Ooh, a cool background!
Since I won’t be able to prepare a TWi/W/ this week, I shall leave to you my two cents on this certain anime called AKB0048.
Sell-out. Product tie-in. Cash cow. The definition of “Pandering”. There’s a lot of animosity attached to AKB0048, and to be frank, I too approached a good portion of the show as a cynic rather than as an ideal, unbiased watcher. There was a great temptation for the team to just kick back and let the brand name take up responsibilities for the sales, while delivering the bare minimums of a serviceable story built purely on the hijinks of idols, interspersed with inserts of fan-favorite songs, and I think everyone saw that possibility, even expected it.
- Asobi, Random Curiosity (Article)
As you see, I dropped this show due to lack of interest. It simply did not appeal to me in its first few episodes — heck, I even got lowballed by myself.
Then, a sh*tstorm comes as fellow anibloggers who watched the show rave like hell — it was majestic, @soulassassin547 says.
@TCManila it is… and it’s MAJESTIC.
— soul.assassin (@soulassassin547) July 24, 2012
Then I got myself a copy of RandomC’s final impressions regarding the show. I have read the document.
On the other hand, I was surprised that this anime series got a sequel. Parts of it are quoted above and below.
The AKB brand is huge in Japan, big enough that it seemed like it was possible for the anime to sell decently so long as it pandered to fans at the lowest common denominator. It certainly didn’t help these impressions that the designs were so very reminiscent of various moé archetypes, to the extent of characters having hearts symbols emblazoned into their very beings. For me personally, I wasn’t a fan of the group, and in fact used to regard them as another one of the music industry’s endlessly generic pop groups. I was thus, prior to its airing, firmly in the camp that dismissed the show.
- Asobi, Random Curiosity (Article)
Let me take some reactions from the commenters.
Skattack: “The funny thing is that the actual AKB48 fans haven’t been supporting the show. Though I’m not surprised since AKB is sometimes shown in a negative light through the series.”
Asobi: “I have to admit, this is the first I’ve heard of it, but I could be that the number of AKB fans who are also anime fans make up a relatively small percentage of the fanbase.”
What if this anime was not made for the AKB fans / Wota but for the anime viewing public itself, to propagate the Wota formula and double their population?
I already imagine this scene:
@ghostlightning’s monitor is talking to him, “Come with us. Be a Wota,” it said.
Looks creepy but that is the purpose of media — to propagate the formula, in the spirit of fun and information dissemination.
If this series has nothing to do with Wota and / or AKB fans, and it talks about idols / singers in groups, what could this be?
This is obviously a course on Idols 101 and Wota 101, respectively.
I am much more convinced that this series was made only to create more Wota from the anime fanbase. It’s not annoying, but in the case of these fellows I see, the move was effective.
I would like to ask: Have you seen an anime similar to this? Drop a line in the comments section, thanks.
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