Wings of My Heart 3.0

It was announced at the end of this weekend’s big AKB concert at Budokan that the teams are going to be restructured, effective some time in October. The three teams will still be called Teams A, K, and B, but the members have been shuffled around within them - permanently. Some members remain on their current teams, but numerous others have been shifted to other teams, and they themselves learned this on stage in front of tons of fans. This cruel surprise was sprung on them in public, for all to see their tears. One member had to be helped off the stage after learning she was being moved.

The above picture is kind of heartbreaking in light of those girls having no idea what was coming to them on August 23rd, 2009.

I’ve ranted about this pretty much since I woke up today, and I’m going to spare you guys the expletives and exclamations of shock and anger. For now, you can check my Twitter if you really want to see all of that. I can honestly say that I’ve never been this shocked about any piece of news in any of my idol fandoms before, and I don’t think any other AKB fan has, either. Stage 48 has pretty well exploded with posts, and we’ve already set a record for the most members online at one time since the forum has been created, thanks to this announcement. There’s a lot of shock and rage, though also some optimism about what positive effects these changes may have on the group. Still, I think the word “devastated” is appropriate right now, describing both the members’ and fans’ reactions.

In addition to many members being shuffled around, a number of kenkyuusei (research student) members have been promoted to teams, including Kikuchi Ayaka, the former Team B member who came back as a kenkyuusei after her scandal, though she’s now been added to the new Team K. What I will say about my reaction is that I wish that Ayarin had gone to Team B, and not Komori Mika, who I’m really not a fan of. She’s essentially my least favourite member of AKB right now - I’m sure she’s a nice girl, but I’m just not into her “I can barely move” performance style and the amount of exposure she gets regardless - and I never wanted to see my least favourite member added to my favourite team. Meanwhile, Ayarin belongs with Team B. But it’s barely Team B anymore, anyway - a few core members have stuck with each team, but that’s it. My second favourite member, Miyazaki Miho, is now on the same team (B) as my favourite, Hirajima Natsumi, but I can barely work up any excitement about that right now. (I should also be happy that Nacchan being kept on Team B kind of says that she’s now finally considered a core member, but again, I’m not exactly jumping for joy at all of this.)

Plus, the four AKB members who are also members of the new Saturday Night 48 (SDN48) are now only members of SDN. That means Noro Kayo, Sato Yukari, Ohori Megumi, and Urano Kazumi - Cindy, who was essentially the leader of Team B, for all intents and purposes. Each team now has an official leader, as does SDN.

None of us knows what’s going to happen next with AKB’s current stages. Everyone seems to be at a loss. Some Japanese fans seem to be starting a petition on mixi, but who knows how much good that’ll do.

Click to read the rest of the entry for the lists of who’s on which team now, copied from flagator21’s post on Stage 48.

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Because that’s what her last name translates to. Melon shop. Go figure.

Uriya Akane was one of the original AKB48 SEEDs, and up until now she remained a kenkyuusei. She was one of only two of the original SEEDs left on Team Kenkyuusei, as the others who still had not been added to a team were given the boot after the Team Kenkyuusei auditions, in favour of newer girls. (As for the other original SEEDs, I still don’t know why they all graduated at once fairly soon after joining the group. Watanabe Marie was obviously of questionable character - for an idol, anyway - but what was wrong with the other ones?) In the first of three AKB concerts taking place over the course of this weekend, Uryaa announced her graduation from the group. They apparently played a long video featuring clips of her, giving her a fitting send-off, but that doesn’t take away my right to be bitter about this!

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Some of the biggest changes in AKB48 that are announced often wind up never happening. Some time ago it was announced that the group would be split into two new groups, Bara gumi and Yuri gumi, disbanding Teams A and K (this was before Team B came along). Instead, we had the two teams combined into Himawari gumi and then split into two casts to perform Himawari stages, before returning to separate stages as teams A and K. The Bara and Yuri gumi idea was abandoned, though no official word on it was ever given again after the initial announcement of the plan. More recently, a regular late night AKB performance featuring members age 18 or older was announced, but we haven’t heard anything about it since, and it’s starting to seem like it might turn out the same way Bara and Yuri gumi did. And then there was that whole Spring Festival debacle, but let’s not go there.

Other big announcements, however, have come to fruition, the biggest one being the creation of SKE48 in Nagoya. All you can do as an AKB fan is take every new piece of really big news with a grain of salt, and wait to see what happens.

So here we have the group’s latest big piece of news: a second theatre for the group to perform in is to be acquired, making it possible for up to 1000 people to see an AKB show in a day. This is being done in response to recent frustration on the part of longtime fans who are having a harder time winning shows now that AKB is gaining in popularity. (Getting into an AKB theatre show today requires emailing in for a chance to win a ticket in a random lottery, unlike the early morning lineups of stages past.) On the one hand, this may take away from the intimacy of being in a small theatre watching the girls close-up, as a larger venue would make the experience more impersonal. A new venue is also unlikely to ever inspire the same kind of sentimental attachment that so many AKB wota have to the Akihabara 48 theatre. But on the other hand, it’s a great idea in terms of increasing every fan’s chance of winning a show on a given day, and it would also help to suppot AKB’s growing fanbase as their singles get more airtime and more of the general public are drawn to the group. Achieving a balance between the super dedicated wota fanbase and the new fans is the key here, and it may be a delicate balance, but I think it’s possible.

In any case, I’m sure many AKB wota will have strong opinions on this matter. For now, however, the smart thing to do is just to wait and see what happens next. They could start performances in a new venue next week, or it might never happen; either way, the AKB48 fandom will go on, as tumultuously as usual.

Thoughts?

Picture yourself as a 15-year-old Japanese girl. You’ve grown up with idols like Morning Musume on TV, and more recently a group called AKB48 has caught your eye. You hear that AKB are holding auditions for their third and final team, Team B, and you decide that you want to become an idol. So you audition - and you make it. A few months later, you debut as one of the original members of AKB48’s newest team. And another year or so later, your team finally debuts its first original stage, Pajama Drive, and you get your first original unit. It’s all like a dream come true, right?

So what do you do when that dream isn’t all it’s cracked up to be?

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So version 2 sure didn’t last very long, huh? I think it was kind of an experiment for me, seeing if starting over with a new version would get me re-energized and willing to blog on a weekly basis again. It worked for a little while, but not nearly as well as I’d hoped it would.

So why do I think starting yet another new version - and after only a few months of version 2 - is a good idea? I’m going to be up front about it: I’m doing a blogging assignment for my writer’s craft class at school, and I’m allowed to use Wings of My Heart for it as long as I’m starting anew with my old entries seperately archived. This time around, I have to actually keep writing stuff, because my grade depends on it. How’s that for motivation?

Alas, there’s a reason why I asked if I could use Wings for this project, and that’s because I do feel that maybe starting a new version yet again, but this time with some real motivation to keep at it, might help me become more productive here again. So I’m giving it a shot. I’ve spent a lot of time brainstorming ideas for entries, and I hope that I’ll be able to share many of those ideas with you guys soon.

One change you should look out for is that I’m planning on integrating Jrock back into this blog. WHAT IS PILLOW FIGHT! may be an awesome blog title, but the blog itself really hasn’t been much of anything. I’ve had it for over a year now and I still have under 10 entries. From now on, all of my music blogging will be right here on Wings of My Heart, the site that’s been my baby for the last two years. Maybe I’ll even throw in an entry about English music once in awhile, just for the hell of it. But knowing me, there will be a ton of babbling about idols, and that’s what you come here for, right? Right.

I’m going to try my best. To those of you who’ve continued to support me and who will continue to, thank you. I love you guys. <3

☆Julia☆