We'd like to welcome Alex McNulty as our newest International Correspondent. Alex is currently living and studying in Tokyo, Japan as a student at Sophia University. In this post she turns her attention to the crazy girl group AKB48.
Advertisements line every crowded street and organized subway
station with posters of AKB48’s 86 members fetishized in schoolgirl uniforms.
This group of girls spanning their teens and twenties is widely known
throughout Japan for their daily performances and franchises dedicated to them
in the electric district of Akihabara, where there were founded. What began as
a small theater group in Tokyo has now spread throughout the country, earning
them a spot as one of the highest-selling musical acts in the world with
growing international acclaim. Their first single was released in 2006 and an
instant chart topper, and their influence and group size continues to increase
year after year. Currently the female group has released five albums and shows
no signs of slowing down.
Interestingly, a member of AKB48 is considered old by
25, thus signaling an end in their career with the group and creating new
openings for younger talent to make their mark as an idol. This cycle creates
hype and excitement around the group contributing to their mass success and
long-lasting popularity while also indicative of one’s worth in Japanese
society, focused on value of the youth. AKB48 proudly holds the title of the highest-selling
female group in Japanese music history and markets themselves in highly
integrated ways. AKB48 has positioned themselves in a way that has attracted
international attention from top brands seeking partnerships such as Google,
Shiseido, and Asahi for example. You can spot the girls in films, television
shows, and even anime series furthering their domination of the entertainment
industry. The culture of AKB48 is one that creates a collectivistic network of
individuals dedicated to their fans.
The dynamic of this significant group and the girl group
phenomenon in Japan is a point of contrast compared to the Western music world
in which group members typically break apart from one another to embark on
their own solo career. A big contributor to the sensation of girl groups
popular in Japan is that the girls’ bubbly personas create an escape from
reality for fans.
Also unique to Japan’s culture, and noteworthy of the
society’s values, is the terrible injustice that the group members are not
permitted to be romantically involved and thus must sacrifice a love life.
AKB48’s contract clause all members must abide by states, “unrequited love is
permissible, but you cannot return the affection”. This is because according to
management, a girl’s value as an idol is at stake if it becomes public
knowledge that she has a boyfriend, since a collective focal point of the
group’s mission is to sell fantasies to male fans. The Japanese term to
describe this clause is “Renai Kinshi”, meaning "love
forbidden". This year, one of the founding members,
Minami Minegishi, was accused of having a boyfriend and the story made
headlines in all of Japan’s major media outlets. While she publicly apologized
for her actions by shaving her head, AKB48’s management demoted her to the
trainee level of the girl group as her punishement.
Despite these teenage girls
being marketed as sex symbols, any form of a relationship is extremely unacceptable and may
result in one’s dismissal from the group. Can you imagine being prohibited from
expressing your true feelings for the one you love, particularly by your boss?
How unfair as well that boy band members are not held to a similar standard to
preserve the fantasies of female fans?
AKB48’s success can be seen in the production of sister groups in
additional areas of Japan such as Osaka and Nagoya and worldwide in countries
such as China, Singapore, and Taiwan. AKB48, know for their schoolgirl rock
attire is backed by Asia’s largest advertising agency, Dentsu Inc. Success rates
coupled with fan loyalty indicate that with Dentsu behind them, they will
continue to be a dominant force in Japan’s pop culture as idols of fashion and
music. Dentsu controls about a third of all traditional advertising in Japan,
resulting in enormous impact over the Japanese media.
An AKB48 song most
shocking to me from two years ago is called, “Seifuku ga Jama wo Suru” (“My
School Uniform’s Getting In The Way”), http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnICYc8G6ek, in which the lyrics read, “My school uniform’s getting in the
way, I want to be loved more freely, don’t look at me like that, I’m just a
high school girl…”. This song alone is indicative of the hypersexualization
occurring towards these group members. The members of AKB48 are continuously marketed as sex
symbols for their niche market: the otaku; a word indicative of Japan's obsessive
subculture of nerds typically interested in anime and manga.
Japan’s ultimate girl group represents brilliant marketing
techniques that the U.S. should pay close attention to in terms of creating
stars that are not only relatable, but ones easily accessible as well. For
example, the group’s singles are oftentimes released with lottery tickets to meet
members of the group. Fans also have the ability to interact on a more intimate
level with the group members by voting in the annual AKB48
"election," which is a giant contest crowning the leader of the
group. With such a specific target demographic, the question remains of whether
or not AKB48 will transcend influence to the U.S. They have made headway with
their song “Sugar Rush”, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NI56PcSWiUU, which is featured on the animated movie “Wreck-It Ralph”
soundtrack. This animated film entered Japanese theaters in March 2013 and is a
prime example of how Japanese culture has been influencing the Western world.
If a spin-off group were to enter the U.S. market, I believe that the women
would not be treated in the same stifling way, but rather would experience more
freedom from oppression to express their individuality within the group.
More about Alex... she is a senior at Miami University, majoring in Mass Communication and minoring in Sociology. She has a passion for
human relations, and her worldview has been significantly expanded during her four months abroad
having been exposed to the unique culture and society of Japan. It has been
intriguing to her to observe what life is like for women in Japan, particularly
the ongoing inequality in the workforce. She is not sure what her future plans
after graduation are, but hopes there is another opportunity to venture back to
Japan and truly believes in the mantra, “when nothing is sure, everything is
possible”!
![](http://<object width="420" height="236"><param name="movie" value="http://compathos.tv/player.swf"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="flashvars" value="id=952&videoPath=ActingTogetherTrailer.mp4&photoPath=photo-20121007153713.jpg></param></param><embed src="http://compathos.tv/player.swf" flashvars="vid=952&videoPath=ActingTogetherTrailer.mp4&photoPath=photo-20121007153713.jpg" allowFullScreen="true" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="420" height="236"></embed></object>){kind=link}