AKB48 – The Paramount Example of Sexism in the World of 1984

“The privileged place held by men in economic life, their social usefulness, the prestige of marriage, the value of masculine backing, all this makes women wish ardently to please men. Women are still, for the most part, in a state of subjection. It follows that woman sees herself and makes her choices not in accordance with her true nature in itself, but as man defines her.” – Simone de Beauvoir, ‘The Second Sex’

Many of you must have heard about this rapidly rising singer group in Japan called AKB48 – short for Akihabara, a name of the city in Tokyo area. I don’t pretend to know a lot about this group, and certainly I don’t foresee the fans agreeing with me on what I write here, however, I believe this is imperative that somebody wrote about them in the intellectual arena so as to keep the dialogues and discussions alive.

What this group is… essentially it is a singing group, comprised of girls, aged

from 11 years old to 25 years old. It debuted in 2005, and broke records in selling their CDs in 2008-2009, officially joining the world’s top selling singer groups. Why so popular? Especially in this age where people don’t buy CDs and rather download them fro free? The producer Yasushi Akimoto has produced countless popular groups in the past, and this is his latest achievement. It is important to note here that it is his achievement, more than anything else. The group consisted of indefinite number of girls to begin with – sometimes 16, sometimes 20, increasing as time passed by, creating new sister groups, hiring more girls. It was not until 2007 April, when the number of the girls in the group actually matched the number indicated in its group name – AKB48. This group was first established by the motto of ‘idols you can meet’ and hence they were at first stage singers, where they performed singing/dancing every weekend at a specific theater hall. As they gain the popularity, the members grew, and those who were there from the beginning promoted to the higher group, eventually leading up to the ultimate division of the group into 4 groups – Trainees, Theatre Girls, Under Girls and God’s Seven. God’s Seven are 7 people who topped the fan’s votes and they have the most publicity. About 15 top girls are allowed on CD recordings and Under Girls are normally not allowed or excluded from the recording itself, but they sing on TV and any public events. Theatre Girls are those who may appear on variety programs and Trainees are the ones who dance in the background.

The reasons for its popularity may be dependent on many elements, however, as is always the case with Japanese pop singers, its primary reasons may be that the group only consists of ‘cute, young girls’ and that the promotion videos and lyrics of the songs are flirtatious at best. The reason why they have sold so many CDs thus contributing to its gaining popularity is primarily because when you buy a CD they give you a voting ticket. This vote you acquire in exchange for the CD at stores gets you access to support the individual singer in the group, and if a member gets many votes from the fans, then she will be promoted to the higher classes in the group. So the ones who are called ‘God’s Seven’ are the ones who received most votes from the fans who purchased their CDs. This ticket is included in the CD, one ticket per CD. Some fans therefore, in hopes to see their favourite singer on stage or on TV or in the recording, buy 10s and 100s of CDs, the same CDs, to acquire the right to vote so many times. This is not an easy task, however, as CD stores don’t carry enough to allow one person get 100s of CDs. Besides, the group produces a new CD every 3 months, which means there is only 3 months window in voting for your favourite girl. Furthermore, Amazon.co.jp or other Internet stores do not allow anyone to buy more than 1 CD – so what happens is that fans create a countless accounts on Amazon, and buy one CD from each account. One guy actually succeeded in buying 5,500 CDs by doing this, approximately $70,000 worth. Just to vote. Furthermore, this CD not only includes, but sometimes also includes the ‘handshaking ticket’ with the singers of their likeness. The group has a constant tour all over Japan, and they have formed ‘National Handshake Convention’ and ‘Regional Handshake Convention’ where the singers themselves appear in a large hall and spend their entire day shaking hands with their fans who have the tickets. If you have the ticket, you go to the hall, and exchange that ticket for a number. My friend actually went there, he had three tickets. He exchanged the first one for the number 17,000th, but was unable to exchange the other two at the same time due to restrictions. He had to go back in the line in order to get the other two tickets exchanged, and once he got them exchanged, the numbers he had for those two tickets were 45,000th. He waited for 6 hours and finally got to meet the singers themselves and shook his hands with them, exchanged few words and left. Apparently, in the National Handshake Convention, you are not allowed to take photos, but you may take some photos at the Regional Handshake Convention.

The 48 members constantly change due to the nature of voting system, and top 15 members who recorded the first CD do not necessarily get to sing at the recording for the second CD. People who are in the God’s Seven rarely change, but changes are constant in the lower groups. So it is more than frequent that the members change each time they sing. Now, this obviously poses a problem for people like us who actually care about songs and music. What is this singing group all about? If fans’ votes determine who is to sing on stage, on TV, and on recordings, there no reason why the particular members who performed for the first CD to be singing for the second CD, since their popularity is not based on their ability or talents, but merely ‘how cute they look/behave’. The girls in the group are strictly reduced to the simple commodities for the general public. Their songs and lyrics are no better – any messages? No, not at all. The only messages those songs may contain are sexual appeal and flirtations. I have watched a couple of official promotion videos, but their latest promotion video includes 20 or girls singing on the beach with bikinis on. Completely irrelevant to the songs at all. Another promotion video has a song about how it’s okay to be naughty and sexually promiscuous if you are a girl who are in school – the song’s title is ‘Our school uniforms are getting on our way’, somewhat suggesting that teenage prostitution is commended. Basically the songs says that ‘do whatever you want, if you want an sexual escapade, do it because this is the time’ or girls singing how they want to be ‘devoured’ sexually. yet another promotion video has a harem element to it, staging girls with corsets in a Moulin Rouge type of setting, and each girl is kissing each other, eating whip cream, and jigging cherry jello, while taking a bath together.

For those of you who are confused about what I am writing now, or forgot what this post started as, you are not insane. This is what is happening, and it’s only escalating. There is also a rule that tells them in the group not to fall in love or date. If you are caught dating (with group members, which is suggestive of lesbianism) you are instantaneously fired. If you are one of those God’Seven, and caught dating, you may be suspended, but your fan votes will dramatically go down so that you will likely not ever be on TV again.

All of this reminds me exactly of politics. It doesn’t matter if you have talent or ability, what matters is solely and purely PR. As far as I am concerned, this group does not have to present themselves as singers, but farmers or even jugglers. It would make the least difference. Besides, what proper production management in artists decide who is to sing on stage by fans’ votes, completely ignoring the individual’s ability to sing? What is more surprising is the fact that last year, in 2010, they once ignored the voting system and decided who to sing on record by ‘rock-paper-scissors.’

Clearly, this group is a joke, yet it is the world’s fastest growing teen pop singer group. In fact, this is politics in an entertainment society. AKB48 even has the General Election annually in the summer, and they even have ‘Cabinet’ consisting of those 48 members. They call it a Cabinet as if in the politics. And what is sad about this that the voting rate for AKB48 is much higher than the voting for political organizations.

They have now made its sister groups in other major cities in Japan, calling them NMB48, SKE48, etc… They are planning to have them compete with each other regionally as well as nationally, resembling themselves to National Baseball League. It is completely a game, and these girls are used and forced to sign contacts because they want to be famous and cute. It is absolutely an exploitation of human beings when you ask 11 years old to sign a contract on condition that she will never fall in love or else get fired. The condition is not ‘you have to sing well’ but ‘you cannot date’. This is the era when Japan completed the transformation of girls into perfect commodities without the participating girls being aware of their being used. This is the time that successfully objectified teenage girls.

And it is only getting worse.

(Here is a clip/article I found online about the guy who bought 5,500 copies of AKB48 CDs: http://thegroovemusiclife.com/2011/05/26/i-like-akb48-but-wait-a-minute/)