Hi people… guess what this post is about? More news! Damn, if only they churned this earlier I wouldn’t have to double post, but this is pretty big, so I thought it deserved its own post anyhow.

So, looks like Tsuku isn’t the only one in high hopes of conquering the world, but while Tsunku has managed to bore all of Japan with MM and is now heading for Asia, Akimoto is going to try and take over Japan. Yeah, just like you read it fellows, in words of their management “AKB48 is going to expand through the country” WTF? This was bizarre enough, and then came the real news: Oh hi new Akimoto project!: SKE48. I’m not even kidding. I wish I were, though, because this is just painful! I don’t know the details yet, apparently there’s a press conference scheduled for June 5th where all of our questions will hopefully be answered.

So why do I think that this is painful? Well, because of the suspense, of course

I’m trying to look on the bright side, but I’m failing at it ATM… Are they going to have a group that mirrors AKB? I mean, Team S, Team K (repeated? Damn!), Team E? Seriously 48 more girls? Producing stages for 6 different Teams? I don’t know what to think of this yet… However, I am sure that Akimoto’s greed knows no boundaries! 96 girls???? This makes H!P look normal-sized! How do you manage to keep up with so many girls? You have to be insane in order to spend enough time to get to know 96 freaking girls! (and OMG it would take like all of my freaking life to screencap, research for info and profile all of them XD)

Ok, I’m jumping into conclusions here, but the brilliance of this idea leaves me in awe. Sakae is a geek district of Nagoya, like Akihabara is of Tokyo, apparently. There are geeks all around Japan, that is common knowledge, I mean, geeks are everywhere! So instead of trying to lure them into Tokyo to see AKB48, they can go to their local geek place and see XXX48! It’s a great plan, actually, because geeks will get hooked, that’s for sure, and more money will surely come to Akimoto’s bank accounts, but…

Will these alternative groups release mainstream singles? Will they ever get invited to Kouhaku? Will AKB48 tour with them? Surely, the chance of these other groups of succeeding even in the moderate way that AKB has is minimal, and my guess is that they will remain that, local groups, and that when Akimoto found out that AKB48 was becoming a bit too famous and “Idols that you can go and meet” was going to be hard to keep up with (I mean, try going and meeting the popular girls, like Acchan, Mai, Haruna… they are doing other activities all the time, and thus, don’t attend lots of shows), he decided that he’d probably be better off pimping AKB48 as the hybrid wota-mainstream group it has been all this time, and make other groups just for the purpose of milking wotas. If this is not what he thinks, then I really don’t understand how is ANYONE going to keep up with being a fan of a group with so many girls…

You know, people poke fun at how shady some of the business Akimoto does are (like that 55 poster thing) but I think I’ve never came to realize completely the fact that this guy means business. I mean, we all know that idol pop isn’t exactly about artistic freedom and great voices, but in my head this whole AKB48 expansion thing equals just one thing: $$$$$$

I hope that nothing of this is the truth. I’m all for supporting as many offsprings of the original as I can keep track of, but this also makes me a bit worried. I think that few of the original fans of AKB48 will be getting into the other groups all that much, if at all, but that in itself leaves me hanging there… I can’t go and watch AKB48, but I can’t really go and see any other group either! What are we, the fans from afar, going to do? This sounds more dramatic than I intended, but what I really mean is that… it will take too long to learn 48 more names…  (and I’m not even talking about profiling them, although that IS my biggest concern right now XD)

No auditions have been announced yet, but the press conference might just have that purpose. Maybe they will just stick all of the research students in the first team? I hope that no girls get transfered to SKE (damn that thing can’t even be pronounced properly), like CIndy, Nacchan and Shiho were to Team B, because while I’m all for transferring between Teams of the same city, it would break my little wota heart to see some girls having to part with their AKB friends and embark into a completely different thing in Nagoya…

Well, whatever the outcome is, I hope that it includes more charismatic, fun, pretty girls, great songs, amazing choreogrphies (wait, are they going to drag Natsu-sensei all over the country to train the new girls?) The logistics of this project intrigu me the most, I must confess, but I will still support the “48″ franchise for as long as they can keep me entertained and make me a happier human being