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.
In these weekly posts, I gather all the variety appearances of AKB members and briefly summarize what happened. AKBingo was on a break this week due to the Sochi Olympics.
Ariyoshi AKB Kyowakoku (17.2)
Members: Uchida Mayumi, Owada Nana, Kojima Haruna, Kobayashi Kana, Komiyama Haruka, Sato Sumire, Chikano Rina, Tsuchiyasu Mizuki, Mukaichi Mion
Summary: This week’s Kyowakoku was a radio episode with non-senbatsu members and the 15th generation members. The episode started awkwardly as the non-senbatsu failed to do what they were supposed to do: introduce their talk subjects by singing them to the tune of Tetsu and Tomo’s Nande darou gag. The girls shared episodes which clearly mark them as non-senbatsu: other members not eating Ucchi’s souvenir, Chikarina’s handshake time being shorter than kenkyuuseis’ and Suuchan being compared to a potato on the Internet. In another corner, the four brought up things in which they are better than Kojiharu: Chikarina had sung a popular CM song before joining AKB, Suuchan has Teruyuki Kagawa’s phone number (+ Chikarina is friends with Nounen Rena and Takei Emi) and Kana is more often mistaken for a hostess. The climax of the episode was an insect eating competition between the non-senbatsu members and the 15th generation members.
Analysis: This week’s episode will be remembered for a long time: it created a legend for AKB fans. It was much easier for Ariyoshi to tease the girls as they were more willing to do anything to leave a lasting impact and Kojiharu was also more eager to tease them. The seriousness and hunger of the members were also obvious so it was entertaining to watch the episode. However, the end of the episode is what will be remembered: 15th generation members eating even more insects than comedians can take usually and then Ucchi pulling off a move I don’t remember ever even seeing. The eating competition has guaranteed future appearances for Ucchi and the kenkyuusei since they have a character on the show now.
Summary: AKBingo tried out a new format this week that reminded me of Andare’s moe corners: the program had the members come up with various moe lines in given situations. The twist is that the “moeness” of each performance was rated by famous AKB analysts: manga author Kobayashi Yoshinori, critic Uno Tsunehiro and publisher/editor Aoki Hiroiki (familiar from Sashihara no ran).
Analysis: It is weird to see AKBingo doing something so close to what Andare does. The only twist they added to the mix was having the episode revolve around the judges, which can be quite polarizing. At least Sayanee and Takamina guaranteed that even this episode had laughs and Tano’s courage to come forward even in a big group is amazing – and she even understands what to do. There will be no AKBingo episode next week due to Sochi Olympics, but it looks like the next episode will continue with this same format.
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.
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. This week saw AKB members making many solo appearances in non-AKB shows and I found the time to write about them, instead of just namedropping them.
AKBingo (26.11)
Members: Maria Abe, Karen Iwata, Natsuki Uchiyama, Ryoka Oshima, Nana Okada, Mako Kojima, Juri Takahashi, Miyu Takeuchi, Yuka Tano, Ayana Shinozaki, Mariya Nagao, Miki Nishino, Ami Maeda, Suzuran Yamauchi
This week’s AKBingo was the first part of a multi-episode Nana prank. The show is clearly hopping onto her serious character that has become one of the highlights of the show this year. This episode was quite different from AKBingo’s usual, with a heavy focus on a long VTR with various people from the management sharing stories of Nana’s personality and the first part of the prank which how scarily well Nana listens to pretty much anything that is said to her. Continue reading →
In these weekly summaries, I go through the latest episodes of AKB48′s various shows. Sasshi appeared on Konya ha kurabetemimashita, a popular talk show in which Miichan appeared earlier this year.
AKBingo (29.10)
Members: Karen Iwata, Saho Iwatate, Nana Okada, Ryoka Oshima, Yuko Oshima, Asuka Kuramochi, Mako Kojima, Ayana Shinozaki, Yurina Takashima, Juri Takahashi, Mariya Nagao, Miki Nishino, Ami Maeda, Minami Minegishi, Suzuran Yamauchi, Yui Yokoyama
This week’s AKBingo continued last week’s theme of competition between senbatsu members and young newcomers. This time it was a what’s-in-the-box reaction game and the staff had a group of old people who don’t know anything about AKB judge whose reaction is best. The ones who took part in the game were Kojimako, Yuko, Ayanan, Miki and Miichan. Ranran and Mariyagi appeared only in the short talk part before the episode.
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 →
In these weekly summaries, I go through the latest episodes of AKB48’s various shows. This week my write-up on AKBingo ended up being so extensive that I separated it into its own post which I will publish soon. Furthermore, SKE48’s Akarin appeared on Kanjani no shiwake eight again, but I didn’t watch it myself. It is the show in which she has appeared a few times in the past and vowed the audiences with her limbo skills.
I’m not sure how many are actually following Sasshi’s new program, Sashihara no ran, but I seriously recommend giving it a chance. Continue reading →
Variety 48 