Music is subjective, however, money is the easiest measure of success, you can write the most intricate and epic song in history, however, if it doesn’t sell a million copies, history and most importantly, Wikipedia, isn’t going to pay attention. So you’d probably expect that one of the best selling groups of all time would be one you’ve at least heard of, right? Well, chances are, the word AKB48 means less to you than if we’d just typed gibberish, in fact, we probably could have done that since AKB48 is just a collection of random letters and numbers anyway. What the hell has made a band with a name you can’t even pronounce so popular?
AKB48 consists of around 90, yes, 90! Teenage Japanese girls who all dress like an anime fan’s wet dream. Unbelievably, they’re insanely popular with Japanese men. In perhaps one of the most diabolically shitty moves ever pulled by a music group, the group often hold “elections” in which fans can decide which girl gets to front the group for the following year, by buying a CD. Yes, to get a vote, fans first have to buy one of the group’s singles, some fans have been known to buy hundreds of CDs in order to secure more votes for their favorite singer.
So the next time you want to call Justin Bieber’s fans sad, just remember that somewhere out there, there is a middle-aged Japanese businessman sat on a throne of bubblegum pop CD’s staring at a scale model doll of a 16 year old Japanese school girl, because oh yeah, they make those.
5 Comments
Are… are these comments a joke? I don’t understand. ..
This journalist should be fired, not very professional. Clearly ignorant, Karl Smallwood has very little knowledge to AKB48. Not ALL their fans are middle aged men, I’m a women in my early 20’s who likes AKB48, even my fiance likes their songs. Before I became an AKB48 fan yes, I used to think AKB48 were just a bunch of cute girls who jumps around in bikinis. But after watching their Akbingo show I fell in love with them, they’re just a bunch of really funny girls who love and supports each other. Even ex members who have graduated from the group still come to their show to support them. Akb48 isn’t all just about “teenage japanese girls who all dress like an anime fan’s wet dream”, they’re more than what meets the eye.
“Teenage Japanese girls”
AKB members are not teen. New members that recently joined are but at least half of the group are over 18. Most popular members are over 20s, with Shinoda Mariko one of the most popular member who recently left the group at 27 yrs old
“anime fan’s wet dream”
Anime fans in Japan HATE! AKB. They talk trash about AKB all the time. Even when AKB aired their anime AKB0048, many said they would never watch it because it’s AKB and wrote “die” on the video stream comment
Many AKB48 fans are teens and kids. A TV news report done a report of female fans growing support for female idol groups. Shinoda Mariko, Itano Tomomi, Kojima Haruna are fashion icon in Japan looked up by girls and Mariko even own her own fashion brand. Watanabe Mayu are popular with kids. Akimoto Sayaka and Miyazawa Sae are popular with girls for their cool personality. Some big spender that buy 50, 100 copies of AKB CDs are girls for example, fan report of a woman that bought 130 copies for Iwata Karen and TV news showed a girl in her early 20 bought 75 copies for Watanabe Mayu.
Your article is another ignorant western point of view that barely did any research about the group and chalked them up to being another “freaky thing from Japan”
I LOVE SAE, YESSSS
kakkoii-desu, and, yes, IMMA TEENAGE GIRL.
akb48 aren’t just simply a “wet man’s dream” ewww hentai!! hahah this article is kinda stupid xpp but i guess it’s just the perspective of someone who really doesnt understand akb48. so… yeah… an outsider can say what he wants to try and make other outsiders agree with him, but, us fans just laugh at how little they know..
I LOVE SAE TOO!!!!!!! BUT WAIT I am an otaku and i don’t hate AKB48 I LOVE THEM (not like love but respect i mean most girls or girls who know bout AKB48 dreams of joining and they join like draft members, audition members, they are like 10 and above or maybe younger joining and enduring the hardship of becoming an idol) fans buying a lot of copies are showing a way of supporting their idols!!! stupid people who don’t know anything…