sashihara, akb and me
this is an excuse to unload some uninmportant, incoherent thoughts, to put down a stream of consciousness for my own self-reflection. since i don't have any blog what better place to dump it at than snsd free for all?
for the longest time my attitude towards akb48 was basically "don't like them, their business, their image, but some songs are ok"
some may recall the minegishi minami scandal and my (and other people's) anger about it, see: koganbot posts. the most aggravating part about that, I think, were the claims that it was about culture, or that if you don't know the fandom you couldn't make statements about the incident. that was ugly stuff that still pisses me off. before that happened I was actually starting to talk more enthusiastically about akb48 releases I was getting into, but because of that story I didn't consume any aks product for quite some time.
of course as time goes by your principles and objections feel less absolute and, let's face it, I enjoy works involving lots of people I dislike. I couldn't just ignore the biggest force in japanese pop culture either.
and this ambivalent, distanced relationship with the group sort of fell apart as I watched a youtube stream of akb's 'general election' (popularity contest) this june. I recognised the face but didn't know the name of the winner, sashihara rino. the online reactions were all variations of "WTF" and I soon learned how she: had a sex/bf scandal the year before, was 'demoted' to a sister group (with an image potentially even more at odds with her style) and was expected to drop in popularity after gaining more fans for each election up until then.
this became my excuse to get into the group's activites. here was a leader I had no moral objections against supporting fully. this was the awesome 'fuck you' to the dumb dating restrictions, the virginal ideals, the concept of 'disgrace' ruining careers for good.
naive in some ways and things aren't that simple of course, but now I started looking up things that were about the personalities involved and not the music. it was something I had maybe made an effort not do to before. I started reading translations of all the blog posts rino made, a blog that as far as I understand was a central reason for her gaining a big following, going from zero to hero, and which features genuinely great pieces of blog art: she has a voice of her own, a sense of timing, a touch of the absurd, the right amount of self deprecation* - no wonder boss akimoto mentions in several interviews that she'd be better off as part of the labels writing team than a performer.
*her 'loser' character was given lots of focus in her early years**, and seems to have genuine enough roots (-says her mom: "at home you’d be tough yet outside you’d become timid"): in one mega long interview she talks about her lonely schooldays:
"I was really bad in public, ever since from before. But because I was so closed up, I wasn’t able to keep up with everyone’s pace of being normal. A stubborn person. Earlier we talked about my "kind" stories, in the end it was only because I didn’t want to get attention, didn’t want to make enemies."
bullying, familiar anecdotes:
"One day, when I went home from school. I opened the mail box and there was an enve
lope without any name or anything. I opened it up, inside there’s a letter with some really dirty ink saying "Don’t ever come to school again, please"
(3rd year middle school she quit)
and liking something that wasn't cool:
"In the beginning it was with everyone. During break time we would trade cards."
"However, as I went up in grades, people started to become interested in other things - such as dodge ball or whatever. During 5th grade, the only person who was still following idols was Sashihara. Because I didn’t want people to say "Why do you still like that stuff?", I slowly started to hide it."
"Right now it may be different here. But in Oita, if you were different to other people, it would be troublesome. Going beyond the norm was unacceptable. Therefore, I gave my 100% love into idols in another world."
" But aren’t there people like this? Acts all normal on the outside but deep inside is actually a pro wrestling fan - like that. Or like hiding from the people at work, but during weekends would ride the metro train going on vacation and take pictures and whatnot."
Here's an essay she wrote for her photobook which is good enough to survive a sloppy english translation: http://yic17.tumblr.com/post/18373618732/essay-4-my-high-school-delusions-from-sashiko
(The line "So plain that “plain” was the only word that can be used to describe me." is giving me major Peanuts/Schulz vibes, thus the lead photo here -that blockade, the wall in your mind that makes you incapable of seeing qualities others see in you - in fact I think Schulz and Charlie Brown may have said this word for word somewhere)
(translations from the book found here http://stage48.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=4743#p528721)
I think sashihara has said several times she wanted to get rid of the 'loser' character and nowadays it's not such a good a fit - she's the most popular member and has administrative duties, power in the group, a reach (/schulz got to #1 as well, but always feared he was a bland bore/)
but even though she's successful now, when I think about my favorite snsd member (yes, all this is very on-topic for the snsd ffa) sunny and her, their qualities are different, maybe opposite. what I admire sunny for is her pro skill, her ability to adapt to any position, how comfortable she is working the role she's given in the industry. sashi is more An Artist, the one who doesn't think she fits in and finds humor and art in that situation, captivating people in the process, who maybe revels in fishing out the negative things and pessimism inside her, doesn't have a deflective block for everything, and deals with it through performance. even though she's good at speaking very fast.
she should write books, not just lyrics as she has done for herself and now for other members. in any case I've become a huge fan in these few months. and she has a funny face. a memorable one. maybe not cute, but never plain
appendix:
let me just say that at no point before this discovery, even at my most sceptical, did I have any problem 'getting' the appeal of akb. some people, especially in the west, laugh at the weirdness of the group. I think the concept is so good, the personality gallery, the 'giant pop group as a giant reality show' business idea so genius that it could work anywhere, not only japan and asia, if someone with the money and the motivation put everything into it like akb bigwig akimoto did.
** in 2011, while she had become pretty popular already, the joke of the 'loser' becoming the group's center was funny enough to be the basis for this gag http://vid48.com/watch_video.php?v=BB5YKN6K2OOW