What went wrong with Ikoma Rina?

I think that's exactly why most of the girls have similar characters, though.

The main thing is that their personalities are very natural - and that, again, was deliberate. Most of their personas are no different from the average girl in Japan. Take on the flip side the girls in AKB - they're not exactly "drop dead gorgeous", unlike Nogizaka, and therefore were forced (essentially through a trial by fire) to create a completely new personality in order to draw in fans.

This isn't to criticize Nogizaka, I actually think what they went for is what the public truly wants right now (actual performers on stage, who are more for their looks and performance than their MC abilities), as you can see from E-Girls and EXILE Tribe's catastrophic rise as of late.

I completely agree - and by the way, this dissatisfaction with management's choices is what created sousenkyo for AKB.

 

Mind if I ask who this is? =w=
I'm guessing kanarin lol

On resource distribution, I agree with @kanjo that things are actually pretty good nowadays. Since the ascent of Unders Lives, indeed the girls got there own concerts & soon got their own show in nogiten (albeit sadly it ended recently replaced by a more limited golf show lol.) Many members have been getting radio shows hosting, magazine corners (e.g. hinatan in MARQUEE & modeling for popteen, marika in MdN) & appearances, other promotions (rottii got a guitar promotion series for example,) etc. On the resource front, I am quite satisfied, altho of course there is always room for more. This is a relatively recent phenomenon however, & in the early days Under members often literally don't have anything to do, sometimes despite some members' decent popularity. Contrasting this with the other end of the spectrum back in the days, & is not surprising that there were many restlessness methink.

Going to @jovviny 's second point tho, I agree it isn't Ikoma's fault that she was pushed, the problem is more of mngmnt's directive. & indeed she have been moved back, which is a good step not only for other members but also for her imo. However, even nowadays, there is still an resource distribution difference that is growing harder to justify I think, & this is the source of voice that believe she should be put further back I believe.

To illustrate the point of view, first consider the fact that she today still receives more opportunities than most nogi members, including some fukujin members. Also look at the most recent round of HS sale for example, & depending on how you rank it Ikoma is either 19th or 22nd. No matter which rank, if we compose senbatsu based on HS sales she would be out of senbatsu & wouldn't be Under centre either, despite holding more resources than most nogi members. The question is how would one justify keeping Ikoma in senbatsu & receiving more resources when she's the only senbatsu member to not be able to sold out, & is in fact surpassed in sales by 2~5 Under members? What justifies putting Ikoma ahead of members like miona, himetan, maichun, kiichan, ranze, kanarin?

 

I wasn't gonna post in this thread because things tend to get heated. I do agree that Ikomachan STILL gets more opportunities even with current position. No, I don't think she should be dropped from whatever variety she has been doing. I feel mgmt should give these opportunities to other members to be FAIR. I personally don't think anything is "wrong" with Ikomachan or any member. The only thing that went "wrong" with Ikomachan is mgmt's bias toward her which she unfortunately gets the heat for.

I personally think Ikomachan should be in UG and work her way back but I don't think mgmt is willing to go that far. We shall see...

 

@rust what would you say are the opportunities that Ikoma has that aren't really offered to other members at this point?

The only one I can think of right now is JUMP undercover police, and even then that was a directive from Burning, not really AKS

 

well she also got to star in that movie corpse party this year and obviously not every member is getting phone calls to have a starring role in a film but if people feel other members deserve a shot to shine as a center or in other projects like a movie or variety shows then that's fair too.why other members don't get the play ikoma does?i don't know honestly other than she is just oozing with the charisma other members lack but for whatever reason someone likes seeing her on camera and so do I for that matter.

 

@piyochama in addition to JUMP police you mentioned, there's that English show with a foreigner lol (albeit it is ending, but did have a long run), the aforementioned corpse party movie, recent documentary promotional activities (manatsu Ikoma & nanase), the heavy focus in the documentary itself lol, a telly show to promote north-eastern food with ayane, the amount of solo mag shooting (the recent KERA one being a good example, I have to say she does look great in that shoot), music show appearance as a result of senbatsu placement, prominent role in most concerts, & maybe more.

Now I'm not arguing she should to stripped of all these resources, as many of them do befits her rly well, JUMP police documentary promotion KERA being namely a few, & a prolly for certain of these it have to do with the other side as well as is suggested. However considering the above I do think it's fair to say she does get more resources than many senbatsu members & definitely Under members. But let just say we ignore the resource disparity for a now or just assume it is fair game, the question on her placement in senbatsu relative to the prominent Unders still persist, & I was saying that these two points, or just this latter point in itself, should explains the notion initially raised by jovviny above.

 

lol oozing with charisma. never saw any charisma or aura except being loud.
poor ikoma, eventhough her face is put all over japan and with less hs slot, she cant even sold out once.. i wonder what other girls above her feel? lack of promotions, but still give more money to management while the management used the money on ikoma.
did you get it why fans dislike her? the other faces of 48g albeit got major hatred but still can sold out the hs in which at least the push they got is succesful.
so, what went wrong with ikoma? her character, her time when 5centering singles, never ending front row position although they knew she isnt well-received by fans already, and other reasons like i had stated before. basically, she just need to step down for a while so that fans will forget about her for a while (maybe forever if completely abandon her but that is impossible because she once the face..lol)

 

well there's no use in reflecting on how many singles ikoma centered in the past it's over with so it's time to live in the present and she's been pushed back but if she's still getting attention you don't think she deserves then that's too bad so don't hate her because she's paid hate sony for seeing something in her they clearly didn't see in other members.

 

A lot of the television shows, though, are variety programs - and for that you really need to have a defined character, which again ties into what I said before (the Nogi girls are gorgeous, but their characters on-stage aren't really well-defined). The documentary makes sense (she was the first push, after all), JUMP was from the push, and the others are shared with other senbatsu members.

Again, I don't really see how she gets more than other Nogi members given the entire "variety TV shows require strong characters" schtick that Japan has. It's why Haruu gets invited all the time to TV programs, even though she's always been unranked.

 

Who's Haru?

 

Shimada Haruka

 

You sure about that? Cause I feel it has gotten smaller for her and I have seen so much less of her.

 

While she's getting pushed a lot less, I would definitely still say that she has a significant presence even in her non-AKB work.

 

well shimada is on the new team 88 latch show so she is getting some exposure.is she getting the kind of play ikoma-chan is getting?no but she is getting some play

 

I am probably using the wrong words and explain it wrong (english is not my native).I don't know I am not a fan of her character. Also peforming and look. I saw the Taiyou Knock live performance (Manatsu no Zenkoku) and oh my god so annoying. She is trying so hard to look professional closing her eyes for 10 minutes and screaming like a pig to motivate the crowd. And also what she screamed at the end. Really really trying hard to be somewhat cute. And when people have fun or laugh about a mistake she did, she just stands there without any emotion and does not know what to do. Everyone is having fun. She is just like "what is so funny?".
Well her dancing is meh and when 3 girls or something like that start to sing at the same time you can clearly hear her bad singing. Does not fit well with other voices.

 

Personally, I like Ikoma a lot as a personality, she seems so.. bubbly and charming, someone that brightens the mood on set. I can see what people are getting at though, how she's changed over time. That said, as a new fan, I get to binge watch all the old shows and see how much she's changed quickly. Like, she has that habit of just speaking out loud or overreacting at times in NogiDoko. When she wasn't placed in the front row in one of the senbatsu selection, Bananaman were really surprised because they always expected her to be front row.

She's slowly becoming more of a gag-idol/variety idol rather than someone worthy of being center, and to that extent, it's fine, since she's interesting to talk about.

 

I think ikoma's problem is that when the management decided to push her, she doesn't have any distinguishing appeal, neither talent nor looks. Nogi fandom are quite unique, they don't like a random undeserved girl popping around too fast unlike the other Aki-p's group where the random girls he picked always made it hit, nogi fandom wants process for this type of member to pop up, it would be a different story if sony decided to pick a random but talented member from the very beginning, let say ikuchan...
I feel pity for ikoma, her hs sale never get any better, she got bashed everywhere, but if I'm not her fan and let say a tan-oshi fan of ikuta then I would react the same as the ikoma's soldiers of hater...

ps: I like both ikuchan and ikoma

 

Centers (in the sense that Acchan centered her group, Jurina centers her's, etc.) need to have middle-of-the-road appeal. They can't be too anything because if they are, they suddenly isolate a portion of the audience that doesn't like that sort of idol. They can have gimmicks and defining traits but their characters are limited to variations of "a sweet pretty girl" because that's what most people are drawn to and it's the center's job to draw people to the group. (At least at first. You can argue that AKB48 has grown beyond the need to have a face for people to associate with it.)

Ikoma has an awkward, anxious aura that was especially prominent in the first few years of Nogi. I find it endearing and I bet a lot of her other fans do but it's not a character that lends itself well to being center. Just like Miichan's loud camera hog chara and Sae's genking chara, Ikoma's nervous otaku persona is much better suited for a middle or back row position. It's not a matter of how good she is/isn't or if she "deserves" it or even popularity, it just has to do with what makes someone a good center and what doesn't. (i.e.: mass appeal) There's very much a glass ceiling in 48/46G for idols that don't fall into the "girl next door" category and this hurts to admit as somebody who loves weird, loud, variety girls that will never get a fair shot because they can't be a cute smiley dream girl.

Ikoma is a collection of good center traits wrapped up with a bad center chara. She has a unique, recognizable face. Up until very recently, she had a unique hairstyle. Even her name is a little unusual. She was the right age at debut. Her performance in all areas is non-exceptional, which is ideal for centers so they don't overpower the rest of the group. So I can't blame them for considering her but yes, it was clearly the wrong choice when there was no shortage of girls who fit the traditional mold a lot better and who were able to gain traction much faster than Ikoma despite having lesser positions. Tbh, I've always thought a complete transfer to AKB would be the only thing to rid Ikoma of the negativity that some of the Ikuchan/Nanase/Maiyan/etc. fans have for her because she "took" their oshimen's "rightful" position and then, in their eyes, dropped the ball.

 

Centers are those who are decent at everything, but don't excel in one particular aspect.. So yeah, I see what you mean about Ikoma having good center traits, but I don't see what her 'bad center character' is.. Perhaps over-the-top eagerness to be on TV, like shouting/raising her voice on variety shows, and just the blunt comments she makes every now and then.

From a new fan's perspective watching all the old shows up until the most recent, she's changed a lot, from being that girl who's just too shy to being a standout person on TV. At this point, I think they're putting her in senbatsu just to keep things entertaining and fun. If you look at the other front members, Shiraishi doesn't really speak that much, she's there for her smile and occasional blunt comments toward Manatsu, Nishino rarely speaks, Hashimoto is rarely on shows due to drama and even if she is, not that much screen time and speaking, god knows what happened to Matsumura, Manatsu is kinda being left out since she's the 'bullied' one.. Misa Misa is the current 'new' one that I guess management is striving to put out.

As a Shiraishi oshi, for me personally, I enjoy her screen time and blunt comments, fun personality and what not.. but there comes a time where management has to realize, if you're constantly putting 1 person in the spotlight, not only does it get stale fast, it gets annoying even faster. She didn't drop the ball as such, rather, the ball weighs a lot more than it did before. The entertainment industry isn't a sprint, it's a relay where you count on your team-mates to finish the race..