I got screwed out of AKB48 autographs … during the session after the concert.
There was a mad dash to get to the autographs room on Thursday night and, let’s just say, I got out of the Nokia Theatre too slowly and took the long way around.
So, realizing my mistake, I reminded myself for Friday: you have to get up pretty early in the morning to beat a bunch of stupid ass wotas.
Left: the last page of Sakura no Shiori. Right: the greatest AKB48 autograph collection of THE FOREVER.
Inside, I knew who I was. But my family did not. Oh, they had an idea—they knew my psychological makeup was “a little bit different”—but I never gave them the whole picture. Probably it was because of fear or embarrassment: the fear of being perceived as even weirder than I already was, the embarrassment of having to explain my “personal preferences.” But someday, it would have to come out. I would have to come out.
Do you know what it’s like, having a feeling that eats at your very soul? Having to shade the truth everytime you come home to visit, making up polite answers in polite company (“Oh, he doesn’t have a girlfriend because he’s married to his job LOLOLOL”)? I always told myself I would explain it to them eventually. In the right place, at the right time. Someday.
looool.
The place was Manila. The time was April 2010. The Philippines had recently been struck by a cataclysm of seismic proportions: the Korean Wave, characterized by a surge of K-dramas on TV (often dubbed hilariously in Tagalog), an accompanying interest in Korean popular music, and even an upswing of Korean visitors and immigrants to the country (most of whom wanted to hang out in Boracay). The top-selling album in the country was Oh! by Girls’ Generation. Super Junior was stopping by on Saturday to perform in front of thousands of adoring fans. It was in this pop-cultural climate that the seeds were ripe for a personal revelation.
“What a disgrace.”
“I can’t believe we sent our national idols to America to make this piece of shit video.”
“This looks completely stupid.”
“Ignorant Westerners just don’t understand what Japanese idols are about.”
So goes the BAAAAAWWWWWWWWW of certain stupid ass wotas who saw Jonathan Carrera’s “USA version” of RIVARRRRR and immediately had their sensibilities violated. And who can blame them? The PV is daring, defiant, and flies completely in the face of idol orthodoxy. Kinda like the song itself, really.
Who the hell is this guy?
Reader warning: No eye candy in today’s post because NOTHING, I mean NOTHING, can possibly convey the feeling of the memories I made today!!
I don’t like to talk much about Morning Musume @ Anime Expo. That’s because a lot of stupid ass wotas ruined it for me. Stupid ass wotas camping the panel room, wearing their retarded matching shirts, taking all the autograph tickets from AX and from the MM booth because they have no lives and think they can have Hello! Project all to themselves whereas I, having a schedule of actual work and duties at the con, got screwed.
I would not make that mistake again.
Oh, I still had work and duties at New York Anime Festival, but I made it clear to the guy I work for that there is a reason for me traveling to an East Coast convention for the first time in my life and no it’s not to take pictures of freaking Naruto cosplayers. I was there to lay down my life and soul for AKB48.
(more…)
What does the reshuffling of AKB48′s Teams portend for the rest of humankind? Will the seas run red with blood, will the great Leviathan rise from the depths, will the awful horror reign for 1290 days? (For comparison purposes, remember that George W. Bush was President of the United States for 2922 days.) Has the downfall of Japanese civilization, marked by declining population growth and two decades of economic malaise, entered its final stages?
Wow, it's like Excel is finally useful for something.
If there is one thing I have learned from working at a major Japanese corporation (albeit its US division), it is that they love to make managerial moves for the sake of making managerial moves. Not that this accomplishes anything, but it sure looks like you’re “doing something” when people get shuffled around. Of course, plenty of other corporations around the world also do this, but it is Japan that has raised these corporate shenanigans to the level of art, where you can be Product Manager one month and then suddenly be moved to Engineering Manager (even if the last time you “engineered” something was for a senior year college project) and if they really don’t like you, you get exiled to Sales.
What I see right now is a lot of idols being exiled to Sales.
Who put them there? Yasushi Akimoto, you think? Of course not! When a paradigm shift of this magnitude occurs, it can only be the invisible blue hand of INBOU.
INBOU
