Maeda Atsuko (Acchan) / 1st Generation

I don't really get why they would have to live separately during this pandemic when you can live with family during this time still (and as far as I remember). But it does sound better than the other option here is that they separately seriously lol.

 

I really don't know what his job is tbh lolol. I just realized that. I just sort of assume her partner is an actor too.

But seriously I love that pic with Kojiharu and Mariko~~

 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ACCHAN Today Acchan turned 29 years old! Time goes so fast, it's been now 8 years since she graduated from AKB48, and she's been an actress for longer than she's been an idol! wow. I'm so happy that Acchan has a long and successful career after being idol. She was amazing as idol and people still love and discuss her past as idol all the time (especially japanese people, I see the nostalgia everywhere online, and so much love for Acchan!), and now she is a successful actress, and also a mother! So much happened. I'm really happy that this year Acchan had new movies and dramas, I hope that she will always have many opportunities and success! I always love seeing her act, and I love her acting projects

I read about her new role in the drama, congrats Acchan! it looks like this will be a 1-episode drama? The story and cast are very good! if you remember, Acchan already worked together with Hideo Nakata for the horror movie The Complex in 2013. So she's working with him again now! and this time Aki-P is also involved, haha. I love that Aki-P is working in a drama with Acchan. I know he always cares about her, he's like a second father ^^ I can't wait to watch this drama! Btw, there is an official Twitter for the drama, and they posted a photo of Acchan earlier, for her birthday! SHE'S SO PRETTY They wrote happy birthday, they said that the photo is during the shooting and that her smile softened the atmosphere, and they wish her a wonderful year! She really has the cutest smile, always beautiful ;w; I'm really happy to be her fan and she always cheer me up... Thank you Acchan, and I wish you all the happiness!

 

Recently, I watched the movie To The Ends Of The Earth (Tabi no Owari Sekai no Hajimari)! I'm very happy that I could watch this movie. For those who don't know, this a movie of 2019 where Acchan is the lead role, it had a lot of promotions and good response last year, they went to festivals in Europe etc. The story happens in Uzbekistan. I absolutely loved the movie!

Before giving details of my opinion, I wanted to say, even though I mentioned it before in this thread, but I forgot that Acchan already worked with the director Kurosawa Kiyoshi before. However while watching the movie, the style looked familiar, some of the scenes (all the running scenes etc.) it reminded me of Seventh Code movie! And after checking now, indeed he was the director for Seventh Code and for Before We Vanish as well, so Acchan worked with him 3 times. as for the cast of the movie, there is Emoto Tokio who was in Q10 with Acchan, they are still friends now! and the cast also has Sometani Shota, Acchan played with him as his girlfriend in Kabukicho Love Hotel! So Acchan worked with the director and actors before.

Back to the movie, I really really liked it. I totally recommend this movie to any Acchan fan, if you like the type of movies that Acchan usually does, then you'll like this! Besides, she's in every single scene of the movie, truly a lead role, haha. Also, now I finally understood why during promotion, they talked about the ferris wheel scene... My full opinion is under spoiler, this will be very long, and please only read it if you saw the movie already, because I talk about every scene LOL this is full of spoilers.

Spoiler

Acchan plays the role of Yoko in this movie, she's a reporter who's in Uzbekistan with her television crew. From the start they have a hard time to film good content, they went to fish but it didn't work, so they went to taste local food but they couldn't get food that was cooked on time so Yoko had to eat the food that wasn't cooked and pretend that it's good. The role of Yoko seems to be someone who really tries her best with her job, she's ready to do anything, but at the same time she doesn't seem truly happy.

Then the ferris wheel scene, actually this was kinda difficult for me to watch, and the fact that Yoko did it 3 times and it looked dangerous, she literally moved all over the place, while seeing the movie I thought not only the role of Yoko is amazing, but Acchan herself is brave for doing it so many times... and actually after I finished the movie, I also watched the making, which was around 1 hour long. and as expected for this scene it was very difficult, you can say Acchan's reactions in the movie are not different from her reactions in real... She actually tried it once before filming and she looked scared, after that they did it 3 times for the movie, if I remember well it was also done in a row. Once she finished, she actually cried ;_; it was really scary and stressful for her. Honestly while seeing the movie, you can see how far Yoko can go for her job as reporter, but while seeing the making, I can see how far Acchan can go for her job as actress, she's amazing.

Something else about this scene, in the movie, they show that after she finish riding the ferris wheel, she is all disoriented, and later they make her sit on the ferris wheel again and do a "fake" ending reaction where she's like "wow this was an experience!" or something like this. Just like with the food when she ate it when it wasn't cooked, she pretended that it tastes good, this just shows how reports can be faked like this.

Like I said above, the movie had a lot of running scenes and scenes in the streets etc. I was surprised that Yoko went so far just to buy herself food, and went back home so late in the dark, empty streets, like I wouldn't do all this to get food, there has to be easier ways haha but those moments were interesting, you could see the country and other things.

The whole story with the goat, I feel like this had a meaning for Yoko, how much she wanted the goat to be free, maybe it's a feeling that she had for herself too. I like the moment when they let the goat free. also the scene when Yoko goes to the theater, it's a beautiful place. and Acchan started singing there, it was a really nice scene... Yoko's actual dream is to be a singer and not a reporter. She talks about it in another scene and she plans to try singing once she's back to Japan. The song she sings is Hymn to Love.

Later the moment when Yoko separated from her crew and start recording everything on her own, again I think it shows that Yoko wants freedom, she looked happy recording all the things she saw, until the security stopped her and then run after her. The moment where she hides under the bridge and then the police officer finds her, it actually startled me haha. After they caught her, the police officer asked her why she ran away, although she did nothing wrong, she was just scared and cried, probably because she didn't understand what they said (the whole movie has people talking in uzbek), but they told her that she doesn't have to be scared of them and they only wanted to talk, and by talking they would learn to know each other and she wouldn't be scared of them for being different. I liked this scene.

After that, Yoko learns that her boyfriend might have died in Japan, Acchan's acting was really good here. Later she finds out that her boyfriend is alive, and she was relieved. Through the movie it feels that the only person who Yoko is close with is her boyfriend, we only see her talking to him through text messages and she looks happy and caring when talking to him, so when she was scared that he died, she looked lifeless, but once she found out that he's still alive, it was like she was back to living.

The movie ends with Yoko and the television crew going to the nature to record more, and during a break, Yoko goes somewhere on her own and starts singing Hymn to Love, for longer this time, this scene was really beautiful and touching. it left an impression/impact on me. I think she could sing it so well this time because she understood the meaning of the lyrics, after almost losing the one she loves, her boyfriend, she could understand love and that's why she sings it so well, and the scenery around her looks beautiful. it's a very good scene and I can see why it was discussed a lot during the promotion of the movie, along with the ferris wheel scene, these were strong moments... Acchan's singing sounds beautiful. in the making, I saw how many times she recorded this scene, she did very well... it was a perfect way to finish the movie.

So as you can see I had a lot of things to say about the movie, haha. I absolutely love it and I recommend it to everyone! Acchan did great in this role and I'm very happy that the director choose her to portray the role of Yoko, it suits her perfectly. I also really liked that it was in Uzbekistan, it's different and unique. I'll share some photos:



The last photos are from the making! The photo of the woman kissing Acchan is during the making of the movie, this moment is really adorable, the woman kissed Acchan many times and Acchan was laughing a lot, it was so cute haha.

 

Some days ago on 19th July, Miichan made a tweet where she says that she had lunch with Acchan along with Tomochin and Kawasaki Nozomi (who's also AKB 1st gen). Acchan's son and Nozomi's son were also there! Miichan posted a photo. Nozomi also made a blog post, and there are photos of Acchan playing with Nozomi's son. As for Acchan's son, he is hidden in every photo, but you can see Acchan holding him, and in the blog post, Nozomi has pics where she plays with Acchan's son! She called him "Acchan BOY" haha

The photos! The last one is from Tomochin's IG Story!



it's so nice to see Acchan having fun with other former AKB members, including ones who have kids, just like her. They all look so cute and happy on all the photos! and if you noticed it, Acchan's hair is short on the photos? and today she updated her IG with a photo, she talks about turning 29 years old and about her new drama. I don't think she talks about her hair but she used an emoticon of scissor so I think she really cut her hair short! it's been a long time since she had her hair this short (last time was when she did Hana Kimi? LOL) it looks cute!

 

omg i got so nostalgic, 1st gen

 

Yes, it's great to see that Acchan still meets with other graduated members quite often, it was also posted here earlier that she met Mariko and Kojiharu not long ago! and one thing that made me happy and wasn't posted here yet, back in June, AKB released a new song and music video called Hanareteitemo, it means "Even When Apart" and it's a song about the current pandemic, it's a charity single released digitally. when it was released I was so surprised to see that Acchan and other graduated members participated! Seeing Acchan in a song of AKB again, it's been long! I think the last time was Kimi wa Melody in 2016? and it's also been a long time since we heard Acchan singing... I recognize her voice in the song right away ;_;


if the video does not show watch the video here

it's such a nice song. The lyrics too (the video has english subtitles). I'm glad that Acchan participated with this, and all other graduated members too, it made me happy to see them all again! also, newspapers reported this news about the song and music video! Along with photos, it said that Kami 7 returned for the song etc. (of course without Mayuyu, who retired ._.) there is Acchan, Yuko, Kojiharu, Takamina, Tomochin, Mariko, Sasshi and Sayanee! Although I'm late in posting this here but I really wanted to share it in Acchan's thread :3

 

Oh I know very well that it's not new and has been discussed. I mentioned that it's from June, and that I'm posting it late but that I still want it to be here in Acchan's thread since this is relevant news for her. if someone doesn't follow Acchan and decide to check what she's been doing, it's good if this thread is more or less complete with her news. I'm just doing my own thing here posting about Acchan updates, and yes I don't read the graduated members thread or other threads, I barely read threads in this forum and Acchan's thread is one of the only ones I still come to... So there isn't really a need to tell me that something has been discussed somewhere else before, I only post it here because it's about Acchan. I post new things, I post old things, sometimes very old (like throwbacks to her idol times)... I don't think it's an issue at all, honestly. I'm just glad to have a thread to post anything about Acchan.

 

2020/03/21 Ariyoshi no Okane Hakken Totsugeki! Kaneo-kun - Acchan parts



I recently uploaded this, it's Acchan's parts in the show with Ariyoshi from March this year! I posted some cuts back in March but this is her full cuts. Acchan is so cute here, they tried to guess answers of a survey (and Acchan wrote the right answers LOL), they also looked at unique items like squeeze toys that look like food, and special backpacks that are expensive.

 

Back on 3rd April, Acchan appeared on a show called "Tamashii no Takibi", I posted the preview, but I couldn't post the show since Dailymotion didn't let me upload the video. However I found the show on chinese sites, you can watch it here on bilibili or here on weibo! The show is 29 minutes long, Acchan is with Katsumura Masanobu and Furuichi Noritoshi. They talked together on a rooftop, around an open fire! I watched it a while ago but honestly I didn't understand the discussion XD it was a nice show though, relaxing with the fire, the scenery that they show here and there look very nice. Here are some screenshots taken from here (you can also find gifs there) Acchan looks so pretty, her smile





Some recent news! Around 3 days ago, ex-Morning Musume member Fujimoto Miki made a post on IG where she says that she had lunch with Mariko and with Acchan that she called as "Maeda Acchan" haha cute! After that she said "Kami 7!! (laugh)". This is very nice, I think they became close because all 3 are mothers (she mentions new encounter with children), it's sweet how ex-AKB and ex-Morning Musume moms get close. The post has a photo but it's only with Miki and Mariko, I guess Acchan didn't want to appear in it for some reason haha.



Another news that made me very happy today, Paruru was guest on the show Downtown Now, and during the show, she received a video message from Acchan! They are both members who have been my oshimen, this was unexpected to me and I love it! You can watch the video here.

First of all, you can have a better look at Acchan's new hairstyle now! Her hair is very short, but I like the haircut. I think it's a nice change, it suits her and her age, and somehow she managed to look youthful even with very short haircut haha she's so pretty and cute! if I choose I still prefer long hair though but Acchan looks cute with any haircut! Actually my most favorite is when she has "bob" hairstyle (right above shoulder), like her "signature" hairstyle during AKB days. But a little longer than shoulder is pretty too. or nevermind... I searched "Maeda Atsuko hairstyle" on google and I love all of the different hairstyles that she ever tried XD She looks so pretty. Some screenshots taken from this account:



Now for what Acchan said, it was translated on Twitter by "JurinaPuns":

Q: Do you get along with Paruru?
Acchan: I've known her for 10 years, she's the junior I get along with the best

Q: She started a YouTube channel
Acchan: I was surprised! She didn't tell me about it.

Q: Did you know she likes this Korean actor to death, Ji Chang Wook-san
Acchan: Really? Ji Chang Wook-san? I didn't know that

Q: Did you know about Paruru's part time work?
Acchan: I thought that was an urban legend. That's strange, I don't know any of this

Matsumoto: WHAT WAS THE POINT OF THAT VTR



The translation is what was said in general, some other things I noticed, I love how Acchan called Paruru as "Paru-chan" it's so cute! I didn't expect her to say that Paruru is the junior she gets along with the best, I love that But then she doesn't seem to know about what they asked but I doubt these are things she would discuss with Paruru anyway XD I love her reaction when they mentioned Paruru's love for Ji Chang Wook, how she laughed and she was all confused "Who? Ji Chan? I don't know!" it's so funny XD She didn't know about the part-time job either, the reaction of Downtown (the hosts) after the message ended "She didn't know anything, what was the point" hahaha I wish I knew what they said after with Paruru but there's no translation, I didn't understand it (if anyone knows, please help!) this really made me happy! Just seeing Acchan Doing a message for my other fav Paruru and it was funny and cute!

 

Back in April, it was announced that the release for the movie Confidence Man JP Princess Hen was postponed, and finally on 23rd July, the movie was released! on 11th June, there was promotion for the movie on TV, and during the show they aired a part that includes Acchan, you can watch it here. I didn't watch the drama yet (I'll watch it as soon as I can!), but I think the part that they aired is old and not from the new movie? Since in the new movie, Acchan has some colorful hair. what they aired is about an idol group in the story, they talk about it. Even when Acchan is full-time actress, we can still see her doing idol performance through some of her roles, hehe.

About the movie, it debuted at #2 on the Weekend Japan Box Office Ranking for 25th and 26th July. This seems good! There's also a music video for the official theme song of the movie, the song "Laughter" by Official HIGE DANdism, you can watch it here. Acchan appears for a very short moment. I find the song very nice (I got sad when seeing Miura Haruma ._.)

Here is also a photo of Acchan posted by the official account of Confidence Man JP last month!





For the special 1-episode drama "Remote de Korosareru", it aired on 26th July! More information about the storyline: "6 former senior high school classmates get embroiled into a serial murder case as they hold a "remote" drinking session and talk about the suicide of their former classmate Yumiko (Saito) when news of another classmate Kazuma found burnt to death in his apartment is shown on TV". The drama was reported on morning news show Sukkiri, they show the cast greetings, you can see Acchan's part here, she's wearing a transparent mask.

Some photos from the official Twitter of the drama, Acchan is so pretty in the photos with the black-striped white shirt



Some videos from the official Twitter of the drama: Preview of the drama / Acchan's solo video (everyone must watch this, HER SMILE AT THE END ) / Group promo / Countdown

Some screenshots of Acchan from the drama preview