Welcome to Wota Wonderings! We are a group of english-speaking Japanese music bloggers brought together once a month to answer questions posed by johpan. We strive to be creative and entertaining, and we may even shed a bit of new light on interesting musical and cultural topics. Any questions about how we work should be directed to johpan. Don’t forget to check out the other posts from this month at the bottom of this post. Enjoy!

no3bFor this month’s Wota Wonderings, I’ve decided to focus our attention to tie-ins to animes and doramas with musical acts. I’m going to be focusing on a fairly recent tie-in. It involves cross-dressing, lesbians, and a whip. No no no, my friends, I’m not talking about Koda Kumi, I’m talking about AKB48, more specifically no3b (No Sleeves) and their dorama tie-in with Mendol.

I know a few of the wotachatters went crazy each time a new episode came out. #wotachat was where I first learned of the craziness that was Mendol. Before then, I hadn’t really given AKB48 a chance in fear that I might actually go crazy about them and have to download everything they’ve done, BUT, I decided to give the trio of no3b a chance since it’s only 3 of them.

I really don’t remember how I acquired the RELAX! single (/me eyes mintii?) but man oh man, there was something about that track that just swallowed me whole. Even still, it took about a month for me to start watching the dorama since I started listening to the song. Some where between then, I watched the PV on youtube and kinda fell in love with Minegishi Minami. I didn’t watch the PV a lot before I got into the show so my first impressions of the girls were from the show. Minegishi is always going to be the adorably cute one, Takahashi is always going to be the tomboy, and Kojima is always going to be the leader. Minegishi still remains my favourite of the trio but I’ve got a soft spot for Takahashi even though she doesn’t really smile naturally, but when she does, her cuteness really shines. Nothing really strikes me with Kojima. I don’t know why. Vocally, all three girls are fun and energetic. Watching the lives they did on the music shows were fun. There’s just something about the talking parts that are cute but when they brought that into the second single, it got old kinda quickly.

I was quite surprised about the style of dorama Mendol was because I never expected to see an idol group do something that suggestive. Again, I don’t follow AKB48, so I thought it’d be something along the lines of something H!P would do. I have to admit that its suggestiveness was my weakness and got me hooked. Something about two cute girls kissing… nevermind. Anyhow, I ended up watching the entire series and was pleasantly surprised that the girls came out with another single even after the series was done. I’m currently not as into it as I was with RELAX! but that could change. It doesn’t quite have the immediate infectious power that RELAX! had.

Sadly, this is where my adventure with AKB48 ends. While Mendol was fun and new for my experiences with idol groups, it didn’t lure me into finding out more about them. I don’t know why. Maybe because My hands are already full with my fanboying over Perfume. Maybe I just need to find a song by AKB48 that has that instant infectious quality I found in RELAX!. Maybe I just think 48 girls in a single group is too much. Yeah, I think it’s that last one.

However, if someone out thinks they can get me into AKB, hit me with a song title and I’ll see what happens. I don’t know if I’m ready to give up on them completely but I don’t know if I’ll actively be looking to spark the interest.