Summary: This week’s AKBingo took up from where it left off in the previous episode: the moe competition of the 48 groups continued. The girls were asked to write down what they consider an ideal girlfriend and what would be the best thing to write on a heart-shaped piece of chocolate. In addition, the girls were challenged with coming up with the best moe line in a situation given by Yoshinori, one of the judges. The climax of the episode had the girls do monomoe (a combination of monoboke and moe, iow girls use items to catch the hearts of the judges).
Analysis: Sayanee and Miichan continued their good stride from last week while the teamplay of Karen and Takamina succeeded very well. However, the biggest star of the episode was Tano who keeps taking more and more steps towards being a proper variety star. Her way of snapping back at the judges was spot-on and she was even used as the punchline of the entire episode.
Summary: This week’s AKBingo was another fashion check episode that was shot on the same day as the one aired at the end of last year. The members taking part in the competition were younger ones again (Juri, Haruppi, Murashige, Ryoka, Kojimako, Miki, Saho) while the veterans and the competitors from last time remained as commentators. It also looks like they shot Shoujiki shogi episodes on the same day and one of those episodes will be aired next week.
Analysis: Just after I got to praise Murashige for finding balance in variety, she goes on and leaves me wondering whether she has made any real progress at all. Her insistence on using -shige endings everywhere was misplaced this week. The same can also be said of Kojimako and her “gag” – she blurts it out randomly and only concerns others with it. It is not cut because it looks adorable enough, but then again she could do pretty much anything else in its place and not much would change (in temrs of being adorable). Moe also has a problem she doesn’t seem to be aware of or doesn’t know how to fix: whenever she speaks, she doesn’t put enough energy into it and her comments fall flat. With a voice as low as hers, it feels out of place in Bingo’s atmosphere. Her lack of excitement could work for her benefit if she made the right comments for her style (like Tomochin), but she hasn’t really caught up on that yet.
We also got to see good Karen-Juri chemistry as Karen set up the stage for Juri and Juri responded back cleverly. Miichan yet again showed why she is so valued in variety: she can give attention to any member, ranging from her Haachan tease (that gave Haachan the attention she would have missed otherwise) to supporting the Team 4 girls with witty comments. For Haruppi, I think it was the first time she used her IKKO jokes on TV (as fans have often compared her to IKKO due to her hair style) and it was also funny to see her interact with the other HKT members.
In these weekly posts, I gather all the variety appearances of AKB members and briefly summarize what happened. After last week’s post I realized that posting only summaries doesn’t feel right so I added review parts to a few programs.
Summary: Unlike past years, this time the Lucky Girl Ranking is divided to three episodes so we need to wait for next week to see the final result. Some of the jokes from last week were carried over (Sasshi bullying the palm reader Shimada and Mirukii butting without anything to say) while Tano and Nana competed over whose Takamina impersonation is better after Getters’ Iida claimed they would succeed as impersonators. In addition, Murashige was as energetic as usual and Karen provided a new manga reading performance.
Review: I will write about the Lucky Girl Ranking episodes after all of them have been aired.
This week’s episode was a bit of a disappointment: there was too much laziness with the hints as Abe even didn’t give one (is that the first time this has happened?). The hyped mic performance was one of the weakest so far, with both sides being only so-so and the whole thing had to be wrapped up by Sata and not the members themselves. Ranran still sticks with her awkward style: overreacting while coming across as lighthearted and fishy doesn’t quite work. It becomes even more obvious when she is in other kind of situations, like Kyowakoku’s radio episodes. Continue reading →
Sorry for the delay this week. I thought I had published this last weekend, but WordPress screwed it up and I didn’t notice until now. In these weekly summaries, I go through the latest episodes of AKB48′s various shows. This week there was an hour-long special of Karen no fukkou calendar and Sakiko participated for the second time in Teppen‘s piano competition.
This prank project doesn’t give me much of a chance to write about the members themselves. I’m personally not that fond of the way the prank is presented: there’s too much explanation and repetition of ‘majime’ for the prank itself to have an impact. The editing raises expectations way too high and the constant explanation is a bit overbearing. I think it would work better if the prank was presented in a less dramatic and predictable way. At least the ending of this week’s episode was memorable so I’m hoping next week leaves the impact this prank should leave in the first place. As a side note, I love how the staff used Tano in this week’s episode – pure delight for the fans who like her cheeky personality. Continue reading →
In these weekly summaries, I go through the latest episodes of AKB48′s various shows.
AKBingo (5.11)
Members: Karen Iwata, Saho Iwatate, Nana Okada, Ryoka Oshima, Yuko Oshima, Asuka Kuramochi, Mako Kojima, Ayana Shinozaki, Yurina Takashima, Juri Takahashi, Miki Nishino, Ami Maeda, Minami Minegishi, Yui Yokoyama
As expected, this week’s AKBingo continued the show’s theme of pitting veteran members against younger members in a battle for laughs which is judged by old people who don’t know anything about the group. This time the girls were challenged with monoboke and janken battle, both familiar for longtime viewers of the show. Continue reading →
This week’s AKBingo included the comeback of many veteran members, like Takamina. It was interesting to see how the younger members would react to appearing along with them after a long while and it was relieving to see that the newcomers weren’t afraid to do their own thing in front of the veterans. In the past the problem with AKBingo was often that the younger members just remained quiet in the background, but with lots of appearances recently many of them have now enough self-confidence to compete with the more experienced members. Karen continued her good streak and Ryoka showed her kusogaki side for the first time on AKBingo. Nana’s serious character is also morphing into a good thing although she needs Miichan by her side. Continue reading →
Variety 48 