The Concept Behind AKB48 and the other 9000+ Idol Groups

For a start, let me just declare that I am most definitely not a raging Idol Group fan. Not here to declare my undying love for Mayuyu or anything. As all you know the AKB48 anime AKB0048 anime came out not long ago and I did a little research (aka Wikipedia stalking) and I found out some interesting things. Shall I start? (No please don’t)

\ See… there really is an anime for everything! (IM@S is a great anime.)

For a start, everyone should know what an Idol Group is right? It is a basically a group of Idols (young girls/guys in the entertainment biz). And they have been around for AGES. Throughout every culture there is definitely an Idol Group or something else with a different name. But they all have the same recipe. Bunch of cute/hot girls/guys that dance and sing. Let me give you a few examples that have had raging fans (at the moment). America/Britian (I have no idea): One Direction and The Wanted. South Korea: List of every single  K-Pop group. Japan: AKB48 etc etc. You get the idea right?

A word to describe this picture that starts with “g” and rhymes with “hay”.

What on earth has kept these groups from existing and dominating? My theory is simple. If there is this solo singer that you do not like, you will not bother listening to the songs right? So if we raise the number of singers and make them have all different personalities, you get easily build up a large fan base. Girls will be like “OMG A-san is SOOO HOT!” “AAAHHHHH C-san WINKED AT ME” and so on. Another thing is that with a group, you just need one guy to focus on one aspect. A does singing, B does dancing, C does another type of singing and D is the play boy. (what?)

So if you have hell lot of members….

So by spreading out the jobs, the group looks nicer, they have more fans and they make lots of $$$. And so how do you maximise the whole “more than one member” thing? Get more members. Which is where we arrive at AKB48. The largest singing group in the world. With god knows how many members. The creator behind AKB and its sister groups is a genius. Yasushi Akimoto manages to take the concept behind idols and blow it up. Some people  may hate them, but you cannot deny that they are doing well. Same with  Two One Direction and the K-Pop groups.

Still… this is the kind of Idol singing that I prefer. Vocaloids can be considered Idols right?

But with these advantages of course they will be smacked with disadvantages. The more people you have, the more people problems you have. The band members might not get along after a quarrel, the chance of one of the members having an affair outside and ruining the name of the group is so much higher and etc. And from what the newspapers tell me, I think this happens rather often.

The minute a female Idol is seen with a male human being who might or might not be her brother.

For me I cannot say I hate Idol Groups, but I can say that some of their music simply makes no sense and sounds like a song written by a businessman out to make money. So what are your takes on the whole Idol thing? Do you hate/ love/ worship it? and… Moe.

Still a type of Idol ^^