nightjaeger

It is arguable that Hanada Mei was famous before she even joined AKB48. Not the kind of fame that I can understand, but with 10k followers on tiktok, it feels like Meimei was certainly not an unknown quantity.



I’m sidestepping my discomfort there, the same discomfort I feel whenever I hear about the debut of idol groups whose line-ups have been decided based on prior popularity and follower counts because I like to think everyone is equal once they join the group and should be treated accordingly, but I also think there’s no doubt that AKS saw those numbers and wondered how many of them they could convert into current AKB fans.

In 2024, alongside Ito Momoka, Meimei debuted as part of the nineteenth generation, first appearing on stage during a revival of Boku no Taiyo and then making her full theatre debut with a kenkyuusei revival of Team A’s fourth stage, Tadaima Renaichuu, appearing as centre for the song, Kikyou. Like Itomomo, in the short time in which she has been a member of AKB, it is clear she’s made an impact, appearing on a number of B sides from Koi Tsun Jatta onwards, not least of all Yumemite Gomen, the theme song to the live action adaptation of Hoshikuzu Telepath, but also the kenkyuusei anthem, Kimi to Boku no Polestar, and Skipping Stone, a B side from Masaka no Confession featuring Meimei as centre! I genuinely do not know how to talk about members who joined in 2024 and are already appearing as the centre of certain songs but I think it’s testament to both how much faith AKS has in the new members and how much of a following they have with Japanese fans who are able to attend the theatre regularly. More than at any time since the very early days of the group, it feels like the theatre is at the heart of what AKB does and how they engage with fans.

I can’t work out yet whether the announcement of the new single will set back the hard work that management has done by promoting members like Meimei and her peers or if it will add some kind of legitimacy to where we are, but... as much as I am the audience for returning members, I don’t think the kenkyuusei need to prove themselves to anyone, because, as I say, they’re already at the heart of the theatre. With the refurbishment of that space, the disbandment of the teams, and the new AKB1 stage, Koko Kara da, Meimei has been performing as Yamauchi Mizuki’s understudy for the song, Lollipop (I love this song!), but I think it’s really only a matter of time before Meimei starts appearing as a more focal point for the group and stops being the centre for B sides and starts being the centre for A sides! At the rate things are going with AKB now, I’d even bet on that happening before this time next year!

It’s difficult for me to write about these newer members as there’s so little information available to overseas fans without dedicating a lot of time to studying rips of Showroom streams and I feel a bit guilty that I won’t do that despite my love of the group, and that somehow this makes me less of a fan, but sooner or later, I genuinely believe there will no avoiding Meimei. Sooner or later, members like her and Itomomo will be the face of AKB48.

Alongside Yagi Azuki, Akiyama Yuna was one of the members who passed auditions in 2023 to become AKB48’s eighteenth generation. Yunachan tells us that her dream since youth has been to be a member of AKB, that she was a fan of the group since she was five-years-old. If it hadn’t been AKB, she declared, then she would not have auditioned, a statement that underlines her passion and commitment, a girl who grew up watching the Kami 7 on television and striving not to be a part of the idol industry but to be a member of AKB48 itself.

In late April, several weeks after her generation was announced, Doushitemo Kimi ga Suki da was released and, along with it, came the B side, Ano Natsu no Bohatei, performed by members of both the eighteenth and the seventeenth generation. Just like that, the girl who had dreamed of being a member of the group was canonised, the moment preserved for even us overseas fans.

From the details shared by Yunachan about her high school experiences, it’s hard not to think of her as anything but the ideal student—experience as class president and a member of the student council, a basketball team captain in junior high! By all rights, Yunachan should not exist outside of fiction, but with the highest IQ rating in her entire generation, she is decidedly the real deal. In a different world, Yunachan would have employed her intellect in pursuit of a career as a pharmacist, but she claims that joining AKB was a higher priority for her, which both makes me feel as if we have potentially robbed the world of a future Nobel Prize winner, but gosh am I proud to have her as a member of AKB.

Friends, I’m kind of intimidated by this generation, they are all so talented! Yunachan has already taken the centre position in a B side, Machibito, from Yukirin graduation single, Colorcon Wink, released last year. It is crazy to me that members of this generation, hard working as they have proved to be, can have been with us for such a short amount of time and yet have had this kind of impact on the group.

Like many seventeenth and eighteenth generation members, Yunachan is perhaps recognisable to some from her role in the live action of Hoshikuzu Telepath, a series that many care for deeply and one that helped draw attention to the current line-up of AKB. It feels like it shouldn’t be a surprise to find her amongst her peers in the senbatsu for the new single celebrating the group’s anniversary, and as someone who grew up with fierce admiration for what the group was then, I’m really excited to see how Yunachan will interact with the returning members.

I think that a lot of the time it is tempting to consider the Sashihara Rino produced groups as the spirit of what AKB once was, but I kind of relate to Yunachan’s fixation on the idea of AKB remaining the ideal even if the group is so different from what it once was. Maybe that’s a good thing, friends! If anyone can establish a future for AKB it’s members like Yunachan who understand the past yet are not continually looking back to it.

Nominated for Best Newcomer award alongside colleagues from STU48 and NMB48, Akiyama Yuna is undeniably the future of AKB.

Sometimes I avoid watching magical girl shows because I know I'll have to write one of these entries if I do.

( Kimi to Idol Precure )

( Kamen Rider × Kamen Rider Wizard & Fourze: Movie War Ultimatum )

I read a lot of books these past few months. I'm working my way through the Fushigi Comedy series as a whole, but I'm mostly watching the "robot comedy" shows, so apologies for the lack of variety in this month's post.