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Japanese Ota Talks About Why AKB Created The Great History

  May 4, 2012

Previous post Massacre of  Mayuyu, Yukirin and Rena Ota…

So before looking how next system (franchise system) of AKB will be turned out, let’s listen to what Japanese Ota think about AKB’s enormous success.

From two channel “Though we tend to think AKB’s success is a thing of course, it’s actually an unbelievably great success achieved after 4 years of career as underground idols”

(Note:  AKB project started from a small theatre in AKihabara. At their first Revue in the theatre on 8th Dec 2005, there were only 7 audiences. It’s commonly said only these 7 audiences are “Veteran Fans of AKB”. So whether you became a fan one week ago, or 3 years ago, all of us except 神7 (fans) are just AKB fans of the same rank. It doesn’t matter when you became an AKB fan, but what mattes is your love and passion for our girls!! )

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Because Kusanagi (a member of SMAP) got kisses from members. (he obviously still has had grudge after 9 months…)
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Because we can meet and shake-hands with international iconic idols who got Record Taisho and are making huge sensation in entertainment scenes.
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Yes, this is seriously a great thing.
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Because they are Idols who can speak dirty jokes.
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Because they still continue their Revue at AKB theatre. (including top members)
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Because HKT’s oldest member was born in 4th year of Heisei, and it’s youngest member was born in 12th year of Heisei…
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Because me, a 40’s man who had never been interested in idols, can say almost all members names of 1gen to 12gen.
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Because, I don’t know why, but I am healed by 北原ダイヤモンド / Kitahara Diamond.

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Because Jurina played a center when she was still an elementary school student.
(she performed double-center with Acchan in evergreen hit 涙サプライズ / Namida Surprise)
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Existence of Minami Takahashi. (Needless to say, according to AKiP, AKB’s emotional prop is Takamina while AKB’s center is Acchan. AKB can be read as a story of the growth of these girls)
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Because there’s one member who was pointed out that she has dead-fish-like eyes, and because of that she got enormous popularity, and finally promoted to be a regular member . (<-Juri Takahashi: First person who described her eyes like this was Kojiharu, and this helped her to be widely recognized by fans.)
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Because they hired Budo-kan, the sacred place of boxing or rock n’ roll, and filled whole seats.
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Because they rank members by the name of election.
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板野友美 = XAYB
野中美郷 = AZBW
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Because the book titled ”Official Guidebook for Rock-Paper-Scissors Tournament” sold over 200 thousands.
If we told this to Japanese people of 10 years ago, they must have worried about our nation.
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Because finally they became 2 dimension.
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I think it’s not popular that group music act has a different center member for each song.
Especially when they perform Everyday Cachucha, even in popular TV music shows, we often saw AKB’s performance without Acchan.
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Because they have over 300 repertoires.
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Because they announce big announcement like ‘You will combine both SKE and AKB’ as a surprise, and made her admitted into a hospital
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Because some members don’t want to bother to go to beauty salons.
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How smart they are to make Ota spend their furtune.
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Ridiculously tough schedule of their Revues in the past.
1. Party is about to start: 8th Dec 2005 to 31th Mar 2006 (98 Revues)
2. Aitakatta: 15th Apr to 11th Aug 2006 (70 Revues)
3. Darekano tameni: 10th Aug 2006 to 25th Jan 2007 (83 Revues)
4. Tadaima Renaichu: 25th Feb 2007 to 26th June 2007 (31 Revues)

1. Party is about to start: 1st Apr 2006 to 5th July 2006 (61 Revues / Revival)
2. Seisyun Girls: 18th July 2006 to 6th Nov 2006 (77 Revues)
3. Nounai Paradise: 17th Dec 2006 to 22th June 2007 (64 Revues)

1. Bokuno Taiyoh: 1st July 2007 to 30th Nov 2007 (124 Revues)
2. Yume o Shinaseruwakeniha Ikanai: 8th Dec 2007 to 19th Apr 2008 (108 Revues)
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When I heard conversation among salarymans in their 30’s talking about who their Ohi-Mem are.
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Though we can see our favorite members daily lives through Google+, Blog and twitter, which is a great thing, some fans still say to members ‘Your blog is boring!’ ‘Updates more often!’ in person.
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My opinion is similar to you.
Because we can enjoy AKB without spending a lot of money because of social media and video sharing websites.
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Because in TV show not related to AKB at all, AKB-Ota comedian started talking about his Oshi-Men and host of the show were seriously listening to him. I think it was NHK’s educational program.
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Because they hit million sales one record after another.

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Because even though they sell tens of millions of records, still many people don’t know well about AKB, let alone names of each member.
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Because I feel no hesitation to buy multiple records for the same single.
And I don’t feel any wrongness for 4 patterns for one same single or something like that.
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It’s not new to release multiple versions of the same record…. but maybe it was 3 at the maximum before AKB.
Buying more than 4 copies of the same CD may be a present phenomena for modern idols after late 2000’s
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Because they rank members based on their popularity.
I think those members who get glad or sad that they ranked down or ranked up are fine.
Real concern is for members who have been always out of ranking…
I am not trying to speak ill of them, but I can’t understand how they can keep their motivation….
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But more crazy thing is they choose a center by R-P-S tournament!!
A center position for a single is decided by R-P-S!!! It’s crazy!!
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Because the reason Takamina passed the audition is she was born is Apr 8th and her height is 148(.5)cm. (<- that's what TGSK says)
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Because it’s passed one year since I became into French Kiss.
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LOL are you talking about me???
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Because I can truly respect girls younger than me, so driven and trying their best everyday in the cruel Sho-Biz industry.
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Because SKE, the second most popular group music act in Japan still holds their concerts at bar-like space.
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Because of Acchan’s breakfast.

Astonishingly Big Breakfast Acchan Eats Everyday

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It’s a bit off topic but for me it’s because once Noro (former member of AKB, SDN) said, 
‘AKB’s not selling well… I thought after we made an appearance at Kohaku (2007), AKB would soon break through…’
‘I wish we would be as big as Perfume’
After 4 years since then, we had a lot of roller coaster…
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…. it was a good era..
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What we think common or scam are, if you trace beck to the roots of them, all started from their tough time at tough period. Shake-Hands event didn’t start to promote record sales but when they had trouble in theatre equipment, they held their first shake-hands event to compensate for a cancellation of the show.
Combinatin of Theatre Revue and DMM live-stream are totally new system created by AKB and most importantly this is the system connecting them with fans.
You’ve seen Mariko’s or other members birthday celebration festival? These events are all planned and managed by fans, not AKB’s management. They’ve seen how their favorite girls have grown over these years together with them and it’s amazing they still have unchanged close relationship with their dear old AKB members.

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