[GENERAL] The STU48 Thread

There's no hate, just obvious trolling because she's light years away from his fav.

You mean their great result?

Because they got two ranking girls with almost 35K votes between the both of them!

 

Just asking aloud (cause I don't have the answer), how many NGT48 girls graduated before the first team was made? Not sure if she could have prevented the graduations, but she might have done something, which is my point. An absent captain (or experienced member, for that matter) when the group is so young, when the experience is so novel, when girls don't know what to expect, some girls might not comprehend many things.

Nah. I won't say I like Naachan, I never understood fascination with tomboyish girls like Sae, Naachan or Kokoa, but to each their own.

 

I think I think its about time for Naachan to choose between cancelling her kennin and a full transfer tbh. Its not like its gonna affect her push since I dont think AKS will give her another AKB center anyways.

 

Idk how you can even call this great lel

According to wiki, NGT first gen made Team N3 only 6 months into their debut performance in the theater in January 10, 2017. And their first ever graduation member was Mizusawa Ayaka who graduated in March, 2017. (Though she announced it on December 30, 2016) So technically none to your question.

That's just a hypothetical situation that you think might happen. It is what it is now and there is no point and no reason in blaming Naachan for the recent grads. And if we go case by case, Hinako has been troublesome for the management since day 1 because of her words and it seemed she wasn't fitting quite well in STU anyways, it might be better for her and STU to part ways in this early stage.

 

http://akb48taimuzu.livedoor.biz/archives/53711628.html
STU girls should not to make a photo with other non-STU girls?

 

Yeah kinda old news tho but now Yura actually reaffirms this rule.

Seems like it has to do with different agency policy.

But then again popular members seems to get away with it.

 

if the video does not show watch the video here
Love this

hm... except Yumirin I don't remember any other photo with STU and nonSTU girls together...

 

That is pretty exclusive of them, part of AKB48G and also not? Does NMB48 have such a rule? I wonder how other group members feel when they meet with STU48 members.... ?

 

Huh? Mobame included?
Chihochan does take some photos with non STU girls though ...

Mostly Tsugumin and Kuchan though.

 

Two girls ranked?

Historically, SG only have one girl ranking in their first SSK (Sayanee, Sakura, Katomina).
So STU is winning.

 

But today’s SSK is a lot more competitive.

• Sayanee ranked 28th in 2011 with 8,697 votes.
• Sakura ranked 47th in 2012 with 6,635 votes.
• Katomina ranked 76th in 2016 with 13,571 votes.

And STU this year...

• Chiho at 99th with 14,537.
• Yumirin at 74th with 19,341.

So I think they’re doing just fine.

Apart from the extension in ranks, they also added tickets in the theatre editions in 2013, but still, even if you double Sayanee and Sakura first votes, the STU girls still got more.

It is a different time for the new SG indeed tho.

 

Just looking at the results is nice sure but comparing to other sister groups in their own history and context? How about we just focus a bit more on the STU group strategy itself this year.

Spoiler

Everyone knows that Yumirin should be ranking higher than 74th based on her push and popularity. Same can be said with the pushes that Hinachan and Fuuchan was getting. Even Kanon and Torochan was added last minute into the STU management push options but they were all no where to be seen even in the pre-lims. At this stage their goal was pretty realistic to at least get their names up there but that did not happen as well. (Except for Chiho)

We are hella lucky to have Chiho's community actually put in so much effort into promoting and organizing this SSK campaign for her. So we didn't look too ugly in the final result as a whole. And looking on the flip side, if Chiho's community can pull this result for her even at this stage, then what the other STU communities were doing? Either they were still inexperienced or took the SSK too lightly thus in the end did not prepare well enough. And I know for a fact that my Hinachan community was suffering from both of these issues.

Great? Don't even kid me here. All our pushes didn't generate the result that we were hoping to see, and for Chiho who didn't get too much of a push last year managed to rank in by herself was a pyrrhic victory at best for the group. It was a strategic failure by the management and also shown that the STU fans aren't much of a hardcore community yet where a lot of casuals still lingering on the edge.

Of course this year there was also the factor that the competition got more intense and hard to rank in as the minimum votes increased proportionally with the new sister groups participating. But then again, if Chiho's community could manage to get her in the prelims then I don't see no reason why the other popular STU member's community failed to do so in this area. Even if they don't rank in the end, at least it shows that the fan community made a strong push for them and could've still gotten out some glory left to praise about. So in this perspective I am very disappointed in general as a STU fan for this devastating result.

I think the management and perhaps not even one STU fan came out of that venue actually being happy or satisfied with the result that night. But we still do keep in mind to congratulate Yumirin and Chiho of their rank in for us. There is always next year, learn from the mistakes and we can only do better from last year.

===================================

Spoiler

On top of this, I was observing in the lanes of the two handshake events that I went to in my recent Japan trip, I find that STU lanes for the top 7 members are quite crowded. (At one point Hinachan's lane was so crowded it had 3 long swirls) So I asked a local STU fan who often went to the handshake lanes on "How come STU members lane are popular yet their votes is not impact enough?" He simply answered, "Many people loves to come to just shake their hands because they are all good at it but at the end of the day they won't vote for them. And it's just is right now". At that moment I came to the realization what people meant when they say that handshake sold outs does not convert to SSK votes.

 

I kid you not. I think it's a great result.

Spoiler

I doubt STU magically created new fans in the Setouchi area.
They were probably already fans of other 48G(irls) first and their best hope is that they oshihen and want to support their local group and local girls. They have to convice X, Y and Z to stop voting for X2, Y2 and Z2 and start voting for them. That's not an easy feat, and with just one single and a local tour in what is considered a mostly rural area of Japan, I don't think you can expect them to turn into NGT 2.0.

Also, we don't know how bad Fuuchan and Hinachan ended up.
For all we know they're 101st and 102nd, but I doubt we'll get those numbers this year.

But if you want to be bitter, well, be bitter?

¯\_༼ ಥ ‿ ಥ ༽_/¯

 

Hmmm I'm a bit disapointed.
I hope they didn't only started working on it from this month. I fear the theater won't open this summer, as anounced.

 

You know, we need to create an index to be able to compare votes between elections adjusted by inflation 28th in 2011 with 8697 votes might not sound impressive, but AKB48 was not the powerhouse it is now.

I can't say whether STU48 is doing very good or very bad, I wasn't that interested in HKT48 or NGT48 when they appeared to be able to compare them with STU48. All I know (objectively) is that they are 15 months old, got one single released, another coming up, perform at small venues, had 4 members graduated and 2 girls ranked in the top 100. Personally for the first multiple-prefecture group I'm disappointed at their performance.

 

For multiple prefectures (and with the theater boat not being in use yet) it can be a double edge sword. Sure there are 7 prefectures worth of potential local fans, but also that leasn only 1/7 the time is spent catering to a specific prefecture. Not to mention coming after HKT and NMB which sort of sandwich the area, there may be locals who already are invested in another group.

I'm not going to say if it's objectively good or bad to be in the current position because I'm not entirely sure. But there are a lot of factors to consider when deciding.

All I know is I'm at least happy somebody ranked in, it's better than nobody at all. I just want to look forward to the future and hope things keep going up.

 

My disappointment is also led by the fact that the group is so Hiroshima-centric, it could have been called HRS48. I'm sure they will continue with this model, some prefectures are just too small to have their own group, so I can understand why Hiroshima gets most of the pie, but they could have just built a theater there (or better, a theater in each of the areas and have enough members to circle around them had they covered 2 or 3 prefectures only).

 

I am just talking about that they did not meet their own objectives in this SSK regardless of how other XYZ group did in the past, and objectively speaking yes they did bad no matter how you look at it. I don't expect them to be another Keya or NGT but I what I care is how they are developing as STU by themselves.

And excuse me I am not bitter at all, I am just not merely satisfied and feel frustrated with the result but I don't plan on finding excuses to cover up for their loss or beautify it by comparing past numbers, that's just self-soothing lying to oneself. And don't get me wrong I am not beetching about it either but simply disagreeing as a STU fan to your comment on how "great" the SSK result they did on the surface.

Last but not least they did more than 1 single tour. And 4 out of the 7 prefectures is barely what you consider of being "rural Japan". Plus think about all the shows, CMs and working opportunities (collaborations/ special events / photo shoots / game app / tissue missions) they have been dishing out the past year, without a doubt STU has put so much investment in them that you can't even complain about, and yet their return for this year wasn't as they hoped or at the very least went to according as planned so there is really no excuse to bring out the "no theater boat", "no constant captain position", "new sister group" arguments to cover up for them.

They literally did everything they can but the result just didn't fell through and I am okay with that. This is the reality that I come to accept. But then I refuse and will never call this result "great".

 

Technically they could have members at 7 (or 8 counting the boat) different theaters if they either use smaller groups or just recruit a whole bunch more members lol

...I'm not saying that's particularly ideal obviously but even so it's obviously something they could potentially consider, down the road.

Anyway, I actually did some googling on the 7 prefectures' populations... It's just from Wikipedia so it may be outdated/incorrect but the numbers I got were:

Ehime 1,360,507
Kagawa 974,052
Tokushima 751,969
Hyogo 5,582,978
Hiroshima 2,857,990
Okayama 1,906,464
Yamaguchi 1,377,631

That would bring the total Setouchi total to 14,811,591.

Put into perspective, take this information on Tokyo's population:
"The 23 wards claim a population of 9.2 million, but the metropolis has a population that exceeds 13 million. The greater Tokyo metropolitan area, which is spread over 3 prefectures, is much larger and has a population that is estimated to be over 36 million." (source)

So it's comparable to the Tokyo metropolis, however it's much more spread out.

I guess to someone like me, everywhere in the Setouchi region is super rural, but I live in NYC so that's not saying anything. I'm not super familiar with the areas and I didn't bother looking up the population densities specifically yet though.