AKB0048: Season One
(pronounced "AKB-zero-zero-forty-eight")
IN THE FUTURE, humanity has had to abandon Earth & populate other planets. On certain worlds, entertainment ("things that disturb the heart") is forbidden. Signs with a teenage girl have the "no" sign placed over it with the words "NO IDOL."
In this sad & dystopian future where people work in factories, A GROUP OF TEENAGE GIRLS PERFORM GUERRILLA CONCERTS AND FIGHT AGAINST GIANT MECHAS WHILE DELIVERING HOPEFUL MESSAGES THROUGH THEIR LYRICS.
It is amazeballs, you guys.
AKB48 is an actual musical group in Japan, releasing music NOW. Currently comprised of 86 girls, they perform live concerts almost every day in Tokyo's Akihabara district. They are ridiculously popular, & a cultural phenomenon. The second time we went to Japan, we were asked by some school kids at a shrine who our favorite members were (they were appalled by my choice, lmao).
When we went out for karaoke with some of Steph's friends, a group of boys knew & performed the entire dance to Heavy Rotation.
This series may be viewed as one giant advertisement if you have no soul.
Here's what Heavy Rotation looks like when they perform it live:
As you can see, when they perform it live, Heavy Rotation is pretty adorbs & awesome - they have military-style jackets, colorful skirts, & awesome dance moves. I like how they shout "ONE TWO THREE FOUR!" in the beginning.
Their studio music video for the same song is, uh, a little different. The girls (most of whom are teenagers) spend most of it in lingerie, lying in bed or feeding each other decadent desserts (while wearing pink cat ears). The video literally begins by zooming in through a key hole to one of the girls taking her clothes off; I'd classify this as NSFW.
While popular with young girls, AKB48 has been criticized for having its members "graduate" in their mid-twenties to make room for young girls. Adult men also make up a huge % of its fanbase (much like moe anime).
There was a pretty widely-publicized story a few months ago when one member was caught having a boyfriend (not allowed!). She shaved her head and tearfully apologized to her fans on camera in a YouTube video.
In this season at least, the semi-problematic things like this are not really addressed. The exception is when they do so fail-y. In one episode, one of the girls receives traumatic hate mail. She meets this "hater" in person, & ends up thanking him for his vitriol because it helps her become a better member of AKB0048. :(
I guess they also imply that older girls making room for younger ones is part of a divine plan.
I typically rely on Wikipedia to tell me an anime's target audience, but this one doesn't say. I assume it's seinen (adult men).
Girls don't join AKB0048 because they need money, but rather because they believe in AKB0048's mission of providing joy (through music) to other girls like themselves.
When teenage girls join the AKB0048 of the future, they leave their home planets to live with other members on a spaceship. They're branded as terrorists & hunted by the military, who try to shut down every concert they perform. Which is why each girl performs on a moving hovercraft, and also why their microphones turn into lightsabers. SHOW OF MY HEART.
Before each concert, they recite their motto: "Calmly, carefully, correctly."
Episodes deal with the girls' angst, as their family members have various roles related to anti-entertainment governments, weapons manufacturers, etc. Like all idols, their personal relationships with friends & family change when they join this popular group.
Overall, I love this series quite a bit. Girls helping girls, believing in each other, helping each other move forward & perform together in some of the best-animated scenes I've seen. They use rotoscoping for some of the concert portions, to much better effect than it's being used in Flower of Evil, imo.
Here's the older generation performing Aitakatta in episode one; the four little girls watching end up being protagonists in the main series. They're so inspired by this concert they end up joining AKB0048 themselves :*)
My favorite character was Chieri.
There is a second season that just wrapped up in March. I'll be watching it!
This entry was originally posted on Dreamwidth. You can comment here or there.
There are <
> comments on this post at Dreamwidth.
IN THE FUTURE, humanity has had to abandon Earth & populate other planets. On certain worlds, entertainment ("things that disturb the heart") is forbidden. Signs with a teenage girl have the "no" sign placed over it with the words "NO IDOL."
In this sad & dystopian future where people work in factories, A GROUP OF TEENAGE GIRLS PERFORM GUERRILLA CONCERTS AND FIGHT AGAINST GIANT MECHAS WHILE DELIVERING HOPEFUL MESSAGES THROUGH THEIR LYRICS.
It is amazeballs, you guys.
AKB48 is an actual musical group in Japan, releasing music NOW. Currently comprised of 86 girls, they perform live concerts almost every day in Tokyo's Akihabara district. They are ridiculously popular, & a cultural phenomenon. The second time we went to Japan, we were asked by some school kids at a shrine who our favorite members were (they were appalled by my choice, lmao).
When we went out for karaoke with some of Steph's friends, a group of boys knew & performed the entire dance to Heavy Rotation.
This series may be viewed as one giant advertisement if you have no soul.
Here's what Heavy Rotation looks like when they perform it live:
Click to viewAs you can see, when they perform it live, Heavy Rotation is pretty adorbs & awesome - they have military-style jackets, colorful skirts, & awesome dance moves. I like how they shout "ONE TWO THREE FOUR!" in the beginning.
Their studio music video for the same song is, uh, a little different. The girls (most of whom are teenagers) spend most of it in lingerie, lying in bed or feeding each other decadent desserts (while wearing pink cat ears). The video literally begins by zooming in through a key hole to one of the girls taking her clothes off; I'd classify this as NSFW.
While popular with young girls, AKB48 has been criticized for having its members "graduate" in their mid-twenties to make room for young girls. Adult men also make up a huge % of its fanbase (much like moe anime).
There was a pretty widely-publicized story a few months ago when one member was caught having a boyfriend (not allowed!). She shaved her head and tearfully apologized to her fans on camera in a YouTube video.
In this season at least, the semi-problematic things like this are not really addressed. The exception is when they do so fail-y. In one episode, one of the girls receives traumatic hate mail. She meets this "hater" in person, & ends up thanking him for his vitriol because it helps her become a better member of AKB0048. :(
I guess they also imply that older girls making room for younger ones is part of a divine plan.
I typically rely on Wikipedia to tell me an anime's target audience, but this one doesn't say. I assume it's seinen (adult men).
Girls don't join AKB0048 because they need money, but rather because they believe in AKB0048's mission of providing joy (through music) to other girls like themselves.
When teenage girls join the AKB0048 of the future, they leave their home planets to live with other members on a spaceship. They're branded as terrorists & hunted by the military, who try to shut down every concert they perform. Which is why each girl performs on a moving hovercraft, and also why their microphones turn into lightsabers. SHOW OF MY HEART.
Before each concert, they recite their motto: "Calmly, carefully, correctly."
Episodes deal with the girls' angst, as their family members have various roles related to anti-entertainment governments, weapons manufacturers, etc. Like all idols, their personal relationships with friends & family change when they join this popular group.
Overall, I love this series quite a bit. Girls helping girls, believing in each other, helping each other move forward & perform together in some of the best-animated scenes I've seen. They use rotoscoping for some of the concert portions, to much better effect than it's being used in Flower of Evil, imo.
Here's the older generation performing Aitakatta in episode one; the four little girls watching end up being protagonists in the main series. They're so inspired by this concert they end up joining AKB0048 themselves :*)
My favorite character was Chieri.
There is a second season that just wrapped up in March. I'll be watching it!
This entry was originally posted on Dreamwidth. You can comment here or there.
There are <
> comments on this post at Dreamwidth.