Graduation announcements thread

not when even Maiyan despite her huge popularity and the first purpose to do a Tokyo Dome grad concert, is doing an online grad concert in order to move on.
It's the best thing to do instead on staying on a stale position, it could even take years if you really want to wait the corona problem to end.

 

Not just Jurina and Miichan but Churi too. Considering Churi's graduation got postponed, it makes sense Jurina's would too. And while I do think management plays an important role in this decision maybe (hopefully) the girls' wishes and future plans (if she has any upcoming projects that will make her unavailable to do a grad con later etc.) count too.

Btw, it's not just popular members either. Even Narupii's graduation has been postponed in order for her to hold a graduation stage. Considering several AKB members graduated without one completely, or with a no audience one (most recently Sasaya) this could be because of management decisions of AKB vs. SKE or maybe down to the wishes of these girls and how fast they want to be done with it.

 

I agree with dutchie. There are so many AKB songs that I didn't care for when I heard the studio version but that I have started to love massively after I saw them performed at concerts (such as Shoujotachi yo or Himawarigumi). Or, as another example, I already liked Sasshi's AKB graduation song (Watashi Datte Idol!) but it was soooo much better at her gradcon where her fans actually did the fan chants.

I've never been to an AKB concert but I definitely prefer real concerts over online ones. I've seen two online concerts now (Little Mix's Uncancelled and IZ*ONE's Oneiric Diary Japan Showcase) and it felt awkward when there was no cheering.

 

I've got to agree. Even with the socially distanced stages that they have been running recently it's super awkward when the music stops and there's 2 seconds of silence until one of the members remembers to do a rather lame "Yayyyyy"

 

HKT48 Kenkuuysei Kudo Haruka announced on her Showroom, she will graduate from the group. Her last activity will be Oct. 2

http://www.hkt48.jp/news/2020/09/6980

 

Wow, that's a very young graduation.

Get the new theater ready and promote some peeps before they all start flocking away, you freaks.

Teams H and KIV feel like they are in the middle of being downsized or something.

 

Big loss of potential for HKT, she was so entertaining in any activity she did.

 

Such a shame. I saw 5th gen's kks stage shonichi (not live of course), and she was really cute and had loads of potential. Definitely one of my faves in 5th gen.

 

Maybe they can do what K:Contact did and have a small set of the fans webcam in? Then again that would eat into any allocated bandwidth they have to host the concert.

 

Given that we've reached a point where Kohaku Uta Gassen is being held without an audience for the first time I can't imagine there would be much choice if the situation with the virus doesn't calm down enough to hold graduation concerts by some point in April - May 2021 that Takayanagi Akane, Matsui Jurina, and Minegishi Minami won't be left without any other choice but to hold online graduation concerts. By then I definitely think something's simply going to have to give. I hope that even if it'll be at some 20% capacity or so they will all be able to have their proper sendoffs.

 

I'm honestly not sure about this, but isn't there some profit for having the grad concerts live in movie theaters?
I think a profit can still be made if a 25 or 30% capacity in a venue and then live view in theater or live stream online that one can pay to see.

(Again I don't live in Japan so I'm not sure of a lot of things lol please forgive me)

 

^I'm not sure if Japan is facing the same situation with movie theaters as the United States and United Kingdom and Canada presently are, but movie theaters are pretty much looking at extinction right now because of the pandemic. Films are being relocated to debut on streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, and Disney Plus at as high as 30 US dollars.

That's the methodology with big budget A-list films right now. A lot of other films are just getting their release trigger pulled and relocated straight to On Demand services from Cable providers because they just want to get them out. And I don't know what it's like if you have a different provider but in the case of Verizon Fios the Rent this Movie vs Buy this Movie on their On Demand service prices have gone up from last year by triple what they used to be. I used to be able to rent a movie via their On Demand service for $4.95 for 24 hours.

Now it's $11.95 and likely to rise if the situation with the virus doesn't improve enough to allow for reopening of theaters in some semblance of the same way they used to operate. And that's assuming people will feel safe enough to even want to go to the movies anymore.

Regarding the graduations of Matsui Jurina, Takayanagi Akane, and Minegishi Minami I feel like if they manage to get a day where they're allowed to hold a graduation concert they should probably consider having them graduate together with the set-list divided into a set for each of them and a set where they perform as a trio with whatever crowd capacity is allowed. Preferably at a venue large enough for there to be at least 500 people in attendance, but I think even something like this is in the realm of wishful thinking right now.

 

It was obviously a small venue and guests had to sit with one seat in between, but Sasshi's idol group =LOVE held their 3 Year Anniversary Concert last week with a live audience. From what I could see, it was also in a movie theatre. They sold tickets to a live audience as well as streaming passes online.

AKB48 has also started letting a small number of people back into their personal theatre as well. Maybe we can get one of those half-live, half-online audiences as well. It'd be better than nothing at all.

 

That makes absolutely no sense, considering they are from 2 different groups. I guess Jurina and Churi could do one together since they are both SKE but since the seats would probably already be limited, doesn't it make more sense to do 2 concerts? So if for example 500 audience members were allowed, then it could at least be 500 Jurina fans and 500 Churi fans, not 500 of both altogether. They could do it in the same venue on the same day though, like one at noon and the other in the evening, or something like that.

 

^That could be done, but if they held a concert for each girl from SKE48 and one for Minegishi Minami would these all be solo concerts or would there be a selection of girls that would perform in each of their graduation concerts? That's why I thought them doing just one concert as a trio with parts of the concert devoted to highlighting each of them would be a better option.

The girls also almost never leave without a final performance with their team at the theaters so I figured things like the reunion of some girls from gen 1 SKE. gen 2 SKE, and gen 1 AKB could occur in the last theater performances of these members instead of at their non theater graduation concert. Having the only performing members at the concert be just the three graduating members also limits the chances that anyone they might invite back to perform if they have individual concerts unknowingly spreading the virus if they don't know they're infected, but are.

Any guests would also not be going home to unknowingly spread it to their families if they don't realize they're infected, but are. Of course contamination could also occur from and among the audience members, but having only 3 performers at one shared concert would be safer than say 10 performers a piece depending on the number of members invited back across three concerts.

Beyond all of the above it's not uncommon for members of the Japan based 48 groups to end up performing at concerts for each other's group. And in AKB48 and SKE48's cases they've been doing so since 2009. Would it really be a controversy to have these three performing together for their graduation concert given the situation? Especially with the aforementioned theater graduations still pending too. This is just my own mentality of what would be better though, what you've said is equally valid an option.

Post Edit: I also just realized that what you suggested about 500 fans of each girl could get very dangerous as we'd be talking about 1,500 fans loitering around the venue across two days and on the first day cross contamination could occur for the audience of the 2nd concert from the 500 fans from the first concert.

Better to have it be roughly 165 fans of each girl (that totals up to 495, don't know who should be allowed those last 5 fans to max out to 500, but Minegishi Minami as the senior most and a founding member of the empire as a whole does seem the most fair especially given there's no way to evenly split those last 5 seats among fans of Jurina and Akane; Suppose it could be 166 fans of each girl which would make it 498 with 2 spares for Minegishi Minami though, but then there could be the argument that those last two seats should go to a fan of Jurina and a fan of Akane instead of to two of Minami's) and a single concert with only the 500 fans total turning up.

I mean sure there's always the chance of people showing up who didn't get a ticket from the lottery for this, but those could easily be passed over to authorities as trespassers. Far more easily than if they held 2 concerts day one and certain people from the first concert didn't want to leave when it's their time to leave and the next day there's a third wave of 500 fans coming to a venue that's not even 48 hours clean.

 

NMB48 has announced that Akarin's gradcon is scheduled for 10/24 at the Osaka-jo Hall - there'll be a limited number of spectators with ticket lottery applications for Mobile FC members starting today:

http://news.nmb48.com/event/20200912/190043.html