? It's more like why wasn't she center for all their singles. After all, she is the most popular member of all 48G. So their going to place Sasshi and other top HKT members as bait to lure fans into meeting the unknown next gen. Sad for Nako,Miku and others that they aren't popular enough to be 'bait' so gave their spots to push next gen. It's a blow that they lose their exposure but also a blow that management doesn't think they are important.

 

Who says the most popular member should be centre, by that reckoning Sasshi should be centre for every AKB song.

What this single does is stops girls like Natsu, Mado, Jinna from getting complacent.

 

Right. It was like that for years with Acchan and it was like that for Yuko. It used to be the purpose of SSK to decide who is center for the year. Sasshi should rightfully center in all singles in the year she wins just like it was for Acchan and Yuko, but they changed the rules once Sasshi took 1st.

As far as why they don't put Sasshi on all AKB singles is because she doesn't fit the Idol image they want. Also, Sasshi is a double edged sword - she can bring a lot of attention to whatever she is involved with, but that attention evaporates when Sasshi leaves.

As far as keeping Natsu, Jinna and Madoka in check, they are not high profile members to begin with. The danger is not complacency at where they are at, it is pessimism that they will never rise, hence give-up and quit.

 

No it wasn't. It was never that.

 

Well, I think the answer to why Sashihara is center is BECAUSE it is an anime song.

Sashihara's story is that because it is an anime song, she should be center because she is the most publicly known member of the group.
My theory is the truth is closer to the company requested the most popular AKB member be the main focus of the song for their movie and were kind of cool with whatever came along with that.

She wasn't supposed to be center of any HKT song until she graduated, but these are extenuating circumstances.

Moreover, Sashihara's ideal was to rotate everyone through the senbatsu, since they were going to make her center maybe she leveraged that to get a lot of 1st and 2nd time senbatsu members in. Although, as I noted, there are still 11 members awaiting their turn after this, so I don't know why 4 KKS are prioritized over Marina, Hazuki, Yuna, Mina, Erena, Serina and so on. But then-- does it really do anyone any good to have those 4 worst slots in the senbatsu? You don't really get seen on stage if it is performed on stage and you are lucky to be on screen for a total of 20 seconds during the entire music video.

Moreover, it is worth noting that this is WELL outside their normal release schedule. Typically they release a single in September (last year it was November instead) and then one single in March or April. In other words, typically 6 months between releases. But their last single hasn't even been out for a month and they announced another senbatsu!

Sure, that has happened with AKB48 before, but they release every 3 months or so. I don't think this single is being announced 5 months before it is released, so I think it is likely to drop around December and I don't think it will be 6 months before the next song-- there might be another one in April or May.

So this should be considered an extra single for HKT this year on top of the 2 they typically release during the year.

In fact, it may be replacing the usual song they get on the December or March released AKB48 CD (Wink wa Sankai, Hatsukoi Butterfly, Otonoa Ressha and Make Noise)... or it could just be a totally additional song beyond what they normally get.


This is something that I think a lot of people would agree with the ideal behind, but fans are naturally very short-sighted. There has been a massive fan backlash. And even the members who normally always get to be in the senbatsu have been crying about it. I mean, Aoi cries about everything, but... even Madoka, Natsumi, Miku and so on... all of them saying they don't know what they did wrong.

Sashihara sent out a tweet very soon after her first comment about the senbatsu saying that she feels the senbatsu is "perfect".

Murashige wrote a fanmail saying that while she is disappointed and feels foolish for having thought just ranking in meant she would return to the senbatsu, she totally gets that the point this time was to fill it with lots of first time girls and let Shimono come back and she was happy for them. I hope others sent out similar fan mail, but I only get hers.

Yesterday Ota Aika gave a speech on stage during the KIV theater explaining that this senbatsu was about letting the new girls get a chance and asking the fans to stop being angry about it.

 

Yeah, its the same list I came up with-- although I missed Shino somehow.
Also, though it wasn't an HKT48 CD, Imada Mina, Kumazawa Serina, Fukagawa Maiko, and Ui Mashiro have at least been in the "HKT48 senbatsu" that appeared on an AKB48 CD. Since AKB48 CDs tend to sell 4x as many copies as HKT48 ones, that's probably nearly as good as being in an HKT48 senbatsu that appears on an "HKT48" CD.

I'm not really sure why one overlooks Tsutsui, Yamauchi, Hokazono and Murakawa unless the point is that they didn't want to blow all their good senbatsu debuts all at once. As I wrote in my last post-- the bottom 4 in a senbatsu tend to just fade into the background anyway. It is easy to forget they were even there.

 

below

#Iiwake maybe -Acchan
river -Acchan
Sakura no Shiori -Acchan
Ponytail -Acchan

#Heavy rotation -yuko
Beginner -mixed
@Chance no junban
Sakura no ki -Acchan
Everyday katyusha -Acchan

#Flying get -Acchan
Kaze wa -Acchan
@Ue karaMariko
Give me five -Acchan
Manatsu no -Acchan

#Gingham Check -Yuko
Uza -Yuko
@Eien pressure
So long -Mayuyu
Sayonara crawl -Mayuyu Paruru

#Koi suru Fortune -Sasshi
Heart Electric -kojiharu
@Suzukakeno ki
Mae Shika Mukane -Yuko
Labrador Retriever -Mayuyu

I put @ on janken and #for SSK singles.

Everytime Acchan won she got all the centers for singles, but Yuko didn't get all the centers during her two times wining ssk, but she was very prominent in the videos she didn't center.

Compared to Sasshi's win, things really changed; every song is by someone different.

 

Don't ever become a lawyer because you've proved nothing.

 

"kimi ni deaeta kiseki
hikareatta kokoro
sougen ni kaze ga fuita
itoshii hito yo"
​

Congrats to HKT48 2nd generation for your 4th theater debut anniversary!!

Akiyoshi Yuka, Ito Raira, Inoue Yuriya, Iwahana Shino, Ui Mashiro
Ueno Haruka, Umemoto Izumi, Okada Kanna, Okamoto Naoko, Kusaba Manami
Kojina Yui, Goto Izumi, Komada Hiroka, Sakaguchi Riko, Tashima Meru
Tanaka Yuka, Tani Marika, Tomiyoshi Asuka, Tomonaga Mio, Fuchigami Mai, Yamada Marina​

 

Pick a card

Spoiler: Outcome

........

 

Has everyone really forgotten the reason why Sashihara is even in HKT?

Spoiler: Spoilered for length

She wasn't sent the group to dominate it and be the center of everything and raise her own position and profile in the company. She may have done that, given many of her words-- we can say inadvertently so-- but being sent to HKT to help get the girls of HKT over was her punishment, her alternative to retiring after it was revealed that she was using AKB48 as a means to score boyfriends. That she was sleeping with at least one fan.

The fact that Sashihara did that and then got to the top, as beneficently as she may have used her position and power, the fact that now one cannot say she wasn't right to do so and that others shouldn't do so... well, its something to be embarrassed about.

HKT was struggling at first. If Sashi and Ota never came... well, if they had kept Nakanishi and Tani, maybe they would have been okay. But there is also every reason to believe that none of them would have gotten quite so over had they not gotten Sashihara there to share her experience with them and give them guidance. Yeah, sometimes her ego has become a liability, but she has done at least twice as much good as harm.

Yet, part of this whole deal-- getting to stay within the company as half-member/half-staff rather than "graduating" as a shameful disgrace... a deal she cut which allowed her to ever become #1 in the first place... it was to get the girls she was sent to help over. She was never supposed to be center-- not in HKT in the very least. Maybe if she what she had done never came out or if she had never done it in the first place, if she had stayed in AKB48... who knows? Maybe she would have become center. But just as much reason to think without the excited horny fans and those who were sympathetic to her victim card being played hadn't power voted her, she never would have been #1. Not once, certainly not 3 times as she never would have been given all the opportunities that came with being #1 the first time (or all the TV time she got to explain her scandal come to think of it). Rather, her career arc would have been more like Kitahara's... until Kitahara was sent to NGT as that was clearly inspired by Sashihara's success with HKT.

Still, at the end of the day-- there is no reason to complain that Sashihara is not center. Really, either complain or be glad that she is even still allowed to be in the group at all. Because soon after her arrival, half a dozen HKT members were ejected for doing what she did... or rather... probably a lot LESS than she did. She got a double-standard played in her favor, one that sets a negative example for the entire group-- for which she is no doubt an example having reached the pinnacle.

And I think there is ample evidence that even SHE doesn't particularly disagree with that assessment. She has worked hard and done a lot with the opportunities she has been given, but that last bit of a burst she got to get all these opportunities... the way she got it was a bit crooked. And she freaked out when she saw the slightest bit of evidence that her littlest darlings in HKT might even ten towards acting like they would emulate what she has done. It makes her hypocritical in a sense, but at the same time-- it is because she shouldn't have been allowed to get away with what she got away with, as much more money the company might make if everyone did that... none of the member's parents want that for their daughters and it would be awful if members starting feeling forced to engage in that behavior lest they get left behind. The current trend towards everyone trying to top everyone in gravure to get a top spot is bad enough.

But its not like things would be any better if she were to quit over it or give up. Its far too late to do that anyway. So she is stuck behind a rock and a hard place. She can do what she can do to help her charges, she can work 4x as hard as everyone else and she can try to handle everything as unselfishly and magnanimously as she can. She can discourage others from emulating her bad behavior... as much as her success unfortunately suggests that really is the only way to the top. It is an impossible position to be in with no right answers.

On the other hand...

Now, look... IF this is an extra single on top of HKT's usual release schedule and the only reason Sashihara is center is because the anime company demanded the most popular member in the entire group be the main singer for the song that appears in their anime... that's fine, and that is what all signs point to. In fact, in that case Sashihara probably could have gone ahead and done this as a solo project an is instead choosing to share the spotlight with mostly a lot of girls who never got much of a taste of the spotlight. In which case, she should be praised for it all around and there need not be any complaints that one person or another isn't included.

So I would like to encourage everyone to consider it in that way.

She shouldn't be center in HKT because she is there to get everyone else over. She ends up being the center of attention whether she is the center in the song or not, so may as well give someone else what little spotlight is there to grant by being given the most lines in the song.

In this particular case, she probably could have released a solo song, but instead decided it was her duty to include the girls it is her responsibility to turn into stars in it as well.

And since she has been in this AKB48 system as the first crop of kenkyusei, she knows what parts of this system ruin the members and tear them down-- and so she does what she can to minimize it. Kenkyusei in HKT are not treated with the kind of disregard they are in most other groups, but are often hardly distinguishable from members... and she wants everyone to have a chance to be in the senbatsu because she knows what it means to get left out and feel there is no hope or reason to continue on.

Similarly, this is why of all the 48 groups, HKT has the least amount of division among themselves in terms of team or generation or anything else-- they are the most supportive, welcoming and familiar group. The one where, in the sousenkyo, every time anyone in the entire group had their name called, every single member leaped to their feet cheering and Sashihara gave each a hug on their way to the stage. That is not simply because they are from Kyushu, that is directly the result of Sashihara's influence. The result of her frustration of the things she felt AKB48 was doing wrong and her given the chance to change those things. AKB is the front elite group, SKE is the performance queens, NMB has the gravure girls and the comedians... but HKT48 is no longer the fresh little kids group, NGT has now taken that (with their own twist of genuine country girl charm), HKT48 is the nakama group where everyone is pals with everyone else.

That's why things are the way they are, they are the way they should be. I don't see any reason for anyone to complain about it if only they took a moment to consider all the factors and the bigger picture.

 

@rka Maybe we should open a short story thread?

 

I actually usually read all of the contents of SED's posts, the length is not what's discouraging. Halfway through I start feeling frustrated with the amount of assumptions masked as concrete facts. It's hard to differentiate personal opinion from facts, but there is usually very interesting content.