Saturday 19 November 2011

Sim talks AKB48: A brief history of AKB48

Here I will only talk about how the group has progressed, I will save talk about the singles themselves for now, as well as when specific members joined.
AKB48 was developed in 2005 by music producer Akimoto Yasushi (Akimoto-Sensei or Aki-P), who was formerly responsible for groups such as Onyakodon Club. The first 16 members joined the group and became the initial Team A, performing daily at the AKB theatre in Akihabara, Tokyo.  The girls started with an audience of 7, but over a two month managed to fill the theatre. The first single, ‘Sakura no Hanabiratachi’ was released in February of 2006, followed by ‘Skirt, Hirari’ a few months later. Things really started to pick up though with the release of their third single ‘Aitakatta’ which is still considered the ‘song of AKB48’. Aitakatta was also the first single to feature members of Team K.
After a few more singles and the debut of Team B the group changed labels to King Records’ You Be Cool, shortly after the release of the first of two digital singles, ‘Baby Baby Baby’. It was at around this time, in 2008 that AKB48 gained their longest running show, currently titled AKBINGO. This time also saw the formation of SKE48, based in Nagoya, who started performing in their theatre on weekends. AKBs first single under You Be Cool, and 10th overall, featured as the centre an SKE member, possibly solely to promote the group, but she has been in most AKB singles, and every SKE single since.

2009 featured, amongst other things the birth of SDN48, an adult idol sister group, which featured both new members and AKB graduates. For the members to feature in the 14th single a new idea was pressed, the Senbetsu election, where fans could vote for their favourite member to be in the single, so the fans were able to choose the senbetsu for ‘Iiwaka Maybe’, although the members were pretty much guaranteed anyway. 2009 also saw the beginning of AKB’s 2nd longest running show, Shukan AKB.

2010 started with the debut of the first all AKB drama (a previous drama had featured the 3 members who would later go on to form no3b), Majisuka Gakuen, which ran for 12 episodes. During the year the latest sister group, NMB48 was formed, and also saw the formation of the 4th AKB team (excluding Team Kenkyuusei, the members in training), Team 4. The senbetsu election for that year featured a somewhat surprising result, and pre-empted the debut of the most fanservice ever seen in a music video, in ‘Heavy Rotation’. After the so controversial you can’t find it music video to ‘Beginner’, we saw the Janken (Rock, Paper, Scissors) tournament to choose the members for the next singles senbetsu, which ultimately resulted in only one ‘Front’ member making it to the senbetsu (or at least that I’d recognise), though two other Front members were added to the Senbetsu presumably to help it sell. I don’t know if being the centre for the single helped the girl who won gain popularity, but I think she’s at least the centre for the Under-single for the 23rd single.

By 2011 plans to expand the group overseas were announced, these have included the formation of JKT48 in Indonesia, the upcoming formation of TPE48 in Thailand, and the opening of an AKB store in Singapore. In addition, a fourth Japan based group, HKT48 is being formed currently. The Senbetsu election overturned the surprise of the year before, but the race for 1st and 2nd was far closer than that for 2nd and 3rd. The most recent release is, as I understand in aid of the earthquake relief effort, while a 2nd Janken tournament has led to the already completed filming of the music video for ‘Ue kara Mariko’. And that’s pretty much where we are.
AKB48 has also had numerous other television shows, at least one on-going radio show, a manga and 2 dating simulation games featuring the members. Each team has a ‘stage’ which is basically a setlist for songs they sing at theatre performances.

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