Giving up on AKame?
Okay so first off this post was not made to spawn hate or despair or whatever else negative emotion. It's just that, recently, a friend decided to give up the fandom already and I'm emotional and affected as fuck.
Call me shallow and shizz, but I love AKame. I'm a lost, carefree teenager in psychological stress 20-year-old, and KAT-TUN is one of the few things that keep me sane, along with My Chemical Romance, and of course, my precious friends. (I'm going off topic already O_O) So all the hustle and bustle of bitter news does get to me at times, too. That's why I'm making this post. It might end up sounding like emotional vomit, but I hope you take the time to read and react. Don't let me feel alone in this fandom, please.
oOo
Let me start off with Akanishi Jin's Yellow Gold Tour 3011 intro message. Yes, the one where he explicitly states that he no longer wants to be "anyone's puppet." Upon reading stuff, several theories came up as to who was being addressed by that short "speech," the popular ones being Johnny Kitagawa himself, KAT-TUN, and the fans.
Contrary to popular belief, NOT a lot of fans think that Jin's intro message is addressed to KAT-TUN. At least, that's what i observed. The popular opinion is actually Johnny. He has much of the power over them JE boys anyway, and Jin, I suppose is no exception. We all have an idea of the seemingly rigorous control the agency imposes. However, Jin is still a JE boy. Warner is his distributor, but he's still a Johnny's talent. So, if bluntly put, he's still Johnny's puppet. (So should we cross out Johnny as an addressee? I don't know.)
Next, KAT-TUN. While it seems so damn easy to assume that Jin is talking about the group, can we, like, take a moment to reflect and realize that, even if they’re cool as heaven and hot as hell, these men are just humans like us? Why did I say that?
First, we have to accept that there may be inevitable negative feelings between Jin and the rest of KAT-TUN. Their parting of ways was not exactly pretty. Hence, like normal human beings, it’s totally normal if Jin were angsty and all that. But then again (and as a second point), he spent nine years working with Kame, Junno, Koki, Ueda, and Maru. You can bash the soloist all you want but you can’t erase the fact that once upon a time he shared a bond with those five. Taking that into the equation, I think it’s not wrong to, just this once, put a halo over Jin’s head and consider the idea that he’s human enough, sane enough, kind enough not to talk that way about KAT-TUN.
And besides, if Jin had been “controlled” in the past, I don’t think KAT-TUN is the one to blame. If Jin were a puppet, they all were puppets. But that’s just me thinking aloud.
Lastly, some speculate that Jin was talking about the fans. I *think* this is the most probable case, though I’d be slightly hurt. And yes, I’m guilty of trying to fit Jin into my own “mold” of who I think he should be, where I think he’d be perfect in my eyes. Of course, that’s with KAT-TUN. I do think he’s “out of control” nowadays, but I don’t blame him for it. If anything, I’d liken his case to that of an angsty teenager who’s just starting to enjoy his freedom except that he’s already 26 years old.
It’s difficult for KAT-TUN fans, especially those who actually liked Jin, to accept that Akanishi Jin is now a solo artist, and I suppose he’s aware of that, and this short speech of his is his way of making fans - I warn you of the painful realism of the following statement - wake up to the truth and stop associating his name with KAT-TUN already.
Again, that’s just my opinion. I don’t know him personally. I fucking wish I did.
oOo
The other side of the story is KAT-TUN. I don’t have much to say about them since they haven’t been “noisy” this way, not the way Jin has been making news that some would deem scandalous. The five-man KAT-TUN really does seem to be unstoppable. The recent series of projects and announcements just affirms the idea that KAT-TUN is Going! moving forward, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
Being the overanalyzing, angsty fan that I am, sometimes I feel that this is their revenge. This is their way of showing people that they’re strong as ever even if a member left. And really, I think there’s nothing wrong with that either.
When it was announced in July 2010 that Jin was leaving, I saw some interviews of KAT-TUN and can’t help but feel a little broken for them. I will not go into the details of how I saw Jin’s departure and it’s possible reasons (maybe I’ll just post that as another entry some other time).
I guess I also don’t have much to say about the five men since, cliché as it may seem, KAT-TUN is KAT-TUN. They’re strong as they are. They’ll be around for a long, long while, I know it.
oOo
Okay so I’ve made much introduction and this post was supposed to be about AKame. Well, here’s the thing (and it’s going to be short). I’m not decided as to whether it’s real or not. So why am I spending endless hours on the internet reading about them, looking at pictures, and writing fics? For leisure? Maybe. I don’t know. What I know is, my life would be so freakin’ awesome if AKame were real.
Come to think of it, my attitude towards AKame is like how I am about the existence of a god. I don’t revel in the fact that a supreme being exists, but at certain moments in my life, it just comes off naturally to “pray” and wish to whoever’s watching. No, I don’t pray to AKame. But you get my point. Do you? Damn, I hate it when I get moments like this.
I’m affected with a friend’s decision to give up on the fandom because, well, perhaps it wakes up my own fears. That I might, one day, not be able to take any more and give up as well. Or that one day, I’ll be surfing the net and fail to see any AKame reference. I’m scared, so fucking scared, that this fandom will die out.
That’s the whole point of this post. I’M JUST FUCKING SCARED. Does anyone feel like this, too? Does anyone want to whack me on the head for whatever reasons? Tell me. Please.
oOo
That’s it for the emotional part. You can stop reading here, but I wish you’d continue.
Let me share something another friend and I have been planning for a few weeks now. We’re university students majoring in Psychology, and personally we’ve felt rather bad that we can’t work out what there is between Jin and Kame, all throughout their nine years as bandmates. So we’re planning to set up a blog soon, that will, well, analyze AKame. We’re not focusing on the romantic theory. We want to keep it objective and study the relationship between them without bias even if I do wish our investigations would give positive results. Basically, we’re going to use our humble four years’ training in Psychology to study AKame. Yes, we’re so desperate to get out of academics like that.
So there, that’s one of the more concrete plans to keep this thing alive, whatever it is. This will make me sound like such an attention whore but if it’s possible, please link people to this post because I want to hear thoughts from a lot of people (and my friend list here in LJ isn’t that populated) and I also want to know what everyone thinks about this AKame blog we want to start.
So there. What do you think?
oOo
Oh and I’ll leave you with this picture. Gokusen 2, the thing to blame for everything else that is emotional and angsty and hopeful for AKame. That’s when I got into KAT-TUN. So Gokusen 2 will be forever precious in my AKame heart~
