On: AKB48 2016 Election Prediction(s)~

The faces of the 48 groups from left to right: Kato Minami (NGT48), Matsui Jurina (SKE48), Sashihara Rino (HKT48), Watanabe Mayu (AKB48), and Yamamoto Sayaka (NMB48)

IT. IS. TIME. 

THE. 2016. 48GROUP. SENBATSU SOUSENKYO IS HERE!

What is the senbatsu sousenkyo you ask? Well, as I explained in my more detailed post last year here, the election gathers all the members of the 48groups that are eligible and choose to participate into what is essentially, a popularity contest. There are 80 spots available with over 200 girls from AKB48, SKE48, NMB48, HKT48, and NGT48 competing for a spot. Ranking not only is a huge honor, but often brings attention to girls that management had ignored or had not promoted as much. Ranking in senbatsu, "the chosen ones" which is the top 16 spots, allows you to promote the next AKB single, and opens up various new work opportunities which helps the girls solidify their careers for after they graduate. The #1 girl or center, is giving mass media attention and essentially, reaches a legendary status within the group itself. 

Last year I voted - a lot. But this year, I decided to vote a lot less and chose to place all votes for one girl: Watanabe Mayu. Last year, she fell to the #3 spot and this year, the preliminaries placed her at barely taking #1, less than 1,000 votes above the #2 spot, Sashihara Rino and approximately 6,000 votes away from the #3 spot, Matsui Jurina. Now, it wasn't my intention to vote at all this year, but after watching the preliminary, I felt that I had to vote. I just really want Mayu to keep her lead and while I know it's a longshot, with the fact that Sashi has an extremely loyal and powerful fanbase, I hope to contribute at least a bit in bridging that gap. 

On: Visiting the AKB48 Theater and Shop

As I mentioned in a previous post, I recently traveled to Tokyo and spent some time completely freaking out in Akihabara (ok, so it wasn't that bad, but like, Akihabara is the the holy ground for any AKB48 fan and coupled with the Hello!Project shop that's also in Akiba, I was having the time of my life, haha). I visited Akihabara twice and it was only on the second visit that I gathered enough courage to head to the 8th floor of Don Quijote in order to see the AKB theater in person.

My younger sister headed up with me and one of the first things I noticed (aside from all of the AKB promo decorating the outside of the building), was that there are images of the various AKB CD covers plastered on the walls which you can see when you're taking the escalator up (or down!). There are tons of covers and they're all HUGE! It was really neat for a fan like me and definitely built up the anticipation I had to get to the theater itself.

Tatakau! Shoten Girl [Fight! Bookstore Girl]

In my last j-drama blog post where I reviewed the drama Sunao ni Narenakute, I mentioned that I was watching 3 dramas. Tatakau! Shoten Girl [Fight! Bookstore Girl] is the second of the three that I have completed. To be quite honest, I finished this drama a while ago - about two weeks ago? Yeah, that sounds about right. However, I was unable to find the time to write about it. But luckily I found some time this week, so lets get on with it! 

Aki Kitamura [played by Watanabe Mayu] has just begun to work at the Pegasus bookstore where Nishioka Riko [played by Inamori Izumi] works as the vice-manager of the store. Aki comes from a wealthy family and rumors immediately begin to swirl around her, however, what really surprises the staff about Aki is her fervent love of books and her desire to make sure each and every customer is satisfied. Nishioka shares the same goal as her subordinate but Aki's ideas to attract and satisfy more customers often causes burdens on the other workers of the bookstore. Their different approaches to obtaining the same goal, has the two women often butting heads. 

2015 Election Results + Reactions (part 1)

Guess what? I woke up this morning at 3:30 am (after having gone to bed at 12:30 am) and didn't go back to bed until 8:30 am. Why? I wanted to watch the AKB48 election live! I voted this year more than I have any other year and I wanted to see how my favs would do (both those that I did vote for and those girls who I didn't have enough funds to vote for but still support). This year, I split my votes 4 ways; I joined a campaign for Watanabe Mayu and one for Tano Yuka. For Watanabe Mayu, my donation bought roughly 5 votes for her. For Tano Yuka, my donation bought about 1.5 votes for her. For the final two members I voted for, I used a proxy service. I sent money to a member of the Stage48 forum that was in Japan during the election voting period and he bought the votes for me at a super cheap price ($9 a vote! Had I bought the CD's from my go-to place, YesAsia, the votes would have been about $18 each. So by using the proxy service, I got two votes for the price of what would normally be 1.) In return, my proxy buyer got to use the handshake ticket that came with the CD to meet one of the girls (something that I wouldn't have been able to use anyway since I'm way over here in the U.S. so it's a win-win situation) This was one of my best decisions this year because I was able to buy 10 votes. My proxy buyer took a picture of the voting codes and sent them to me through email. I inputted the codes and voila! I had voted for two girls. I sent 8 of the 10 votes for my favorite member - Yokoyama Yui. I sent the final two votes in for my favorite NMB48 member Watanabe Miyuki.

Jpop Mix: Kibouteki Refrain

What is this? A new post category? Why, yes, yes it is. Welcome to my MusicMix post, where I review a new CD/single I have bought or maybe a song that has caught my attention. I will try my best so that this category doesn't end up filled solely with jpop, but as a forewarning, most of my music is jpop. I listen to a wide range of jpop artists, from idols to classic artists so even if I don't seem to break from the jpop bubble, I'll try to present a slice of my varied music tastes. As a heads-up, in addition to jpop, I listen to a fair amount of cpop, kpop, indopop, Spanish pop & rock, and in terms of American music, it's a little bit of everything. My iTunes has tons of soundtrack music from American movies and television shows so I may review a few soundtracks from time to time. Please be aware that not all the music I review will be the latest release, but I will try to make sure the music is no more than 1 year old. :) 

So, with that out of the way, lets get started! First up is the single, Kibouteki refrain (希望的リフレイン) by Japanese mega idol group AKB48. The first picture on the left is of the front cover of this single which features the members in various phases of running. The second picture is the back cover, featuring the following members, from left to right: Mako Kojima, Sakura Miyawaki, Mayu Watanabe, Nana Owada, and Rena Kato. One of the first things I want to make clear is that AKB48 is huge. HUGE. This is literal. AKB48 is a girl group made up of tons of members. The original concept was to have 3 teams: Team A, Team K and Team B. Each team consisted of 16 members (thus the 48 at the end). Why so many girls? The girl group has its own theater where they have shows daily for fans. In order to not overextend the girls, each team takes turns performing. In addition, the girls hold handshake events and meet-and-greets with one main goal in mind: increased access. The idea behind this group was to create a group that was easily accessible to their fans and therefore a group that everyone could relate to. Of course, since their indie days they have grown into the bestselling girl group in Japan. They also now have 5 teams (Teams A, K, B, 4 and 8) and boast waaaayyyy more than 48 members.