The Keyakizaka Conspiracy Thread

This is intended to be a thread for discussion concerning various "conspiracy theories" we may cook up surrounding Keyakizaka.
The reason this thread is being established rather than piggybacking off of the currently existing General thread is for a couple of reasons:
1) As Keyakizaka becomes more important in not only the Japanese community, but the worldwide community, questions are bound to arise.
2) As a passionate audience we tend to formulate our own theories as to why the group(s) act in the ways they do, why management makes them do what they do, what the greater impact of Keyakizaka's actions are or could be, etc.

With that being said, and a lot left out; I feel that a couple ideals which should be established (but not always to be followed) are.
1) This absolutely should not be a forum to attack particular members actions; not only is Keyakizaka a GROUP, with an extremely complex managerial structure... you risk aggravating other members of our community, which stifles relevant discussion.
2) Avoid as best you can the trap of being wholly convinced of your own theories, be open to other ideas.
3) Be open and confident of your own ideas, don't hide the good stuff! Those who tune in to this thread are here for a reason!

Hopefully I won't feel the need to amend any of these guidelines; just be your typical amazing, weird, passionate self and have fun.

PS: I'm a huge fan of maximalism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximalism)

 

If this forum will be a thing then I'd like to start a topic of interest that might be completely off mark, but I'd like to figure out more of Techi's past... I have a theory that maybe the reason why Techi keeps her past is because of something that might be depressing or shocking. Again, I'd like to point out that this is probably inaccurate, but I think that her brother might take into play for this. As you know her brother who is a few years older than her and also in college likes to dress up as a woman (whether this is frequent or not...I don't know) but I believe in Japanese society things like transgender is looked down upon. Her brother might not be a transgender but the point that he dresses like a girl might be upsetting to quite a few traditional parents. Believing that Techi and her brother are close might have caused a form of tension between the family. And you might be thinking... if you see danso's a lot on TV than how can I know for sure this is true... well I don't, but my only evidence is that with all the shows I've watched it seems that it was always girls dressing like guys; not really the other way around. But this is just my theory on Techi's past, and most of these deductions are merely just guesses. I would have wrote a bit more but I'm using my phone to write this lol. If any of you have your own theories whether it's different or not I would love to hear it. Many of you know more than me, and I'd love to learn more of Techi's potential past, so please do share!

Sent from my SM-G920T using Tapatalk

 

I think you're overthinking the brother thing. He did it for a school event, you can see the writing on the back wall and other contestants. It's not a particularly uncommon thing.

 

You know, how shy and passive Keyakizaka members in the early days, which is very atypical of usual young idol aspiring to become a big name in the showbiz?

Spoiler: tl:dr

I was at one point suspected, Kanji Keyakizaka (not just Techi, not just Neru) probably has the highest percentage of girls with troubled past life. Not necessarily depressing or shocking, but enough to make them wanting to start anew. We've heard from "Berika 50 times job interview failure" to "Satoshi forced retirement from ballet" directly from the girls. Want to bet we won't see the last of this?

This may looks pitiful and full of coincidence, but given Neru narrative story and management effort to retrieve her, hard to deny that management definitely knew member backgrounds, even since audition times. And with how the same narrative contributed to Neru rising popularity, why not apply the same narrative to the group as well?

"Adolescent girls resisting their fate and shaping up their own road". Some(If not all) girls are living it, afterall.

Isn't that how "Silent Majority" is?

 

Hirate is a Sith lord and Neru is her apprentice.

 

Hirate would be too obvious, I think Sugai-sama or Berika are more suited to that role...

Or Nanako! she's perfect for that sort of thing

 

@EinhanderX -- "Adolescent girls resisting their fate and shaping...their own road" sounds right to me. The shy and obedient daughter of the nobility shocking everyone who knows her by becoming an idol, of all things, and even becoming the group's spokesman, when she has a (slight) speech impediment and has always had trouble putting herself forward (Sugai). The independent-minded girl who goes off on trips by herself to other cities, and finally joins an idol group in Tokyo (Manaka). The dog-loving local idol from the far north who battles her way into a major idol group but remains unpopular -- until her acting, of all things, lifts her up to success (Nijika -- I've always admired her gesture of a deep bow at the end of every concert: she was last in line, but took advantage of that to give that final farewell to the fans and increase her standing with them).

And there are the girls who joined an idol group, not so much to become idols as to get away into a bigger world (Neru and Hirate, at least). But wanting to get away doesn't necessarily mean a troubled home life. I got along very well with my parents, but there came a point when I was desperate to get away.

The song "Seifuku to Taiyou" is about a parent-teacher-student conference where they are asking the student to make future plans, while inside she is saying: "Enough of this -- let me go now and build my own future!"

I don't know about "conspiracies," unless you count poor Harada Mayu's tragedy, having been approved by her parents to date her former middle-school teacher, then giving that up (?) to join K46 -- but finally having the past relationship found out by management, which felt (correctly) it had to let her go.

Several members have had boyfriends -- or at least male friends close enough for purikura, lol. Habu, Neru, reportedly Miyu, reportedly Fuu-chan. I'd be shocked if the beautiful Berika wasn't in that group, too (to say nothing of Katoshi, or Uemura). But Sakamichi management apparently considers past relationships no problem; only current relationships are forbidden.

@Urabe -- I think I'm a minimalist with maximalist tendencies. Lol.

 

^ Don't forget Risa's strained relationship with her father.

My theory: Watanabe Risa was ordered from the same factory that created Watanabe Mayu ("robots")

 

Because this thread so far has been a mix of serious and silly, I will put in a half serious half silly theory.

I share/have a similar idea to @EinhanderX 's "management possibly chose girls with troubled past on purpose" idea.

It seems to have worked so far in gaining popularity/notoriety (if it was done on purpose). To be honest, at least for my self personally, I am much more interested in the serious/not happy* people than the happy eternally joyful image of 48G.

Gonna put some more thoughts in a spoiler because they are very opinionated and do not relate to Einhander's idea.

Spoiler: final thoughts

Maybe I just think this because I Keyaki's image hits right in a weak spot for me- serious/unhappy girls lol. The relatively "abnormal"/"uneventful", as in having many sad events backstory of a few members (at least of what we seem to know so far) is very interesting and makes me want to follow them more. Did management know there are people out there into that thing and created a group with that theme? I don't know, maybe it's just a coincidence, but Keyaki is just amazing

*by unhappy I don't mean depressed, I mean more like lacking happiness, or not happy, but not sad.

Finally,

This theory has already been debunked, the Sith live in a galaxy far far away and thus Hirate cannot be one.

 

The Japanese government is going to use Hiragana Keyaki in a propaganda campaign to promote the re-militarization of Japan.

 

@Macron48 -- Is it a coincidence that both Kanji and Hiragana have always had vaguely (or not so vaguely) military-style uniforms? A remilitarization campaign, however, could be a problem for Neru, who coming from Nagasaki has always wanted to promote peace.

 

Maybe she's perfect because she can demonstrate that Japan cares about peace but needs to protect and enforce that peace with a stronger military presence. Maybe she's not even from Nagasaki at all. Maybe she was trained from birth to be the perfect PsyOps agent. Maybe the international flavor of Hiragana is to help make the campaign more palatable to key allies like the UK and Indonesia. Maybe Neru is a plant and the story about her coming in late was an excuse to put her in the group and her coming in late was an excuse to create Hiragana Keyaki? Or maybe Neru is a pawn and her observation that Hiragana are "So genki, almost aggressive" is because Hiragana are all elite Idol Special Ops agents?

 

That would be a great premise for their next drama

 

@Urabe Was the current discussion the original intention when creating this thread? lol.

At the thing before, family backgrounds.

Keyakizaka -at least Kanji Keyakizaka- is a group of weirdos and unorthodox idols. That is a fact. They naturally move in a different direction than it has been usual for large/mainstream groups, because they act a rebellious and righteous image just out of their own. I think management including Aki-P handled this very well by realizing this tendency and immediately affirming this path with a powerful debut like Silent Majority in contrast to Nogizaka who have started as a completely generic group and needed time to find their way.

However, I think this is primarily due to the synergy of the members with each other and doesn't have to do with members' backstories. We even don't know most backstories, but I think most of them come from a normal and harmonic household. Zuumin, Ozeki, Akanen, Yukka (lol), Habu, Miyu, Berika, even Yuipon,... they all seem to have sufficiently good relationships to their families, and I believe the majority of the rest also has. Unaffirmed past troubles, big or small (see Techi, Risa, Neru...) exist everywhere, and we have to keep cultural differences in mind too. In Japan, it is still rather typical for the household/home to influence the child's career wishes and future.
It's a long settled case already but I'm pretty sure management knew more or less nothing about members' backstories before they joined the group. If they did, there also would have been less 'leaks' and so-called 'scandals' before the group even debuted.

If you compare Keyakizaka members with textbook idols, almost every member will have at least one if not more open characteristic that collides with what a typical idol group should be. You have all types, mysterious and difficult to understand ones like Techi, Yuipon and Berika, first constrained members that later proved to be absolute weirdos like Ozeki, Nanako and Miyu, blunt and outgoing ones like Fuu-chan and Odanana who don't sell well (which should have been predicted by management during recruitment, but I'll bring that up later maybe) but are of utmost importance for social matters and morale of the group. The list goes on, but what matters is with which strength these girls who are so 'different' fight for their right to be a successful and respected group. No other group could perform SaiMajo, KataMira or Otona so authentically. Songs about standing up for your own rights and dreams, about the struggles and pain of life, about realizing yourself regardless of age and background. You have it in songs like Seifuku to Taiyou, Saison and Yamonotesen too. Being born as a 'normal' idol group but not turning out as what might have been intended originally, and then establishing this rebellious 'self' with impactful lyrics, dances and military clothes used for the songs ones above, Keyakizaka symbolizes both freedom and oppression in both society as well as in the idol genre that was unable to bring out a group like this before.

It's the mix of everything that somehow set up such a fabulous group that has skyrocketed from zero to almost nationwide attention (not fandom, but at least attention).

lol, I pretty much drifted away from what I wanted to emphasize originally, but mainly, I think the 'difficult family background' theory doesn't hold water at the moment. We still don't know enough. In the Nogizaka documentary, you realized that many also had troubled past stories to tell, but none were actually so extraordinary that you would say it's something unseen before. Youth can be hard, that's how it is.

 

keyakizaka origin: all nogizaka top girls send a leaving notice to the management. and learning from akb48, the management know recruiting new girls won't solve any problems, or at least won't be as grand as when the top girls still around. So they decided to make a new brand and at the same time gave them their best songs that was intended for nogizaka, to rocket start this new group.

 

Probably. (lol)

@Atreyu -- Saitou Kyouko claimed in a recent blog post that many of the Hiraganas were called weird (or at least "different": kawatteru) at their schools. So they may be just as odd as the kanjis, but more outgoing.

@riduch -- I've never believed the "best songs are going to K46" idea. I think the way the songs are produced and the way they do them (song and dance) is very important. Moreover, can you really imagine Nogizaka46 doing Silent Majority? Or KataMira? Or Otona? I think "new brand"is right, but I also think the new brand has a new style. Socially, musically, and in choreography. Neru has said the Kanjis are pretty well all basically shy. Not really idol material, you would think. Of course, I'm far more familiar with K46 than any other group, and I wasn't following N46 when it was only a year old.

 

nogi did sekai de ichiban kodoku na lover, poppipapapa, and seifuku no mannequin, and those are lit! I would say nogi would suit if they were given keyaki's songs

 

Katakana Keyaki is actually existed. So, it’s not only imaginary group with Tsuchi-chan and Amon-chan as its member. Actually, management created this group around the same time when they created Hiragana Keyaki. But, they only accepted one member only. They train this girl really hard for the past year. And, this girl has same monster ability and aura, like and even more than Tecchi. Then, in 2017, they will airdrop this Katakana girl for center in the main single Senbatsu.
Controversy create attention. And, attention in this field of industry is important. Management has experience with this before, with Miona and Neru. So, it's not so surprising, if they did it again.

 

Shida Manaka is slowly building a harem and then comes out as bisexual. Risa will be her queen, and everyone else will fall.
Okay, so maybe its not really a conspiracy and more of dream for me. potayto potahto

 

Good points. But I didn't mean that Nogi couldn't do Otona or KataMira, just that they didn't suit Nogi's style. The Nogi songs I personally love -- Kimi no Na wa Kibou and Inochi wa Utsukushii -- are just as good as any Keyaki song, for me, but have a different style. The fact that my favorites are not everyone else's favorites gives me a hint that I'm not hearing things the same way others do, so I guess we both have to take that into account.