74 replies to this topic

[lonehunter88]

The AKB48 Pennant Race will be held from 22 April 2014 to 31 October 

Source:

http://ameblo.jp/akb...1830542112.html

 

Here's a translation of the AKB48 pennant race explanation.

The Pennant Race will be held from 22 April 2014 to 31 October for the 12 Domestic AKB48 Group Teams (Team A, Team K, Team B, Team 4, Team S, Team KII, Team E, Team N, Team M, Team BII, Team H and Team KIV) based on

①AKB48 Group Theater (Stage) Performance Paid Membership Application Rate

②AKB48 Theater Edition (Single) Handshake Sales

③AKB48 Single Senbatsu General Election Votes

The raw numbers from these 3 factors will be converted to points and added to each team, according to the following mathematical formulas.

①AKB48 Group Theater (Stage) Performance Paid Membership Application Rate

a. The stage performances which will be counted are all performances after each team’s first performance, except special performances such as “Female only audience performance”

b. Every stage performance held will earn the team 2 points.

c. For each stage performance, if the application rate by paid membership (Mobile membership, Nihonbashira no kai/AKB48 Fanclub) exceeds a “base application rate”, 5 points will be added to the team’s score.

The “base application rate” will be calculated using a statistical regression model as described below.

Let the application rate = y, and each member’s theater appearance situation = xk. Define xk as

 

Then, define application rate, y as

By solving this regression model, the ak(k=0,1,… ,n which represents specific members) can be estimated for each member. Using each members’ data, the “base application rate” of future theater performances will be calculated from this regression model.

Also, for birthday stages and weekend stages, appropriate weights will be assigned to the base application rate.

②AKB48 Theater Edition (Single) Handshake Sales

a. The handshake sales which will be taken into account are the AKB48 Theater Edition (Single Handshakes after 22 April.

b. The points will be added according to the following formula for each member.

Considering the maximum allowable handshake sales of a member to be 100%,

95% ~below 100%: 1.00                   90%~below 95%: 0.95

85%~below 90%: 0.90                       80%~below 85%: 0.85

75%~below 80%: 0.80                       70%~below 75%: 0.75

65%~below 70%: 0.70                        60%~below 65%: 0.65

55%~below 60%: 0.60                       50%~below 55%: 0.55

45%~below 50%: 0.50                        40%~below 45%: 0.45

35%~below 40%: 0.40                          30%~below 35%: 0.35

25%~below 30%: 0.30                         20%~below 25%: 0.25

15%~below 20%: 0.20                        10%~below 15%: 0.15

5%~below 10%: 0.10                           0%~below 5%: 0.05

Points for each members will be added to their respective teams (members with concurrent positions will have their points added to all teams which they are assigned to)

c. For the following date of the theater edition handshakes, the same formulas apply, in addition to multiplying this base point with the rate of increase of sales for each individual member.

For example, if a member sells 100 tickets in the previous handshake event date, and 150 tickets in the following handshake event date, her point will be

d. For members who have sold out their tickets in both the previous handshake event date and the following handshake event date, her point from the previous handshake event date will be multiplied by a factor of 1.1. For example, the first time a member sells out her handshake tickets, her point will be 1.0. If she sells out on the next handshake date as well, her point will be 1.1 (1.1 X 1.0), and if she sells out again for the following handshake date, her point will be 1.21 (1.1 X 1.1) and so on.

③AKB48 Single Senbatsu General Election Votes

a. “AKB48 37th Single Senbatsu General Election” which will be held on 7 June 2014 will be the one accounted for.

b. The calculation of points will follow the D’Hondt method (highest averages method) using the raw data of number of votes for each individual member.

(I) Every members’ number of votes will be divided by 1,2,3…n

(ii) 1 Point will be added to each member starting from the member with the most votes, and when the threshold of number of votes divided by 2 is reached by another member, 1 more point is added to the member, and this rule follows for the threshold of number of votes divided by 3 and so on, until the member ranked 80 is given 1 point.

The following table shows the calculation flow using the 2013 General Election Results as an example.

Example: 2013 General Election Result

From this table, we can see that in the first quotient, all members receive a point, and when we reach Rena’s number of votes which is less than (pass the threshold) Sashihara’s number of votes divided by 2, another point is added to Sashihara. Furthermore, when we reach Watanabe Miyuki’s number of votes which is less than Sashihara’s number of votes divided by 3, another point is added to Sashihara, giving her a total of 3 points here, and so on.

c. The points of individual members from the general election results will be added to their respective teams, where members with concurrent teams will have their points added to all of the teams to which they are assigned to.

 

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[hitoyou]

So, it exists after all. Thanks for the translation

 

I had hopes that this would be about fans applying for theater shows, seems to be an attempt to boost AKB sales on the expense of sister group sales. That is unfortunate. 

Concurrent positions seems a bit iffy too with points counted for both teams. Oh well.

 

What are we competing for anyways, what is the reward for winning this race O_o It got to be more than just fans giving more money to AKS, right? I guess things will be explained further in the next few days.

 

 

[Krusha]

OK so maybe I just don't see it, but how is this even a fair "race" considering the higher popularity AKB48 has over SKE48, NMB48, and HKT48?

How can HKT48 win this race? Is that even a realistic thought to have?

[gryzze]

I detest the idea. It's meant to make fans desperate enough to spend even more money. No one wants their oshi to be in the "worst" team.

 

I don't think anything will change. The teams that are already struggling will keep struggling.

 

And it's certainly not fair like Krusha said. AKB is strengthened by concurrent members like Sayanee, Jurina, Sakura, Haruppi, Fuuchan, Mio. Basically the top members of the sister groups.

These members will be helping AKB as much as their original team.

[Krusha]

Right.

It's retarded on so many levels. AKB48 is the most powerful group, we all know that. And with the addition of so many popular sister group members directly into AKB48 teams, how is it going to be helpful?

And make no mistake, it's all about making more money. Making money is an honest thing, but at least utilize a better model to do so...

[JennyInTokyo]

This will make more money for the group but apart from that I dont see any point in this. I might sound harsh but its just my opinion. It just puts more pressure on the girls too. Its too obvious that AKB48 is going to get more success from this.

[satchan]

Oh, I thought management was going to sweep this under the rug with their "year of new stages" plan. I don't know if money is a big drive here; theater shows always sell out, right? It just seems like this is only going to make it harder to get to shows. Though, I suppose the applications may be dwindling and the demand might be in a steady decline, so whatever. It's corny, but at least they're holding true to something.

[Muneshige]

Well, the AKB Theater is also in a popular section of Tokyo, the largest city in the world. They have by far the biggest pool of customers to draw from. So short of being limited by the number of seats the concert area has-- those teams are at a pretty significant advantage, even if they weren't the most popular everywhere. Of course, this is broken down by team, right? So AKB48 is split between more teams than any other group.

 

Although, honestly, this all sounds insanely over complicated. I think a lot of these rules were cooked up to give the other groups a shot. I almost feel as though the real purpose behind this is to give some sort of shot to those who aren't going to rank high in the senbatsu voting. I mean, I think when initially conceived the whole Senbatsu thing was supposed to be a real competition with various members going in and out.... but instead, it just meant that whomever won last time was pretty much certain to win the next time.

Which meant that when the people at the top graduated, their sales took big hits-- because no one has paid much attention at all to those who came after them. That is why they came up with the fake "rock-paper-scissors" tournament-- so that management could put the ones they wanted to be on top on top. Of course, after doing it twice it was transparent to everyone that the results were NOT random-- instead of roughly only 1/3rd of the members who usually got pushed being in the top 16 and the other 2/3rds being absolutely random, the result was primarily those who won anyway and those management wanted to be their next generation-- to get them some attention and hopefully raise their rank.

 

But this pendent thing... I mean... it seems to me that in all likelihood they are selling out every theater show and every handshake event anyway, they can't really raise their stats.

[droopy10]

The only thing that will help the newer teams is the number of times they perform their stage.

 

I'll read the explanation again later but I don't think I'll worry about who wins or where Team KIV ranks. This doesn't interest me that much if at all, unless ranks determine who gets a new stage first.

[Krusha]

Sasshii via Twitter:

1st comment: ペナントって兼任メンバーはどちらのポイントになるんですか？？

2nd comment: 両方なんだ！(*_*)誰かわかりやすく教えて(*_*)

A user comments to her: ペナントの概要がよくわからないので三行でオナシャス

She replies:

まじで
なにも
しらない

[culex]

so fans just collaborate.and buy like 10 tickets for 1 event

Then the next time buy 500 for the 1 point

1.0 x 500/10 = 50 points.

 

Or am I looking at this wrong.

[Blu-Cherri]

It sounds like a good idea in principle but like Krusha has pointed out, there's no way some of the groups could rise up with this point scheme. It's just going to tell the girls what they always knew without actually giving them any reason to improve beyond what they were doing before. It's meaningless.

[Ketchup]

Meh no interest in this

[minaeshi]

If anything when it comes to the senbatsu during SSK, they're going to be more "elite" than ever before. A few examples of what could happen because of this pennant race.

• Any team that the senbatsu members are in will have an advantage (meaning teams like KII and M....) in gaining points. 
• Some people might vote more for, let's say Rena, so that she can get more points for Team E, so they can overcome Team S.
• Wota might decide to vote for star girls like Sayanee and Jurina to make Team K's points higher (which also benefits their main teams N and S).
• More people might vote for Team A members (Like Paru, Takamina, Kojiharu) to get them ahead of Team B (in terms of Senbatsu because the top members from AKB are both from team B, Mayu and Yukirin.) Which benefits them and their teams. 

Not saying this will happen, but it might. And if it does, the senbatsu votes are going to increase dramatically and make the 16 spots a lot harder to reach the next year. 

 

That is of course, if wota even care about this penant race. 

[drahzaar]

There's not a lot of points in voting it looks like.  You get 3 if your SUPER awesome and then 1 if you manage to rank  (depending on how many votes there are).  I don't think voting harder is doing to change anything unless your strategy is to vote all the unranked girls of your team so they get a point.  For that I would only see sister group fans as being able to pull that off.

 

Mostly though it seems like this is just something that will be there.  Hopefully it doesn't make some teams look too bad...

[Krusha]

Teams already can "look bad" if we look at handshake event standings, and similar things, such as ranks in election, and popularity in theater. This will probably just make it more visible. But, lets see how it unfolds...

[minaeshi]

I just had another thought. Maybe this is most of a thing for Teams instead of fans? Like, the fans can help, but it's really down to the teams and how hard they work. It's different from SSK because in the elections, the girl can help increase her popularity to get votes, but where she stands is down to how many votes she's able to get from fans.

The teams obviously don't want their team name to be set in stone as the "Worst Team" for the rest of the year, so all of them will work harder to make their team improve, and to do that they will have to strengthen their bonds and team characters before becoming a popular team. This also helps the teams not just look like a bunch of girls who aren't close to each other at all (which the management are trying to avoid). That's probably why they also made it so hard for fans to help increase the teams chances of winning..

[Muneshige]

Right-- I mean, I can kind of see how the whole "we will reward you on how many stage performances and handshake events you are willing to do" breaks down, but... thing is... how much do individual members even get to have control of that? I mean, the staff at the theater kind of has to schedule the shows and the staff has to set up the music and such. Do the girls really get to just show up whichever time they want and say "I finished with school! Put me down for 5 songs tonight and I'll do my homework in between the sets"? I never actually went to a theater show (I still can't find the HKT theater anyway), so I have no idea how much they tell the audience about who is scheduled to perform on any given day.

 

Moreover, there are... what... a dozen girls who are now on 2 different teams? (I am thinking it was vastly irresponsible in the first place to put girls under the age of 20 onto two teams anyway? How did Jurina split her time between Nagoya and Tokyo from the age of 12? And not 15-year old Murashige is supposed to somehow split her time between Fukuoka and Osaka? It takes about 4 hours by bullet train to get between Hakata and Osaka! And 18-year old Ichikawa is one of the most popular NMB members in Osaka, but she is also supposed to be in Tokyo as AKB?)

 

I mean, I guess which theater they perform in is pretty clear cut... but what about the handshake events?

[drahzaar]

@minaeshi: I don't think so.  Team K tried that, they changed their set list constantly to songs and stages that were viewed more difficult because they knew they were seen as a weak team.  Most people didn't notice or care because in the end people watch the stage with their favorite members anyway and management shuffled.  Here is shihorin's final entry on Team k for example:

Spoiler

by jiggsawpuzzle48

 

 

Aaaa.. Red eyes (°_°)

The moment when I saw Yuko-san,
my tears didn’t stop (；д；)

It brings a flashback of a lot of memories…

There was a time when Team K’s members had no chemistry with each other,
when our popularity is the worst,
when we got disbanded because we’re so awful

when the fans were so worry about us (>_<),

And It was Yuko-san who had made us keep relieved..

Yuko-san said ” I want to bring everyone of Team K!”, so each member could go on the National Tour,
She also changed the setlist of Waiting Stage twice,

She tried to make Team K better by a lot of ideas..

And more than anything, 
she did it all to make sure that people could enjoy Team K and become a fan of Team K ( p_q)♡

If we were able to get over it together, it’s simply because the captain was Yuko-san (；д；)！

When the senshuuraku was over, I think once again

It’s great to be in Oshima Team K

Thanks for the best senshuuraku ｡･ﾟ(´□｀)ﾟ･｡

I love Oshima Team K !!!

 

 

I don't see a whole lot fans or the girls themselves can do to affect the results significantly.  The handshakes, the girls who sell slowly or not at all will continue to do so unless they get some nice treatment on akbingo (or just with senbatsu members present) or some promotion.  Here is a nice table by ikujinashi@s48 on the 36th single handshakes:

Spoiler

 

 

Teams By Total Sold-Out %:
1. HKT48 Team H - 88.0%
2. SKE48 Team E - 87.2%
3. HKT48 Team KIV - 86.4%
4. AKB48 Team 4 - 85.9%
5. AKB48 Team B - 83.6%
6. SKE48 Team KII - 80.5%
7. AKB48 Team A - 79.9%
8. NMB48 Team N - 79.1%
9. NMB48 Team M - 76.5%
10. SKE48 Team S - 75.0%
11. AKB48 Team K - 63.9%
12. NMB48 Team BII - 59.0%
13. SKE48 Kenkyuusei - 57.1%
14. HKT48 Kenkyuusei - 35.7%
15. NMB48 Kenkyuusei - 22.2%

Groups By Total Sold-Out %:
1. HKT48 - 83.8%
2. AKB48 - 79.3%
3. SKE48 - 78.9%
4. NMB48 - 66.1%

Team K and BII getting stomped.  Are many surprised?  I know for a fact that some of the girls who have almost no slots sold are great, lose no energy, and actually pay attention to you when you are speaking with them (as apposed to a lot of girls just giving you the same spiel every time).  

[Juriken'14(狩)]

at first I was really interested in this, and wonder how this will change the teams dynamics and the wotas habits etc...

 

but then the math killed my interest

 

wake me up when the result is out