Well, it feels kind of dumb to write it, seeing how I haven’t updated in quite a few days, but the thing is, I don’t feel like updating this blog right now. Yikes. I’m in Japan right now, which is great, and I’ve been able to experience lots of things AKB related, which makes me pretty happy, but it also somehow left me wondering a bit… I mean, what I had in my mind totally didn’t happen, but then a lot of things that I thought wouldn’t happen actually did.

I’m sorry if this makes no sense at all, and I’m also very sorry to let down the people who regularly come and visit this blog expecting updates. 

I hope that this is just a phase, you know… A very surreal feeling phase when I don’t really feel like saying anything about AKB, and I find the whole purpose of my fandom pretty pointless. 

I’m sure that from here on, I won’t stop being an AKB fan, of course, I’ll keep supporting them as much as I possibly can, the group, especially Team K, and especially my favorite member, Yuko. But right now, I need to clear my mind a bit before I think about something I want to really blog about regarding AKB. I’m sorry, again, I’m kind of upset about this outcome, because I definitely didn’t expect that of my trip. But yeah, I guess some things can’t be helped.

So, I hope that you all can try to understand a bit of this really bizarre explanation of mine, and I wish that I could put my reasons into more coherent words right now because the reason I have for keeping this blog, is of course, to expand the fandom and help AKB’s fanbase grow more because of this. 

I’m sorry, sorry, sorry. I hope that I’ll get out of this slump quickly, or that I’m able to figure this out as soon as possible, because I want to keep this blog as active as possible for as long as AKB exists, ideally.

So please, wish me luck, and keep checking back… Something tells me that I won’t be away for too long.

Thank you so much everyone for reading my blog frequently, I really really appreciate all of you, I check my tracker almost daily to see how many people have visited, and it makes me really happy whenever someone tells me “Oh, I found out about AKB through your blog, so I became a fan” That’s my greatest accomplishment with this blog, and its reason to be. Thank you all, from the bottom of my heart.

Hi people! I’m back with another update (I hadn’t been able to update earlier because my keyboard got all messed up and it annoyed me, so yeah…) Before I start with this one, though, I want to invite all of you to visit my new Jpop blog, Macaroni-i! I figured I’d start it to ramble about the non-AKB stuff I like, so please check it out! OK, enough self advertising XD, let’s get to the post!

Hirajima Natsumi aka. Nacchan is another very prominent Team B member, but I bet YOU don’t know about her either I’m not a HUGE Nacchan fan, but I know someone who is, so please head over to Julia’s wonderful Nacchan worship site, Summer Sea!

Nakayan is one of my favorite Team B members. Which also means that she’s one of the least popular members on that team D: I don’t know what the hell is up with people, she is lovely, sweet, very kind and an excellent singer and dancer. Am I the only one who sees that? Why? She used to wear glasses before, and that actually guaranteed her more fans, but I’m all for her talent, she doesn’t need a gimmick to rock my world! <3

Inoue Naru aka. Naruppe used to be a Team B member, but she graduated this year D: WTH is Team B falling apart? They are so cool! Anyhow, Naruppe was one of the best singers of the group although she was pretty bad at dancing when she first started XD She was a very sweet girl too… I’ll miss her…

Naruse Risa aka. Naruru was a RS that got added to Team K this year. She is not such a great singer as Mochi (Kuramochi Asuka) is, but she has a lot of attitude when she’s on stage. She looks pretty cutesy too, I like her. She might be the skinniest girl in AKB though XD (yeah, skinnier than Sae, even)

Matsubara Natsumi aka. Nattsumii (yeah, that is a nickname, apparently XD) is a Team K member with a very sweet personality. I like Natsumii, especially because she is a very good performer, despite not being very popular. Also, she reminds me of Natsuyaki Miyabi, especially personality-wise, but also, there’s something similar in their faces…

Kawasaki Nozomi aka. Nozofisu is a Team A member and I <3 her. I’ve already profiled her and stuff… Well, she’s a gravure model, so she’s pretty hot. She’s shy and cute too. Very loveable!

Ohe Tomomi aka. Oh Yay Team A graduate Is a beautiful girl with lots of personality to spare. Ohe happens to be a bit crazy and out there, but that makes her all the more interesting! She is a great singer, but not much of a dancer, so it’s really cute to see her trying very hard to do all the right moves and FAILING XD. She’s going to be a model now, and even has a PB scheduled for next year, so thankfully she won’t disappear from the map!

Well, if you remember correctly, some posts ago I said that my least favorite AKB member was this girl, Fujie Reina aka. Reinyan. Well, she’s not my least favorite anymore XD She’s not my favorite either, but in A5 noticed how much she has improved and how she doesn’t really have all the camera time I thought she had back in A4 Revival. I like her soft husky voice and she is a good dancer. To be honest, I don’t ever notice her much, she doesn’t stand out all that much, but she’s pretty. And she changed her annoying catchphrase for something that I can bear (now I only need Myao to change hers and I’m set )

Narita Risa aka. Natarii is another Team A member who graduated this year (whoa, so many!) She is a very energetic girl and just SO incredibly cute! It saddens me that she’s not going to be around anymore, I actually really liked her and looked forward to seeing her in A5… Well, she’ll be a gravure model full time now, so it’s ok I guess.

Watanabe Shiho, former Team A member, then Team B member, then graduate (phew!) is a very beautiful girl. I especially like how graceful she became over the years, because back in A1 she was very awkward, stiff and had this unnatural smile in her face all the time! And then you watch B1 and she’s like whoa! She has everything nailed and under control!

Tanamin (Tanabe Miku) is one of my favorite Team B members. I really want her to be the most popular member on the Team but the management won’t help us with that XD. She’s gorgeus (as you can see with the pic) and one of the best dancers of AKB48 (if not the best). But she hardly ever gets a solo line T_T I hope that in B4 they have something good in store for her!

Yonezawa Rumi aka. Yonechan is an adorable Team B member. What I love about her is how she always gives 100% in everything she does! I swear, this girl is something else! She’s not exactly a ball of genki like nacchan or Harugon, but she’s always smiling and having fun so it’s really nice to watch her. She got a slightly bigger role in B3 than the usual, so I hope that this happens too in B4. She’s adorable, but I already said that XD

Meet one of the many reasons why Team K is so awesome. She’s no underdog (although she doesn’t get many singles) but since I’m assuming that some of my visitors might be casual fans who don’t watch theater performances I thought I’d introduce her here. Masuda Yuka, who is TOO freaking cool for a nickname. She’s (IMO) the best singer in the entire AKB48. And she’s also a great dancer. And she’s also beautiful. And she’s like 16 years old. Yeah, I LOVE Yuka, so I’ll post more about her in my favorites entry XD

Alright people, so this wraps up this picspam installment. Wait next time for a post on my favorites and another one on the popular girls! (or maybe it’ll just be the same post, since I like lots of popular girls…) Oh and BTW, Kikuchi Ayaka of Team B, who was fired earlier this year, was admitted back as a Kenkyuusei. I’ll probably write a post about that but yeah, I thought you should know XD

Hello there, people! I plan on keeping annoying you all until you go and buy H1, but right now I really want to get through with the profiles of the rest of Team A, because like I’ve said 10000 times before, some of these girls are my favorites.

 

• Name: Kawasaki Nozomi (川崎希)
• Nickname: Nozofisu (ノゾフィス)
• Birthdate: August 23rd, 1987
• Birthplace: Tokyo, Japan
• Hobbies: Speaking Spanish
• Audition song: Kawashima Ai - 12ko no Kisetsu
• Height: 156cm
• Bust: 82cm
• Waist: 59cm
• Hips: 83cm

I’m crazy about Nozofisu, for reasons that I find difficult to pinpoint, but I’ll try to do my best at it anyway… She was one of the first girls who caught my eye because she is incredibly beautiful! And I don’t mean pretty-beautiful like Maimai, or cute-beautiful like Miichan, Nozomi is what people would call a classic beauty, she’s kind of quiet and demure, very ladylike, and that added to her look makes her a very special type of idol, I mean, I would love to be like that, but sadly, I’m more of a tomboy than anything else XD

Anyway, I really like Nozofisu’s voice, although I will admit she isn’t the strongest singer of the group. Her voice is just what you would expect from her, very sweet, and not cute at all, but soft and “classy” if you could say that about a voice… She is an average dancer, but whenever she is into a performance she REALLY is into it, and she gives her all, in her usual style. Also, this is a bit personal, and stupid, but she can speak spanish!!! That’s super cool, and adds 1000+ points of sexy to her.

1. Sakura no Hanabiratachi: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6XHLUwJMek Well, Nozomi isn’t all that prominent in this PV, which is a shame, because she’s a cutie! However, there’s one shot of her that made me go ga-ga at how beautiful this girl is!

Wow! I mean, wow! There was this PV, with a bunch of hyper and cute girls, in their typical idol poses and stuff… and then this frame comes out of nowhere and wow! Nozomi is absolutely beautiful, right? And it’s such a refreshing sight after all of the typical idol stuff of the backstage parts of this PV

And then she sort of looks our way… *swoons* See, the thing about being a Nozofisu fan is that it’s a bit of an art, a certain finesse is required to rejoice in her beauty and the little variations of it, and the defined style that is so typical of her. She is a true lady, and is subtle and delicate like one should be, which in turn results as not so entertaining for the people who come to idol world looking for hyper - sugary - sweet idol personaes, winks and jumps.

Here we see Nozofisu in action next to Komatani Hitomi, she seems to be having some fun with that choreography! I remember a shot of the Making Of AKB48’s spring tour of 2007 where they showed the girls in rehearsal and Nozofisu’s shirt said “I see that you’ve met the twins” That cracked me up, it seemed pretty out of character, but the good thing about Nozomi is that she’s a good girl with a twist, but I’ll get into that later.

Yeah, I know that she’s kind of blurry and in the background, but still. Here’s graduated member Usami Yuki, and Nozomi in what appears to be a recording studio. Nozofisu looks very focused, and I’m surprised that even though both members have never been the most popular girls, Usami gets to be in the front… I mean, in the rest of the studio pics of the other girls, they seem to share the screen evenly, but this just seems foul… of course, when you decide to become a fan of one of the underappreciated girls, you have to deal with this kind of thing.

The thing that bothers me, though, is that even though some of the other girls who were largely unnoticed by team A (Nacchan, Shiho, Cindy) were more TEam B material anyway, and rocked/are rocking there, Nozofisu is SO Team A, and they don’t even notice it! I’m glad that she’s a model now, and hopefully that will give her more exposure. I think she’s becoming bigger everytime, and being the Team 2 sub for Yuko was a BIG break for her and one of the reasons why I enjoyed Team 2 so much in the DVD

Aww… don’t cry! See, the other girls are all envious now because you get the cute clothes and the best photoshoots, so you ended up winning in the long run!

2. Skirt Hirari:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zc5mKEgl9kY Well… spotting Nozofisu in this pV is like playing “Find Waldo” but I still managed to find a decent shot of her… With such a minor performance, I can’t really say much about her job here

She’s the second to last girl here, the one with straight long hair. She looks bored… But I would too if I knew that I would only be getting a split second of a shot in the whole thing!

She even seems sort of pissed off in her shot, but then again I don’t blame her. It must suck to be stuck in the background all the time, and while we get to listen to all the glory of the front girls, as they get TV appearances, interviews, PV close ups and such, the less known girls remain a mystery for most of us. And it’s not really strange to see that happening, you’re most likely to be drawn to that girl who gets the camera stuck on her face thorugh all of the performance, or that which is so hyper that she lights up the stage. But then is it wrong to be a background girl? Does this mean that they are less good at what they do? A quick answer to that question would be a “Yes, being an idol is about entertaining” but it’s also abou so  much more… I would have Nozomi over Acchan any day, and that’s not out of hate for Maeda, but just to show that even though the girl can’t really sing or dance all that well and has 0 stage presence, the camera is all over her, and she has without a doubt gotten the biggest push. Is she worth MY time? No, I look for some sort of special something in my idols… which is why I might be more drawn to those who are quirky or overlooked for some reason. I just like to dig deeper I guess…

3. Aitakatta  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwFvpkiNOVU Er… wiki lists her as part of this PV’s cast, but I couldn’t spot her even once! I’m inclined to believe that she wasn’t in it, though, because all of the girls who did got a small part and where relatively easy to spot…

 6. BINGO!  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzp6tTAYoF0 Oddly enough, even though the over-the-top happiness of BINGO doesn’t really fit Nozofisu’s character all that well, I found a lovely shot of her in the PV!

Nozofisu’s mugshot, no less! Instead of looking badass she looks HOT! Still, awesome to see her appear in a PV, regardless of what small role she might get in there…

Here even matsubara Natsumi is cracking up, with Tomochin and her characteristic hyperness, and yet Nozomi simply waves and smiles shyly… That endears me to no end, but, like I said before, it’s not meant to be liked by everyone. I guess we all have our own kind of idol, like an “ideal type” and we’ll always like that type better than the others, which is perfectly acceptable

 

Well, that is all for Nozomi’s PV appearances Luckily, we have stage performances!!

Party ga Hajimaru yo - A1: Strangely enough, Nozomi is all smiles and happy-genki-power in this… it’s an interesting change of pace, but I’d rather see her stick to her own self

Yay w00t! *waves* Ahh… it’s always better to see a smile than anything else, especially if it comes from Nozofisu! She looks even prettier now, but this is nice for old memories sake

Doku Ringo wo Tabesasete - A1: A song meant to be all sexy and stuff, that IMO fails at it and ends up just sounding plain weird. Still, it was nice to see the girls attempts at being HOTT

Funny how she’s the only one who noticed where the camera is… she looks a bit awkard in this, but you can tell that she’s still enjoying it (when she isn’t it REALLY shows, which cracks me up)

Zombie Nozofisu FTW!

I’ll admit that she was much more of a typical idol at the beginning, but now she’s polished her act more in order to offer something unique. It’s still great to see her smile and have fun, and I can’t deny that the “fun” factor really comes into play when people decide to like an idol or not, because  there’s a reason why we aren’t listening to Evanescence, but we’re watching little japanese girls jump around and be silly, it makes us sick people happy!

Hoshi no Ondo - A1: I’m sadly not a big fan of this super slow song, but it does fit Nozomi’s character very well. She manages to look very elegant in that dress, unlike some of her team mates XD

Even though ballads are great for her quiet character, I love it when she gets to do stuff that is a bit more “edgy”, she can do that as well, surprisingly, without getting out of character or anything

AKB48 - A1: This song is all about the fun that is AKB48, and I think the girls like singing it quite a bit, they must be glad to be a part of it!

There’s something adorable about seeing the girls so young, sort of inexperienced in the Idol business and without make up and stuff, especially when it’s in retrospective, because then we can see how much they have evolved through their time in the industry…

Koi no Plan - A2: Oh! I love this song so much! It’s a bubbly song, but nothing too hyper. Even though most of the underrated girls where stashed here, it sounds amazing! And they all look so cute in those dresses!

This cute choreography was a bit more laid back than I originally thought it would be judging from the song’s music, but it’s great for the gentle girls included here, Nozomi, Hitomi and Michiru in particular

Her soft voice balances Haruna’s powerful vocals, and she’s a great match for Oh yay’s beautiful smooth voice as well. I liked how this song sounded very much.

Rio no Kakumei - A2: I’m a fan of carnivals, the people stop being individuals and sort of come together in this amazing mob of dancing and singing energy! That stated, I must add that I think a song about the carnival of Rio was an awesome idea, and while this particular one doesn’t really sound brazilian at all, it includes my favorite Nozofisu moment ever!

The energetic dance and music builds and then it comes to a stop… and Nozofisu appears surrounded by blue lights, and has a speaking part XD The great thing about it is both the fact that it includes english and spanish, and that it’s great to see the underdogs get big parts! The way she slowly speaks, with her soft voice, is very sultry and it gives the sexy vibe to this song, without a doubt!

Dakedo… - A2: Here’s another sweet touching ballad, a classic fan favorite

 I like how she seems to be singing her heart out in this screencap, because she’s rarely this passionate about her singing, so it’s nice to see her show how much it really gets to her

Rider - A3: This song holds a special meaning because it was written for one of AKB48’s early fans, who tragically died in an accident. It’s very sweet and heartwarming, and also, on a shallow note, the outfits were great!

Nozofisu, looking beautiful in yellow! Those earrings are SO much win!

Same as Koi no Plan, this sweet number is very fitting for the characters of the “background girls” and they all perform their best in it, this is one performance that always manages to bring a smile to my face

Koike - A3: Ahhh the angry break up song! Cool!

That wavy hair is a much better look for her than the straight one! She’s sexy in Koike, both in the sateg performance and in the concert version! This is where we begin to see how much of a sexy girl Nozomi really is, so it isn’t all about being a demure lady, there’s an edge to her!

Only Today - A4: I like how on first look this happy song seems about something completely different than what it really is about

God, my A4 screencaps are hideous, but this is enough to show how she finally settled for what type of character she wants to be, there’s no need to be all hyper and sugary, it’s fine to be however you want to be as long as you do a great job at it!

Faint - A4: People really noticed Nozofisu after Faint. This is a great song, but what’s even greater is its sexy choreography and honest lyrics. All of the girls did great in this, but the fact that “lady” Nozomi was so good at this really made a few jaws drop. I think it was a good way to show people that she could do more than ballads, and I daresay that she’s even better at sexy than at ballads!

Mwahahaha! Just wait bitches, I’ll show you all what I’m really capable of!

The very classy “boobie grabbing” step… always a winner! And that belly button piercing is HOTT

Work it girl!

*dies*

I already said that something I like very much about this song are its honest lyrics, but they wouldn’t be as meaningful if they weren’t delivered from the heart, like the girls do here!

Yeah, that’s a bad time to blink, Tomochin… but the other two girls looks stunning! Nozomi is SUPER sexy, as you can see here!

Well, that is all for now, please support Nozomi, she’s a very good idol in her own way! And her hobbie is collecting Paris Hilton pictures which cracks me up as well XD So, if you don’t do it for her, do it for Paris, we all know that she needs more love! (XD XD XD No sex tape pun intended)

Well, while I’m not much of a cook or anything, I wanted to join in the celebration (in my time zone it’s still March 18, you know…) so I wanted to share with all the wotas, as a personal way to say “Happy Birthday”, my favorite cake pictures of my favorite girls!

 

What better way to celebrate than Harunyan, Maimai and Risa-chan?

Happy happy birthday to you *sings*

 

We have some very sophisticated stuff, like Creme Brulée, in case you’re feeling posh

 

Miichan says happy 1st birthday too!

 

And it looks like Maimai and Risa already grabbed their slice of the cake

 

But it’s not a birthday celebration until Acchan in her pyjamas delivers her present(or was it Acchan in her PJs the present?)

Anyhow, Happy Birthday Intl Wota!!! And here’s to many more years bringing wotas together!!

Hi! This is Cat, aka garnetjester. (I forgot to introduce myself in the first post XD) Ok, so to get things started, let’s talk about the basics of AKB48.

AKB48 was a group created by Akimoto Yasushi (Who was the first Idol rpoducer in Japan, the man behind Onyanko Club) with the basic precept of being “Idols that you can meet”. They have a theater at Don Quijote in Akihabara, where they perform almost everyday (talk about rehearsing…). The group is divided into 3 teams:

Team A: This was the first team, and it consisted of 20 girls, until lots of them graduated, they’re currently 14. Team A is know for having most of the groups fore front members, and all of the A-sides of the singles get performed in their stages… Talk about unfair! Their style is more oriented toward feminine songs, they are the “cute side” of AKB48. 

Team K: Team K has also 14 members right now, and they joined around late 2006 or 2007 I believe… Team K has all of the B-sides (except for Namida Uri no Shoujo and Only Today) in their stages, and their songs are typically full of energy and very upbeat. Team K is the “cool side” of AKB48

Team B: I honestly have no idea about this team. They joined last year, and are 15, currently. They have 2 stages going on for them (which are rip offs of Team K and Team A’s original stages…) and very few of them appear in PVs XD. I don’t really know about their style, either, because all of their songs aren’t really theirs, so we’ll see about them when they get their own stage later on this year.

 Now that we’vw got that covered, let’s get into knowing the girls, one by one. I’ll do team A first, then Team K and I hope that the Team B DVD has come out by the time I’m finished with the first 2 teams…

Welcome to my AKB48 blog!

I haven’t seen many blogs about AKB48, really and I thought that it could be a great idea, because I’m always listening to them, I’m very attached to these girls and almost always have something to say about them. That said, this blog has an ulterior motive, of course, and that is, getting people to know about AKB48!!

 I’ve seen in the JPop community a number of people who comment on how they find the AKB48 concept attractive, but how they can’t get into it because they just won’t bother looking for information on EACH girl, and they can’t really tell them apart.

So, I’ve decided to give all of them a hand. To start this, my plan is introducing you to each of the AKB48 girls, by telling you the basics (taken from WIki XD), my personal opinion on their dancing and singing skills, providing pictures, screencaps of when they appear in PVs and links to Youtube performances of the stage songs they might be involved in. This is a whole load of work, especially for someone like me, because I’m kind of computer-challenged and I don’t have a lot of free time, so maybe I’ll just do one girl each week.

I’m doing this for the sole purpose of getting people to love AKB48 as much as I do. Or at least pay some attention to their great music and stop calling them whores or H!P rip offs, because they are none of this things, and it saddens me to see the horrible things people say about this group without even knowing them.

If by the end of this series I have gotten only one person to care about them, I’ll be glad, and my work will be paid off!

So, without further ado, welcome to Aitakatta! Enjoy your stay!