AKB Spinoff Shows: It’s like they’re not even trying anymore.

AKB48 has reached a stage of cultural saturation where they could air a 30-minute show called “Atsuko Maeda Farts,” and people would still tune in to watch it meticulously because you never know if Acchan’s fart this week will be different from Acchan’s fart last week. So I really don’t know what to say about The Democratic People’s Republic of United Socialist States of Akihabara Ariyoshi AKB Republic, which basically is

(1) That one dude who sometimes appears on that other AKB show gets to poke more fun at the girls. (Don’t we already get enough of this on every idol variety show? How many more unsuspecting teen-to-twentyish Japanese girls must suffer the slings and arrows of smartass male hosts until there is JUSTICE?)
(2) Kenkyuusei (research students / trainees / understudies / whatever you call ‘em).

lololololol what is this.

Oshirase (for your information)

PLZ VIEW my new blog, The Importance of Being Gachapin.

It’s all about MY WIFE Minami Minegishi!
You may learn something useful from it.
Or just enjoy drooling at pretty pictures of her.

Please check it out!

AKB48 and the Evolution of Post-Gravure

Y HALO THAR HARUNYAN.

Where were you when you first saw an AKB member in a bikini?

Were you browsing through the men’s manga magazines, only to find Mai Oshima or Nozomi Kawasaki staring back at you?
Were you trawling for the latest entertainment news and gossip, when suddenly you found yourself face-to-face with a very underdressed Atsuko Maeda?
Or were you, (like me), visiting your usual uploader sites when LO AND BEHOLD IT’S HARUNA KOJIMA IN A BIKINI DEAR LORD MY PRAYERS HAVE BEEN ANSWERED?

Ever since the beginning of mass media and pop culture, there has been an inextricable link between female celebrities and swimsuits. If there is a beautiful woman, there will be horny fans who wish to feast on her with their eyes, and the best way to present that feast without turning to straight-out pr0n is by means of the swimsuit. And so it goes with AKB48, whose booming popularity over the past year has made them a common fixture in cheesecake magazines all across Japan.

But so many of us are busy drooling over their gorgeously photoshopped abs and deliciously creamy thighs that we have overlooked a minor fashion revolution taking place. At some point, AKB48′s swimsuits stopped being swimsuits. They weren’t exactly what you would call lingerie, either, since lingerie was something that slutty gravure idols like Aki Hoshino and Mikie Hara did, but surely not our innocent singing and dancing schoolgirls! Instead, AKB48 has entered an entirely new realm of celebrating the sensuality of the female form. Too impractical to be swimwear or underwear, but still intensely revealing and alluring to the eye, AKB48′s wardrobe choices have entered the realm of … post-gravure.

Graduation Daze

A famous pervert once said, “The great thing about high school girls is that even though I get older, they never do!”

Liar.

They always get older. Maybe if you were some indiscriminate wolfhound waiting in the bushes outside the local school, like the famous dude quoted above, you wouldn’t care who it was—as long as she had a cute face and was within a certain age range. But for those of us who choose our teen pop idols wisely, we are drawn in to one name, one face, one personality—and it always ends in tragedy. It is not her fault. You fall in love with her at the blossoming of youth, you watch her grow with the days, the months, the years, and someday, when she is all grown up, she always, always breaks your heart.