128 replies to this topic

[Krusha]

No I'm not taking your words "out of context", I'm showing that you are assuming that they - plural - are scared, something you know nothing about (I mean, do you really know how all the members feel about a TV show?). Then I go on to select episodes from the past year, a lot of entertaining episodes actually, and I ask you how many episodes are scary? The answer of course, is not many at all. Hence there's no reason to suggest they're stopping a show due to the "many scary episodes" that supposedly leaves girls not wanting to go to the show anymore.

Japanese TV shows are centered around two things more or less: Food, or challenges. I know I'm exaggerating right now, but that's the essence of it. And an idol is supposed to be doing all of these things. And this is what an idol is used for on TV. If idols no longer want to participate in TV shows that might take them out of their comfort zone, they should consider another job.

The problem SHUKAN AKB and many other shows have with getting senbatsu members on board "all the time", is something that the theater of AKB has had for a long time. That's the heart of AKB, and some of the girls, like Yuko for example, or Mariko, have rarely showed up to their own team performances, due to outside work and a very busy schedule. When SHUKAN AKB was never about senbatsu members alone only, but about the 48 groups as a whole as well, then it's just natural to find episodes where there's lower ranked girls. And since their theme is basically like Nemousu TV: "Anything and everything", then we do get a lot of different episodes.

And no, can't say I've noticed what you say I should notice. I just look at above list that I posted, of episodes from past year, November to November, and I look at what they've given us in terms of variety.

When it comes to a show that deals with anything and everything, it's not very difficult to change concept of an episode. Maybe Gekikarabu, maybe theme park, maybe some funny studio challenge game, maybe some outdoors trip, maybe some deserted island challenge, maybe this, maybe that. Many things can be done. I like many members in the 48 family, not just some, and I also like these various episodes, which is also why I like Nemousu TV, and so this is good TV to me. But, that's just me though...

At any rate, the episodes I showed above, are creative and entertaining enough to make for decent idol TV. Replacing this with a show which concept involves sitting inside a TV studio talking about a topic for duration of episode will not really improve upon what SHUKAN AKB has given us...

[Tsurugi_Ken]

And how can you be so sure that they aren't either? This is a Schrodinger's cat sort of issue, so I guess it's best to leave it at that.

What I was basically trying to do, was to rationalize why Shukan AKB would close down shop and thought up a variety of reasons as to why it crumbled, obviously with fear from senbatsu members being one of them. Instead of solely focusing on shooting down my ideas and stagnating discussion, I'd rather you speculate on the issue as well (which I noticed you did on the 3rd paragraph of your post), since we're probably never going to get a definitive reason anyway.

But since you did mention busy schedules possibly being a factor in this, I can agree to that as I know for one how busy an idol's schedule can be (from reading and sometimes interacting with girls like Watanabe Miyuki on their Google+ accounts or blog posts). What I did notice though was that idols can turn down invitations to certain shows or not if they want to (like prioritizing bigger events when a scheduling conflict arises). Maybe Shukan AKB was considered lower-priority for some more popular girls even despite its long broadcast history? I can't recall ever seeing Oshima Yuko for Shukan AKB in recent broadcasts, but she's a regular in shows like Hoko Tate, and even visited Hakata for Sashihara's Hyakkaten show. I also don't remember ever seeing Yokoyama Yui on the show as well, though she was heavily featured as a research student in past episodes of Ariyoshi AKB Republic and Nemousu, and is now a regular for Gachi Gase.

The various ideas (hence variety) are really good oftentimes for Shukan AKB, but maybe it's the members that are attending that affect the viewership as well (I for one immediately stop watching when Shimada Haruka or Ichikawa Miori show up most of the time, but am glued to the screen when girls like Takahashi Juri and Kawaei Rina appear).

The format of the new show is similar to AKB Republic (and even MUJACK to an extent) minus the actual contents such as VTRs and such. I mentioned MUJACK because the AKB special happening this week and last week involve the AKB girls in the studio (Yokoyama, Takahashi Minami, Oshima, Fujie, Akimoto, Kuramochi) revealing issues they have with each other, a demonstration of the issue and a vote to decide whether or not this needs to be acted upon or left untouched. It's similar in a way to the Shoujiki Shogi segments that AKBingo used to have, and is very entertaining at the expense of the accused member or members. Judging how Minegishi is one of the hosts of the new show and the fact that she's sharp when it comes to ratings, she might borrow from MUJACK's AKB special format. Since there are numerous members in AKB, and even research students, they shouldn't run out of topics that quickly. When they do however, they can always ask members from the sister groups to come over for a visit.

To conclude, I'm fairly upset that Shukan AKB got closed down (even though I was expecting it to at some point) and unsure as to how things are going to turn out, but I'll wait and see how the first few episodes of this new show end up doing and then decide from there whether I want Shukan AKB back or not.

[Krusha]

Please don't misread what I write though, as just shooting down your ideas. I much rather prefer people talk, whether agreeing or disagreeing, instead of nothing at all

Anyways, the problem with idols becoming popular is that they start disappearing more and more from core shows, the theater and similar. It's really annoying, but I guess there's no way around it. For someone like me who is pretty much MD, as long as the concept of the episode is solid, it doesn't matter so much who is on. It'll be fun for me.

But if someone doesn't give a damn about 99% of the girls, regardless of group, and only cares about those few senbatsu members, who then naturally aren't showing up much on various shows, then that will be a different issue for them. All I can say is, when it comes to idols, I've learned to not limit myself as much as I did back in my H!P fan days. Back then, it was only H!P and nothing else. Other idols? Didn't exist as far as I cared. And that was a big mistake. So when I became an AKB fan, I said to myself that I would not let that happen with AKB. And whether it's due to me changing my attitude about things or just Akimoto being a genius (very likely) and producing great idols that are all entertaining in varying degrees, well I have a big problem disliking 48 girls. So for me, these shows are great. My advice to people would just be to open up more to other members also.

As for viewership rate, of course it matters who is on. If they had each episode be with Acchan, Tomochin, Mariko + "someone else", then it would always have better figures than without. I think this honestly is just a result of these girls having most casual fans than anybody else, plus of course these girls being the most popular girls within AKB regardless. (With "these girls", I am just referring to top level senbatsu).

But I still feel, when I read certain forums here and there, that a lot of people who criticize shows or the group, are not giving the girls any chance at all.

They are criticized for being "unknown", so they don't care about them, because they are of a much later generation. People who have never gotten to know who Karen is, how can they skip out on watching an episode of whatever with her? On the basis of not knowing her? Well I guess that works, but it's a rather strange thing to do, as you get to know someone you don't know through interacting with them (in this case watching something). Whether Karen, Tanochan, Izuriina, Ricchan, Nattsun, or any other girl that is "unknown", you still can't get to know them if you never watch.

So again if people limit themselves to only wanting to see those top level senbatsu girls they are gonna miss out on a lot. Stage shows will be few and far between, TV shows will be limited a lot, so what's left? Only single releases really.

And that makes me wonder: What will be so different then with the new show? Co-host will be Miichan. So, this is fine - expected - as she's into this kind of thing so this is more like a job for her, instead of being a guest. Then what? Do I think this new show will be heavily frequented by the top girls "all the time"? Absolutely not. I am pretty certain, that the guests will be a mix of lower ranked girls / later generations. So those who complain about these "unknown" girls to them, will just get more of the same, except in a much more dull wrapping.

But I'm definitely with you on needing to watch the show before I can have an opinion on it as a whole.

[Tsurugi_Ken]

I agree.

There's still people that mistake Kitahara for Sashihara. Some people are more just casual fans, and then you also have the ones you mentioned that only stick to a select few. The thing though, is that there's a whole lot of them compared to people like us who are willing to give each girl a chance, to find out whether they'll like them or not. The Japanese (though not just limited to them) commonly just find and stick to the single or few girls that they like and follow them throughout their career, which explains the whole 'oshimen' system being in place, and DD people being frowned upon. This whole mentality is old-fashioned and flawed, but they stick to it anyway because it shows their devotion to their idols. This however, leads to a lot of problems, especially when it comes to graduations and newer generation members popping up.

This is a factor that can determine a lot about the ratings the AKB-centered shows get (for example: people left and followed Oshima Mai when she graduated while others searched and found new oshimen and stuck around). The fans, who were devoted to a single idol, never had the opportunity nor the will to look at other girls as looking at the others was thought of as treachery and was heavily looked down upon, and were either left in disarray or disappeared along with their idol once they graduated. Their tunnel-vision ended their chances to meet and get to know other idols.

Now let's go over to how this all fits into Shukan AKB:

• The show started off with many popular members appearing
• The devoted fans (new or not) watched the show with their oshimen in mind
• Their oshimen either quits, graduates or shows up less due to various circumstances
• New members show up, replacing most of the older regulars
• The fans devoted to single members leave, not giving a chance at all to the other girls, new or not
• Casual fans leave too because they don't really know anyone that isn't in the Kami 8
• Ratings go down

Of course, there's more factors as well, such as the emotions people have for certain individual idols. Take my previous post for example, I absolutely abhor the moment Shimada and / or Ichikawa show up on shows, not simply because of physical appearances and catchphrases, but because I already got to know what they're like on TV after watching a few episodes of them, noticing a certain negative pattern in attitude that they have toward something. The rest of the now defunct team 4 I found mostly pleasant, though a few of them couldn't break out of their shells no matter how many times they were on TV (Takahashi Juri and Iriyama Anna are the biggest examples of this).

Some girls just don't have the confidence to appear on television, which is another factor. Takahashi Juri for one, never shows much of her personality on TV, but when you see her Google+ posts, you'll find out how interesting and goofy she actually is. When a girl is uncomfortable being on television, you won't get to see much no matter how hard you try. Girls like Iwata Karen on the other hand, they aren't scared to show who they are whether on-screen or off-screen, which is admirable.

Then there's the focus on which members are being filmed. Certain girls tend to get more screen time, and other girls, whether they have something interesting to say or not, are either kept away from the center of the camera, offscreen or even cut completely. I'm not saying this is 100% true, but the possibility is there. Also related to this is the broadcast time limit. Most often the shows are only set for 30 minutes, and you'll end up actually finding a lot of good things that were hidden in the original broadcast through outtakes and deleted scenes. Most often, these extras actually make the show more interesting and it would have been better if they had left it in the original broadcast, but due to the constraint, they had to. The final product is thus snipped to bits and leaves people disappointed, which can lead to people to become more unwilling to watch more of the show.

There's so many possible factors to take into account the more I think about it.

[n4v1]

Can someone provide the list of member who made appearance in each episodes?

[Tulken59]

Hello

 

I search a full list of episodes with release dates

[Tulken59]

Has there been a broadcast August 5, 2011?

[Amoz]

http://ja.wikipedia.....BC.81.E7.94.BB

You can open the lists for each year by pressing "表示". Dates are marked with x月y日 (x Month, y date).

[Tulken59]

Thanks a lot  Amoz ^^

 

I had a problem with the date of episode 105. I managed to find on Youku and nearly all videos of episode 105 on Youku showed 12 August 2011