No wai! Boyfriend scandal in AKB48? Oh noes!!1!! (Aitakatta!)

At Aitakatta, Cat first shares news of the latest AKB48 SEED member to have been promoted to the main group: Nitou Moeno, Team B’s newest member. She then goes on to share the news of 15-year-old Team B member Kikuchi Ayaka’s current boyfriend scandal, involving a purikura photo of her and a boy leaked to the internet. The picture isn’t suggestive in any way, but they wrote “3 months together” on it. Cat shares the picture and gives us an overview of the situation, and explains that such scandals were what drove her away from H!P, so she’s tired of them and not happy to see this happening in AKB48.

What Cat doesn’t mention about this scandal is the fact that Kikuchi has been absent from performances ever since the scandal broke. Her picture is still on the wall at the Akihabara48 theatre, and her profile is still on their official website, but there have been online announcements a few days before every recent Team B show that she would be absent from the performances. Just as I’d expected, another announcement was made today, and she will still be absent from the next set of Team B shows. We’re left hanging, wondering whether she’s going to be kicked out of the group or if she will, indeed, return. I feel like that’s the biggest blow - being made to wait, wondering what will happen, for this long. Goddammit, if she’s going to be kicked out, let us know already so we can deal with it.

It’s like the summer of 15-year-old idol boyfriend scandals. Lovely.