“Things are generally bad. Decay is universal. Disease lies at the
very root of things. If Wagner’s name represents the ruin of music… he
is not on that account its cause. All he did was to accelerate the fall,
– though we are quite prepared to admit that he did it in a way which
makes one recoil with horror from this almost instantaneous decline and
fall to the depths.” – F.W. Nietzsche
AKB48 is a name of the Japanese singer group, consisting
solely of “cute, young girls” who are not in any romantic relationship
with anyone. The group was established in 2005, and its popularity
expanded nation-wide ever since 2008. Its members include 48 girls (in
principle), and they sing usually in school uniforms or in bikini. The
producer, Yasushi Akimoto, has produced many major idol groups in the
past, and this is his latest achievement. The girls in the group range
anywhere from 12 years old to 25 years old, and their only requirement
for hire is that they must be amateur young girls with no formal
experience in singing or dancing. It sounds like a group doomed to fail,
yet its speedy success is beyond comprehension. The group consists of
inexperienced girls under 18 years old and their promotion videos
contain implicit nudity and flirtatious contents. What distinguishes
them from merely being a nationally sponsored child porn? What exactly
are the social roles played by them? What attracted not only perverted
so-called Otaku audience but also enthusiastic female fans?
Surely, the orchestrator had a great economic model to work with, but
whatever happens to social influences on, in particular, younger girls
and boys? AKB48 has firmly substantiated the ‘ideal’ status of
perfection for girls in society. Never before has there been any
instance where the entrepreneur and the commodities are in unison
agreement with the exploitation of the commodities. But does the consent
of the exploited with the system make it okay for them to be exploited?
Perhaps. But surely it does not justify the tremendous moral lessons –
or lack thereof – their system is promoting in the society. Akimoto’s
business model and AKB48 girls offer us the paramount example of justified sexual exploitation of (teenage) girls in Japanese society.
This paper will focus on the ethical implications for such a group as AKB48 and its increasingly growing spinoff sister groups in Asia,[1] while occasionally drawing upon Neitzsche’s work on Wagner. The striking similarity of what AKB48 stands for with what Wagner stood for in Germany for Neitzsche is unsettling. This paper does not talk about AKB48 as a successful economic model, but rather AKB48 as a form of moral decline at its worst. In doing so, it will discuss about what AKB48 girls are ignorantly promoting, how AKB48 fans are controlled into thinking of themselves as fans of an idol group[2], Akimoto’s marketing strategies and the blurring of ethical decisions with business ones. It will conclude with the caution against this fast spreading virus into other cultures and the critique of Japan as an amoral nation. But before delving further into the ethics of it, the question needs to be asked: What kind of virus exactly is AKB48? AKB48 is a project[3] that was launched in 2005. Their primary activities were singing and dancing on the stage in the small theatre in Akihabara[4], Tokyo. 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 everyday at a specific theater hall. Since their first debut, they took time to shake hands with the fans who came to see them, and exchanged words with them. It soon broke records in selling their CDs in 2008-2009, officially joining the world’s top selling singer groups. Why did they become so popular and successful, especially in this age where people do not buy CDs but instead download them for free? The producer Yasushi Akimoto has produced a number of popular groups in the past, and this is his latest achievement. It is important to note here that it is his achievement – a project – more than anything else. AKB48 is completely political and hierarchical. The members of AKB48 are subject to change depending on how much support they get from their fans. The reason why they have sold so many CDs and hence contributing to its gaining popularity is primarily because when you buy a CD they give you a voting ticket.[5] To decide who is more popular, hence more in demand, they hold an Annual General Election. The aim of this election is to decide which 21 members amongst them all should sing the cover titles of their CDs. Those who got elected are eligible to sing on record in their new releases. The top 12 among them (called Media Senbatsu), moreover, can appear on TV and other media. The top 7 out of them are, furthermore, called God’s Seven, and they serve as the face of AKB48. The girls who could not make it into the top 21 still have their roles to play. The ones who ranked in the 22nd to the 40th are called ‘Under Girls’ and they are still able to sing the coupling songs with the main members.[6] 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. This ticket is included in the CD once a year. 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.[7] This is not an easy task, however, as CD stores do not carry enough to allow one person to get 100s of CDs. Furthermore, Amazon.co.jp or other Internet stores do not allow anyone to buy more than 1 CD[8] – 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.[9] Just to vote. Furthermore, this CD not only includes a voting ballot, but also includes the ‘handshaking ticket’ with the singers of their preference. 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. As has been said, the AKB48 members constantly change due to the nature of the voting system, and top 21 members who recorded the first CD do not necessarily get to sing at the recording for the second CD. Although people who are in the God’s Seven rarely change, 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 is 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. The messages those songs contain are sexual appeal and flirtations, as their official promotion videos clearly show. One of their latest promotion videos includes 20 or so girls singing on the beach with bikinis on. Completely irrelevant to the songs at all. Another promotion video has a song about how it is okay to be naughty and sexually promiscuous if you are a girl 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 only time you can be free’ or that how young girls want to be ‘devoured’ sexually. As far as I am concerned, this group does not have to present themselves as singers, but the group could be about farmers or even jugglers. And it would still be a success. Besides, what proper production management in art decides 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 was to sing on record by ‘rock-paper-scissors.’
Clearly, this group does not care or trust music. The phrase that Neitzsche said of Wagner appropriately sums up the character of this group: “He weaves kindred sensations into music in order to lend it the character of greatness. He measures itself on others; he first of all gives his listeners intoxicating drinks in order to lead them into believing that it was the music that intoxicated them.”[10] In a similar manner, AKB48 members sing and dance in bikini and school uniforms, appealing to the impression of ‘pureness’ and ‘cuteness’, and lead the audience into thinking that it was the music that made the members pure and cute. Yet it is the world’s fastest growing teen pop singer group. In fact, the political aspect of AKB48 in an entertainment society is clear not only from the fact that AKB48 has the General Election annually in the summer, but also they have what they call a ‘Cabinet’ consisting of those 48 members. Now, they have established its sister group, JKT48, in Indonesia, and it seems the AKB48 fever has spread all over Asia. It does not stop there, and it now has successfully recruited fans in France, Russia and even in the United States. This fast spreading popular culture has somehow captivated Japanese people’s heart[11], consequently lowering the moral standards and painting an ideal picture of what it should mean to be women for young girls. I take this whole movement led by AKB48 and its cognates to be an attack against moral conscience, and just as Wagner was for Neitzsche, AKB48 is a disease, the artist of decadence. Consequently, I wish to propose a paper that acts as a vaccine against the global virus called AKB48.
AKB48 is not an isolated disease – it is the very product of
accumulation of ignorance and negligence heretofore performed on
ethical education in Japan. Hence, treating AKB48 is not
treating a part of the ethical problem seen in Japan, but it is the same
as the very act of treating the problem in its entirety. By critiquing
this group, I am not attacking an arm of the monster, but I am attacking
the monster itself. I have been told that groups like AKB48
are nothing new to the ethical problems under capitalism, and that
exploitation happens everywhere and hence there is no reason why I
should focus on AKB48 alone, while leaving other issues aside. My belief is that critiquing AKB48 covers all the problems found in social ethics in Japan as well as in the other parts of the world, because AKB48
represents and contains all the issues at their core in it. As this is a
paper focusing on the group idol, specifically speaking, the language
used in this paper is necessarily the relevant terms when one is
speaking about popular culture. But generally speaking, I believe the
issues I am dealing with here are seen daily and are manifest in social
practices everywhere, and hence this paper is not on popular culture alone but
on social ethics particularly in Japan. Specific problems I see with
this group are therefore general problems seen in the culture
throughout. My paper, then, treats AKB48 both as itself and as the mirror that reflects the present state of ethical standing of Japan.
What is clearly obvious is the sexual exploitation of young girls in popular culture. What is strikingly new in AKB48 is that some of these girls are under 18 years old. Yet, they appear on promotional videos for their new songs semi-naked. Not only are they implicitly sexual but also their performance on their promotional videos is suggestive of pornography. This claim is easily supported if you have seen any of their clips on YouTube. I have in the past referred to three clips in particular – which are of Heavy Rotation[12], of The School Uniform Is Getting in the Way[13], and of Mouth-to-Mouth Chocolate[14] – to make my point that AKB48 is nothing but a nationally sponsored porn group. Let me analyze once more what each song/promotional video is about. If you have not seen their clips, it may be hard to visualize the scenes I will describe, but I believe the contents are explicit enough that what I mean is easily conveyed without a visual guide.
Let me begin with the AKB48 song released this fall, Heavy Rotation. The
problem with this song is not with the lyrics but rather with its
promotional video. The lyrics, though utterly without significance and
somewhat incomprehensible, suggests longing for love and adolescent
excitement of being in love. The imagery that comes with it, however,
does not seem to correspond to the lyrics at all. In fact, no matter how
hard you try to make sense out of it, it is impossible to see the
artistic significance of depictions of girls kissing each other in
underwear, taking a bath with each other, eating sugar and sweets while
seemingly helplessly lying on the table (2:20 in). Eating of jello with
cherries (2:30, 2:50) is suggestive enough, but what happens at 2:40 in
is extremely explicit. One cannot help wondering how she has eaten her
jello to get it on all over her face, as if her face is covered with
sticky liquid. The number of underaged girls performing in this
promotional video is 4: Matsui Jurina (13); Ono Erena (16); Maya
Watanabe (16) and Miho Miyazaki (17). The next song we are looking into
is called Moth-to-Mouth Chocolate. Asides from its sexually
charged title and background, I have absolutely no idea what this song
is supposed to be about. The song begins with the phrase, ‘Feed me
chocolate mouth to mouth… stuff it in there forcefully,’ and ends with
‘this chocolate is bittersweet, your poison tastes so good, it would be a
waste to close my eyes.’ According to one fan site on the Internet (1),
the song is teemed with double-meanings in the lyrics on purpose, and
the producer/songwriter ,Yasushi Akimoto, is intending this to have a
sexual meaning. ‘Betty Blue’ that appears in the lyrics (‘just like
Betty Blue, I am a cute girl’) is a character in French movie who
“yearns for a better life and quit her last job as a waitress because
she was being sexually harassed by her boss.” (2) Again from this same
fan website, I found some detailed analysis of the lyrics (what
surprises me is that this blogger seems to love this song precisely
because of the reason I find it inappropriate). I will let this blogger
speak for himself here.
“these lyrics are flawless in challenging a theme as delicate as
the boldness of teenage and the first sexual fantasies. Teenage girls
have as many of them as anyone else, and the chances of it being a
daring high school girl’s fantasy is very high.” The reason why this blogger likes the song is because he thinks it lacks hypocrisy amongst other things, for he says,
“I love it nonetheless. If possible, I love it even more for the lack
of hypocrisy and the tongue-in-cheek tone of the whole song.”[15]
The three girls singing and performing in this song are all underaged
at the time of the live event: Aika Ota (14); Yuki Kashiwagi (17) and
Natsumi Harajima (16). The last song is ‘Seifuku ga Jama wo Suru (The
School Uniform Is Getting in the Way). The approach is different from
the other two songs, which focused on more or less ‘innocence’ and
‘fantasy’. This song speaks of ‘many ways of love’ suggesting that it is
okay to have an unconventional relationship, i.e. teenage prostitution.
Now teenage prostitution
Then, how did we allow moral decadence to grow to the point of corrosion? To begin with, idols first emerged in Japanese popular culture was born in the 1970’s, and the idols were often female singers in their teenage years. As idols, their private lifestyle was always veiled in a mystic aura. This was understandable in the age when televisions were still the main source of information, and information was not as abundantly available as it is now. Perhaps partly because of it, idols could maintain a certain degree of privacy, or purity, and that in turn promoted the idea that idols were something sacred. In this way, idols established and secured the position to be worshipped. There are several points in the history of Japanese Idols that are worth mentioning, as they make it clear when and what went wrong in Japanese pop-culture. I will speak of them concisely so it becomes clear what AKB48 is really about.
The singer who first came to be called an idol was Saori Minami, making her debut in 1971 with the song titled Seventeen.
As the title of the song suggests, she herself was seventeen years old,
and this was somewhat innovative in that she sang about her own process
of growing up, in other words, her song was about growing up. Songs
previously had been composed first, and then singers who would sing them
were picked. What was new about her song was that she as a person came
first and then the composition of the song began only afterwards. The
song was written for her and was about her as an immature girl who still
had a lot to learn. The character in the song and the singer inevitably
overlapped, and such an effect produced somewhat autobiographical song,
whose identity shared that of the singer herself. In this way, music
came to be used to describe the essence of its singer. Instead of the
singer’s promoting music, music promoted the singer. Idols, then, were
public figures whose growth process is out there, so anyone can see and share a sense of parenting them without the responsibility of actually
parenting a child. Idols are such that they must be young and immature –
there must be a place for them to grow up, so fans can play a role of
caretakers and see to their adulthood. At the same time, fans who are
about the same age as the idols also have reasons to feel affinity with
them, since what they sing about are their problems common to all
teenagers. When the personalities and images of the individual idols
became more important to appeal to the audience than their songs, music
became just a tool to promote the idols’ popularity. Necessarily, to
gain popularity music must be easily accessible to as many audiences as
possible. This ‘appeal to popularity’ aspect of music contributed to the
decline of the quality of music. In other words, music of necessity
becomes this loud, repetitious music of Wagner that makes us wonder
vaguely. Moreover, since the idols are selling not their songs per se
but rather themselves to the public, their accidental
qualities, such as appearances and choreography, became essential
factors to be successful in music industry. One author and a
self-claimed idol fan, Shoichi Ota, tells us in his book on idols that
“One derives pleasure from looking at idols dance, while imagining
himself to be the puppet master of those idols,” and he quotes a film
director and a huge idol fan, Shuichi Kaneko, in praise of idol
performance that the fact that those idols dance as they are told makes
it “virtually refreshing and indeed erotic.”[31]
This is indicative of the fact that by this time already, Japanese
idols were seen as public objects and fans educed out pleasure not from
the music itself but from the sense of control they felt they had over
those young idols. In truth, idols were conceived never to “sweat, nor
go to the toilet,”[32]
and indeed beyond human, yet “we tried to feel ever closer to them when
we saw them in swimsuits on a magazine by letting our imagination go
wild.”[33]
Idols were also expected not to fart and to be virgins, and their
answers to the question ‘What is your favourite food?’ always had to be
‘strawberries.’[34]
Seeing that idols were primarily women, and seeing that male idols
often appealed to their athletic abilities rather than their sexuality,
it is obvious at this point that there already established gender
specific issues that could be rendered ethically problematic in later
years. However, one might argue, as many in fact did including idols
themselves, that it is one of the requirement in becoming an idol to be
seen as a public, and oftentimes a sexual, object. Being objectified by
the public is, in fact, a part of their job. This much is perhaps true
in all cultures where idols and celebrities are concerned in the form of
entertainment. But what needs to be emphasized here is the fact that
female idols and male idols were seen completely differently from one
another, and that while the excess of admiration for male idols, i.e.
athletic abilities, leads to men’s motivation for being healthy and
athletic, the excess of admiration for female idols, i.e. sexuality,
leads to a completely different direction. It encourages women to be
sexual, as opposed to men’s being athletic.
In brief summary, in 1973 started an audition TV program, ‘Star Tanjo’ (literally, ‘Star is born’), where amateur singers perform on TV program and judges decide who should be the next idols, much like American Idol. The groups called “Pink Ladies” and “Candies” were the ones that represented the music in the 70’s. Although Candies did not come from Star Tanjo, they also originated from TV media. Both groups, however, are similar in that music itself was not of significance to their popularity. Pink Ladies gained popularity with unique choreography and costumes that prompted a sense of sexiness and eroticism.[35] Although it is not probably fair to say that Candies’ popularity was not due to their songs, it seems fair to say that their popularity came from following what was norm in popular music industry of the time, namely, appealing to be cute and singing songs that were made for them to sing. For example, a major hit song of theirs, ‘Toshishita no Otokonoko(The Younger Boy)’ was sung by the college student vocalist in the group, Ran, in an attempt to appease teenage boy fans. This was yet another attempt by the producers to maintain the fans. Although their songs were generally well-received, many of their songs also included sexual themes.[36] The fact that the group suddenly declared “We want to be back to normal girls” in the late 70’s as a reaction against their being puppetized in public shows that what they were doing did not meet the standard of their moral expectation.[37]
In the 80’s, Miho Nakayama made a debut with her song called “C”, whose lyrics talks about a man and a woman on the beach at night, with a phrase like ‘picked (ripe) apple’. This song was actually used for a TV show in which the singer herself starred, and anyone who has seen the show could associate the
letter C with sexual activities. At
this time, it began to be natural for idols to be sexually more
explicit, as is seen from the show Nakayama herself starred in, “Maido Osawagase Shimasu”,
where in the first episode she takes off her clothes and gets into a
boy’s bed. In reality, a popular song magazine editor, Kajimoto said
that in the late 80’s idols were no longer required to be able to sing
well. It used to be the case that before any idol could make a debut,
she or he had to prove that they could sing, but in recent years with
the publication of Momoko Club, which posts pictures of cute girls as
potential candidates for new idols, the focus had shifted from hiring
someone who could sing to hiring someone who looks cute and amateur.[38]
What became more important here was the immaturity of the idols, for
that would give them a space to mature up. Fans wanted to see the process of idols’ growing up rather than the completed version, i.e. professionality,
in those idols. It was not “whether ‘idols would mature up or not’ that
was the issue. For ‘maturing up’ for idols would mean to lose their essence
as idols, and if there is that possibility of their losing their
essence, it would be a concern for the fans. Therefore, idols whose
maturity is nothing but an empty concept are celebrated.”[39] That is to say, stupidity is demanded in idols.
To be fair, there were idol groups who were composed of male singers. The representatives are Tonneruzu in the 80’s and SMAP in the 90’s. Tonneruzu
made their debut, perhaps, due to their comical yet serious Japanese
folklore (Enka), which is itself a parody of its genre, “Ame no Nishi
Azabu”, produced by Yasushi Akimoto.[40]
But also for them, it was not their singing ability that made them
famous but their comic performance and athletic skills. That the
necessity of, or need for, the athletic skills in male idols seem to
have been equivalent to the sexual appeal in female idols is also
obvious from the success of SMAP. The singer group SMAP,
consisting of five male singers, was extremely popular among teenagers
as well as people in their 20’s when they became famous, but not many
people know what their group name stands for: Sports Music Assemble
People.[41]
The often repeated criticism against those who criticize female idol
groups in Japan is this: “Why can’t girls appeal to their sexuality
while men are also appealing to their sexuality in being athletic and
sporty, which is what women are sexually attracted to?” I would have
ignored such a claim as a stupid argument had I not been frequently
accused of discriminating women by criticizing their sexual appeal while
admitting sexual appeal done by men. That those who use this argument
is almost exclusively male is besides the point. True, both girls and
boys may be appealing to their sexuality, but as I stated above, what
‘sexuality’ means for female idols and male idols is radically
different. Female idols are selling ‘sexual images’ by appealing to
their sexuality while male idols are promoting ‘athletic-ness’ or
‘health’. Sexuality appealed by female idols leads to ultimately
submission of women to men, consequently objectification of the female
idols, but sexuality appealed by male idols does not lead to such a
consequence. By appealing to their sexuality, male idols are not
obviously seen as sexual objects whom you can ‘control’. As a piece of
strikingly conclusive evidence, male idols are not asked to pose naked
for magazines or their ‘sexual parts’ are not emphasized or required for
them to be famous in the way female idols are required. That female
idols more and more came to be sexually objectified is obvious from the
fact that since the late 80’s, female idols required to have large
breasts to be famous.[42] So much so that the female idols with large breasts were simply referred to as ‘huge tits’[43] in the industry. This word came to be used to refer to both idols and porn actresses in the 80’s.[44] Shinobu Horie, Fumie Hosokawa and Rie Miyazawa became famous largely due to their physical, i.e. sexual, appearance.[45]
Also starting in the late 80’s, Chisato Moritaka recognized herself as a sexual idol destined to be watched.[46]
This is confirmed by the fact that “her costume for her song
‘Seventeen’ had super-short skirt, and her panty had her initial ‘M’
knowing that her underwear would be visible during her dance.”[47]
In these ways, it is obvious that there is a huge difference in the
style and purpose of ‘sexual appeal’ between female idols and male
idols. They may both appeal to their ‘sexuality’, but however the word
sounds the same, its meaning and its implication differs vastly.
The fans began to develop in their ‘collecting’ habits in the 80’s as well, as the VCR became popular at home. Fans were known to have taped and collected footages of their favourite idols as their possession, and by doing so, their psychological desire to ‘own’ the idols came to be satisfied.[48] These people came to be known as Otaku at around this time.[49] There is a strong negative connotation attached to the word Otaku in Japan. The reason for this comes from one serial kidnappings and killings of young girls committed by Tsutomu Miyazaki through ’88 to ’89.[50]
In the 90’s came the era of group teen idols – Morning Musume, followed by O-Nyanko Club in the 80’s, produced by Yasushi Akimoto, consisted of five members, soon recruiting three more members, totaling eight at the very beginning of their career.[51] This trend for having many members in a group came to be seen as a successful model in music industry, as AKB48 later clearly shows. One reason for why this is the case is that if there are many members who look cute, even though ‘cuteness’ is a subjective judgment, there would be at least one girl whom you will like. While it has the capacity to deal with the various needs of fans, their individual ability is almost nil.[52] Morning Musume, however, kept recruiting its members and repeated ‘graduation’ of its members and welcomed newcomers to the group. In 2001, the group established its sister group, Mini-Moni (Mini-Morning Musume) with their first song, “Mini-Moni. Janken-Pyon.”[53] In addition to the requirements for female idols of ‘youth’ and ‘cuteness’, ‘manipulation’ may be added to the category.
Fans loved to see them acting childishly and immaturely, so they could
feel like they were the caretakers of the idols. This is to say that the
fans wanted to have a certain degree of control over them. That this is
so is obvious since fans collect taped footages of their favourite
idols, like to see them fail so they can teach, and wish them to wear
costumes that are suggestive of subordination – though this becomes
increasingly obvious with AKB48, the elements were already
there in the early 00’. Naturally, the fans or Otaku were not completely
satisfied with the idols whose costumes were usually decided by
producers and whose behaviors were somewhat scripted. This gave a rise
to the popularity of the artificial idols, that is, three-dimensional
anime characters and two-dimensional characters in computer games. These
characters allow fans and Otaku to control what they will do. The more
realistic the technology became, the more fans’ needs were satisfied.
This comes to fruition in the case of Aimi Eguchi, the 3D-created AKB48
member. Yet, there is still this sense of emptiness in dealing with
non-actual persons only. With group idols, fans surely were able to
‘own’ the idols as if they were theirs to possess, but they did not yet
possess the total control of their idols. With the anime characters and
computer games, they had the access to the complete control over the
girls, but they lacked the sense of ‘owning’ them as persons. AKB48
came to be born out of such a strong desire of fans to grow with,
control and own idols. It is the ultimate commodity; its structure
allows fans to consume perpetually. It is an everlasting source of
immaturity, a perpetual child, a virus – it survives by consuming its
hosts. What is different from a usual virus is the fact that the hosts
themselves are welcoming of the virus’ invasion into their system. The
hosts educe out pleasure and enjoy a sort of personal reign over the
idols whose inherent quality is nothing but submissiveness and
manipulability, a puppet par excellence. In this way, a virus
has evolved into something subsistent that meets no resistance from its
hosts – no, even worse, it has made the hosts addicted to it, by
establishing some kind of sadomasochistic relationship with them. Fans
become sadists in that they become absolute in the face of the idols,
where idols become masochists in so far as they are the willing
receptacles of that exertion of powers by the absolutes.
AKB48
was born in the continuation of, and according to, the tradition of
Japanese Idols in popular culture. It is an embodiment of such a
tradition; it represents everything that is bad in the
‘development’ of music industry in Japan. Of course, not all idols have
perpetuated the type of styles that is the subject of my criticism. Even
though the Japanese Idols began to be seen overtly sexualized since the
80’s, female singer-idols such as Ryoko Hirosue or SPEED in
the 90’s were respectful and professional in their performance. But it
is unfortunate that there was a clear genre established in Japanese Idology,
if I may coin the word, that dedicated itself to the promotion of
sexual appearances as primary element required in female idols. And the
new century saw an explicit approval by the nation of Japan to encourage
such acts as teenage prostitution and male dominance in the name of
music. This is made explicitly evident by the new group, deriving from AKB48, named SDN48. Before we discuss what SDN48
is, let us conduct a simple thought-experiment, and try to see what
kinds of inferences could be drawn simply by looking at the name SDN48 and what we already know about it. First, we know that it is a sister group of, or at least a group derived from, AKB48.
The name of it also indicates way to clearly. For what purpose does it
serve for this group to have a name similar to already famous national
iconic group, AKB48? It is evident that the producers of this cognate group had in mind the popularity and national approval of AKB48, and by association with it, tried to make the group as popular as the one whose name is borrowed from, i.e. AKB48.
For if it did not seek to gain popularity, its name does not have to be
composed of three alphabets followed by two-digit numbers. This is
especially the case when this new group does not even have 48 members,
like its sister groups. It is easily established that SDN48 is trying to achieve the same degree of popularity by having the similar name and belonging to the similar concept as AKB48
– i.e. singer idols you can come to meet. It is natural that the group
will be easily registered to people’s minds since not only AKB48 but also NMB48, SKE48 and JKT48 are now in place. What exactly is SDN48 then? It is a singer group consisting of older female singers[54], and is produced by Yasushi Akimoto as well. It differs from other “48” groups in that SDN48 is marketed especially for adult
audience. By adult audience, I mean that people under 18 years of age
cannot legally go see them. Now, one may wonder, ‘Whatever has possessed
Akimoto to create such a group?’ After all, it is a singer group and it
aims to be nationally recognized as legit. The answer, sadly though, is
easy enough and it is practiced universally in the world of
entertainment industry: sex sells. Now, I have no criticism against
performance hinting at sexuality by consenting adults, free from social
or economical pressure into doing what they would otherwise not do. What
I object here is the very fact that this adult-only group uses the AKB48
brand in its group name and activities. For those girls who are in
their 20’s have less chance to be hired for such nationally famous brand
as AKB48 members, surely if AKB48’s sister groups are
hiring primarily women in their 20’s, they would be happy to join such
groups. In other words, these girls are likely not to have an appetite
for joining an ‘adult’ singer group had it not been for the name SDN48. Akimoto used the brand name as a merely decoy to lure his preys into his nest. Also by naming the group similar to AKB48, he has successfully blurred the distinction between young girls in sexually explicit performance and younger girls in the similar situations. SDN48 is now seen as a mere continuation of AKB48. AKB48 is, so to speak, a practice ground for more sexually explicit performance already prepared for the girls as they graduate from AKB48. Clearly, this sends a message to people in their teenage years, or even younger, that women in SDN48 are the mature version of girls in AKB48. That is to say, SDN48 is seen on the same spectrum as AKB48. Seeing how popular AKB48
is among teenage girls, the possible influences in social and gender
roles are significant. When girls in elementary school are literally
worshipping the girls in AKB48 during the lunch break at school, there is a reason to draw a conclusion that girls idolize AKB48
members and wish to be like them. By the time they are sixteen, having
seen the boys mesmerized and addicted to the performances by AKB48ers, girls have no choice but begin forming a concept of beauty and gender-value in accordance with the standards set by AKB48. As a result, their standard set of social aspirations begin to liken to those of AKB48’s – to a moral indifference. Here, the resemblance to Wagner is striking in that AKB48’s
music is “an appeal to inartistic people; all means are welcomed which
help towards obtaining an effect,” indeed, “[i]t is calculated not to
produce an artistic effect but an effect upon the nerves in general,”[55] that is to say, upon corrupting the sense of morals.
We have now discussed about this group in terms of the argument that it is merely and purely an expression of art[56], and have hopefully established that such an argument simply does not hold and is in fact nothing but an excuse to promote promiscuity among teenage girls. But there is another type of argument that is often heard from the fans, and that is an argument from AKB48 as a successful business model. Now, these groups of people primarily argue two points:
1) It is a fair and clever way of running a business on Akimoto’s part in this capitalistic society, and as long as we live in capitalism there is nothing wrong about selling a group like AKB48 by putting incentives, i.e. voting ballots, in the CD to make the sale, even if it means making fans buy more than one CDs of the same cover in order for them to get some kind of influence over the voting results.
2) We live in a democratic society, and the business model of AKB48 truly accords with and hence is commendable since consumers have the right to decide who should be the leader of the group. Furthermore, the ‘exploited’ themselves enjoy what they do in AKB48, and they are not abused in any way during the production of making music. It is in this sense, the business of AKB48 model is more ethically conducted than any other corporate business.
Let me respond to both arguments in conjunction. It is true that capitalism assumes and approves, very much so, of the profits by the products produced. The very act of including ‘tokens’ that can be exchanged for a prize in the products is actually permissible and is done almost universally. So what is the problem? The problem is in the every fact that the products they are selling have to do with human beings. It is not the music CDs that those fans who buy multiple copies of the same CDs. If that were the case, it would be absurd – for why do they need more than one CD if they wish to listen to the music itself? The fans are clearing buying CDs not for the sake of music but for the sake of idols, i.e. human beings as commodities. Besides, by applying the voting system into the business model, the ‘fundamental right’ of human beings declared by the concepts such as freedom and liberty has been capitalized. Capitalism, make no mistake, is not a political regime – it is an economic model. That is why capitalism and democracy can co-exist. Such that an economic model should not ever override a political regime, for then, it will not be a democracy anymore, but a sort of aristocracy where few rich people have the exclusive right and the money rules absolutely.[57] That the right to vote has been transferred from the realm of politics into that of economy is also obvious by the very words Yuko Oshima said at the 3rd General Election: “For us, the number of votes represent everyone’s love.”[58] As the fans also seem to agree with her, ‘vote’ is ‘love’. Then, how can they justify buying with money that love as right? Are they not simply saying that love can be bought with money? How is this ‘touching’ in any way, as there were tears hearing at her these words in the crowd? If they were not crying because they witnessed the moment when love was finally overtly monetized, then I do not know why they were crying. This was truly an inhumane moment in history. Furthermore, just because the exploited are okay with being exploited does not make the exploitation itself okay either. For instance, suppose there is a female sex-worker who has decided to do the job she does by her own choice, by her own will and by her own initiative. I am in no position to say that what she is doing is wrong, and I certainly cannot force her into doing something else, i.e. something other than what she truly wishes to do. If this were the case with AKB48, and if indeed, those 14-year-old girls understand what they are doing, consent with them being sexually exposed and depicted and approve willingly and happy about being sexually exploited, for that particular instance, I have nothing to say about it, since in such a circumstance, they truly believe they are doing what they love and taking it away from them would certainly make them sad and it would be an imposition of my own views about what is right and what is wrong on them. However, I do have problems when they do it in a group, on TV, and I have an especial problem with those girls (and boys as well, though as has been stated above, the emphasis is not on sexual appeal in the case of boys) if they are idol figures or celebrities who prey on the by-standers for their popularity, or for their happiness. Because then, it would not just be an issue of individual decision – the responsibility for being famous and popular must come with it. There is something vastly different about an individual sex-worker selling herself by her own will on a street and a group of national iconic idols being sexually explicit on mass media. For one thing, the sex-worker would not likely to have followers or people who admire the way she works, and if there was, it would be restricted to few people who already share the similar views as hers. But the national iconic idols are different. They will have followers, admirers and kid who wish to grow up like them. Now, this is no longer just a personal freedom of choice – it comes with responsibility. Although I do not condemn the individual AKB48 girls for wanting to do what they do, I solemnly condemn them exposing themselves to the public, implicitly imposing their standard of ‘beauty’, for instance, onto the minds of the young public.
Now, let us see more in detail what this AKB48 strategies and its business model are. This will give us an insight as to how on earth this group made a successful debut and still maintains its reign over not only the music industry but also the popular culture in Japan. This debut was possible probably because the already profitable economic model was further used to sell real human sexuality. Some of the evidence of it is shown in a number of instances, as AKB48 not only spent effort on songs but also on wearing bikinis on Playboy magazine on August 20th, 2007. In 2009, the top ranking members in AKB48 appeared in bikinis just after the 2nd General (Senbatsu) Election, selling over 100,000 copies. Moreover, in the book named “AKB48 FASHION BOOK Wagamama Girlfriend ~ Oshare Princess wo Sagase! ~”, the girls appeared in underwear.[59] In addition, the rule that AKB48 members are not allowed to fall in love and have a relationship with someone is a clear indication to keep their sexuality ‘pure’, establishing a so-called “cult of virgins” in fans’ mind.[60] There is also the fact that a group idol has at least two advantages compared to sole singers. One is to be able to use not-so-talented singers in the group. Because there are many people singing with them, their poor singing skills would not stand out and meanwhile they can use this group singing activity as a practice ground for improving their skills. Also true is that fans can choose their favourite singers out of many, so there more likely is to be fans for each singer. Another advantage is, for the producers, it is easy to create more varieties of events or stage effects that it can easily take in the fans so fans share the sense of belonging to the same activities with the singers.[61] Another reason why AKB48 became successful in the music industry is probably due to its appeal to live performances. For one reason, in this digitalized age, people are now able to download music for free, and consequently by focusing on the live performances, AKB48 was able to create and provide a unique spatio-temporal experience for the fans. Such experience are, needless to say, impossible to ‘download’ that groups that put importance on sharing of the physical space with the fans came to be valued significantly.[62] For another reason, even though live performances have made them famous, CDs still must be sold in order for them to keep growing and maintain success in the music industry. By including the right to the human contact with the girls into the products, Akimoto succeeded in making them buy the CDs. In other words, he did not care about selling of the music as a refined intellectual stimulation, but only about selling the CDs as opposed to music. What used to be an aesthetic entertainment became a mere material commodity.
But there seems to be due to a much deeper structural foundation that rendered AKB48 successful. Here, I would like to focus primarily on two essential components as discussed by Ryoichi Murayama in his book, “5 Secrets for AKB48’s Success.” Because AKB48 is a group consisting of a large number of people, it is naturally hard for fans to get connected unless there are some members who stand out in the group enough so that people would think of ‘this girl’ or ‘that girl’ when they hear the word AKB48. In other words, the group needed the face(s) of AKB48. As Akimoto himself says, Yuko Oshima would be a good candidate since she has professional attitudes towards her job. There was also a choice of Minami Takahashi as the leader, since she has “a talent for leadership.”[63] The reason why he chose Atsuko Maeda, fourteen years old, in the end was because she was an ordinary girl with no specific talent. Especially because of her ordinary quality, many would dislike to see her as the leader of the group. However, it is also true that many others support her because of her youth and immaturity that leave her a space for further growth. This personality of hers, i.e. shyness, difficulty to make speech in front of others, and unskilled at singing, allowed there to be both fans and nay-sayers, creating the opposition from both sides producing a synergy that keeps the popularity sustained.[64] Another fundamental key aspect of AKB48’s success has to do with its business model based on, or at least that closely resembles with, the psychological development called ‘Hierarchy of Needs’ by American psychologist, Abraham Maslow. There, he discusses five stages of needs humans experience. These are, from below, 1) physiological needs, 2) needs for safety, 3) needs for love and belonging, 4) needs for esteem, and lastly 5) needs for
self-actualization.[65] The
first two stages of needs are basic needs that every human being seeks
for; namely, food, reproduction, sleep, homeostasis belong to the
physiological needs, and needs for safety includes security of body,
morality, family, and health. Once these are fulfilled, we will move
onto the social needs that are yet to be satisfied. Needs for love and
belonging is primarily relationship among friends and partners, the next
comes needs for esteem, which promotes confidence, achievement and
respect for and by the others. The last stage of needs is for
self-actualization. Here, we strive to better ourselves, by exercising
moral judgments and problem solving, etc… and living according to this
stage is, as Maslow says, the ideal state for human beings.[66] These social stages of hierarchy of needs are adequately represented as the divisions within AKB48. These divisions are, as stated earlier, respectively, Media Senbatsu (ranked 1st ~ 12th), Senbatsu Members (ranked 13th ~ 21st), and Under Girls (ranked 22nd ~ 40th).
The reason why there are so many singers in a group is, as stated
above, so fans can have options and producers can have a variety of
projects. But if there was only the first group, Media Senbatsu, to aim
for, with over 150 members in AKB48, SKE48 and NMB48,
the newly auditioned members would have almost no chance of making
themselves famous. Simply, there would be no motivation or incentive. So
by creating this hierarchical system of promotion within the group, it
generates a sense of autonomous corporation. Murayama thinks that the
new members aim for getting into the 40th – to be chosen as
Under Girls members would mean that they are recognized by the others
and hence obtain a sense of belonging to the social phenomenon called AKB48.
Having won that seat, they now aim for Senbatsu Members. Senbatsu
Members differ from Under Girls in that the former performs publicly and
get much attention, whereas the latter are often not publicized as
much. At this stage, Senbatsu Members recognize themselves as loved by
the fans and establish self-confidence. This is equivalent to the
Maslow’s system of the needs for esteem. Now all that is left is to
attain the votes to get themselves into the top 12th within the group. This stage mirrors the Maslow’s last stage: needs for self-actualization.[67]
Lastly, Murayama points out that there are four essential elements needed in idols to succeed, and as he says, AKB48 is equipped with all of them. Those elements are as follows: 1) Idols as virgins; 2) Performance; 3) Ordinary quality; and 4) Idols performing in the basements.[68] Now, we have discussed that idols have traditionally been seen as ‘virgins’ or ‘someone who does not fart or sweat’. Although this element was outdated in the 90’s and 00’s, AKB48’s prohibition of having a romantic relationship of the members strongly suggests that its aim is to keep them, as it were, ‘pure’. Second, their performance would not be high if by performance is meant the ability to sing. But here, it is best to take it to mean that they dance in bikinis and sing naked in the bath and similar effects count as performance. It is a cheap shot, and nothing artistic about it, but it has a high level of performance in the sense that fans are attracted to it. Their ordinary qualities mean simply how amateur they are. What is asked here is exactly the kind of concept found in pornography and adult videos, i.e. the-girl-next-door element. Nothing new, base strategy to make noise and get people to listen to them. The last category may sound weird for those of us who are not familiar with the idology, or idolography, but idols normally begin from singing and dancing in a cheaply rented basement of a building at first, and then gradually they advance out to public. AKB48 still performs in basements as actors that this aspect has some significance to the hardcore fans.
Perhaps, I will end this paper with Nietzsche’s philosophy, for he says of a musician more and more “becoming an actor, his art is developing ever more and more into a talent for telling lies,” as Akimoto himself concedes in the interview with CNN that what they sing about is not necessarily what they want to do.[69] AKB48 is also resembling to the actors in recent years in that it produces a series of powerful scenes with all kinds of clever nonsense in between only to approve its work according to the quality of its final effect.[70] Its group’s expansion overseas also suggests the kind of dictatorship – you can almost hear them say, everything AKB48 can do, “no one will ever be able to do after [them], no one has ever done before [them], and no one must ever do after [them],” AKB48 is indeed godly.[71] They infect us with their popular appeal, and the increasing popularity of AKB48 proves one thing: “that in declining civilizations, wherever the mob is allowed to decide, genuineness becomes superfluous, prejudicial, unfavourable.” Perhaps their unceasing popularity is also due to the fact that it is so easy to imitate them, for they imitate themselves again and again – mannerism is so choreographed that it is chaotic, and this performance with nothing to say is alarming.[72] And this alarming danger reaches its climax when combined with the rhythmic paradox and abuse, which is governed by no artistic laws of form, only aiming at effect and nothing more. Indeed, their music aims at expressiveness at all cost and music becomes a servant, a slave to attitudes – this is the end…[73] We need to guard ourselves against such decadence in art and morals. If groups like AKB48 are allowed to continue to roam, Japanese popular culture will have no future but forever carry the notions like perverted and degrading to women. It will always be equated with sick-minded, as has lately often been so conceived as from other cultures and countries. We cannot blame them for conceiving Japanese pop-culture as such. Perhaps it is high time that we realized how amoral Japan has been.
I: What is AKB48?
This paper will focus on the ethical implications for such a group as AKB48 and its increasingly growing spinoff sister groups in Asia,[1] while occasionally drawing upon Neitzsche’s work on Wagner. The striking similarity of what AKB48 stands for with what Wagner stood for in Germany for Neitzsche is unsettling. This paper does not talk about AKB48 as a successful economic model, but rather AKB48 as a form of moral decline at its worst. In doing so, it will discuss about what AKB48 girls are ignorantly promoting, how AKB48 fans are controlled into thinking of themselves as fans of an idol group[2], Akimoto’s marketing strategies and the blurring of ethical decisions with business ones. It will conclude with the caution against this fast spreading virus into other cultures and the critique of Japan as an amoral nation. But before delving further into the ethics of it, the question needs to be asked: What kind of virus exactly is AKB48? AKB48 is a project[3] that was launched in 2005. Their primary activities were singing and dancing on the stage in the small theatre in Akihabara[4], Tokyo. 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 everyday at a specific theater hall. Since their first debut, they took time to shake hands with the fans who came to see them, and exchanged words with them. It soon broke records in selling their CDs in 2008-2009, officially joining the world’s top selling singer groups. Why did they become so popular and successful, especially in this age where people do not buy CDs but instead download them for free? The producer Yasushi Akimoto has produced a number of popular groups in the past, and this is his latest achievement. It is important to note here that it is his achievement – a project – more than anything else. AKB48 is completely political and hierarchical. The members of AKB48 are subject to change depending on how much support they get from their fans. The reason why they have sold so many CDs and hence contributing to its gaining popularity is primarily because when you buy a CD they give you a voting ticket.[5] To decide who is more popular, hence more in demand, they hold an Annual General Election. The aim of this election is to decide which 21 members amongst them all should sing the cover titles of their CDs. Those who got elected are eligible to sing on record in their new releases. The top 12 among them (called Media Senbatsu), moreover, can appear on TV and other media. The top 7 out of them are, furthermore, called God’s Seven, and they serve as the face of AKB48. The girls who could not make it into the top 21 still have their roles to play. The ones who ranked in the 22nd to the 40th are called ‘Under Girls’ and they are still able to sing the coupling songs with the main members.[6] 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. This ticket is included in the CD once a year. 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.[7] This is not an easy task, however, as CD stores do not carry enough to allow one person to get 100s of CDs. Furthermore, Amazon.co.jp or other Internet stores do not allow anyone to buy more than 1 CD[8] – 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.[9] Just to vote. Furthermore, this CD not only includes a voting ballot, but also includes the ‘handshaking ticket’ with the singers of their preference. 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. As has been said, the AKB48 members constantly change due to the nature of the voting system, and top 21 members who recorded the first CD do not necessarily get to sing at the recording for the second CD. Although people who are in the God’s Seven rarely change, 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 is 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. The messages those songs contain are sexual appeal and flirtations, as their official promotion videos clearly show. One of their latest promotion videos includes 20 or so girls singing on the beach with bikinis on. Completely irrelevant to the songs at all. Another promotion video has a song about how it is okay to be naughty and sexually promiscuous if you are a girl 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 only time you can be free’ or that how young girls want to be ‘devoured’ sexually. As far as I am concerned, this group does not have to present themselves as singers, but the group could be about farmers or even jugglers. And it would still be a success. Besides, what proper production management in art decides 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 was to sing on record by ‘rock-paper-scissors.’
Clearly, this group does not care or trust music. The phrase that Neitzsche said of Wagner appropriately sums up the character of this group: “He weaves kindred sensations into music in order to lend it the character of greatness. He measures itself on others; he first of all gives his listeners intoxicating drinks in order to lead them into believing that it was the music that intoxicated them.”[10] In a similar manner, AKB48 members sing and dance in bikini and school uniforms, appealing to the impression of ‘pureness’ and ‘cuteness’, and lead the audience into thinking that it was the music that made the members pure and cute. Yet it is the world’s fastest growing teen pop singer group. In fact, the political aspect of AKB48 in an entertainment society is clear not only from the fact that AKB48 has the General Election annually in the summer, but also they have what they call a ‘Cabinet’ consisting of those 48 members. Now, they have established its sister group, JKT48, in Indonesia, and it seems the AKB48 fever has spread all over Asia. It does not stop there, and it now has successfully recruited fans in France, Russia and even in the United States. This fast spreading popular culture has somehow captivated Japanese people’s heart[11], consequently lowering the moral standards and painting an ideal picture of what it should mean to be women for young girls. I take this whole movement led by AKB48 and its cognates to be an attack against moral conscience, and just as Wagner was for Neitzsche, AKB48 is a disease, the artist of decadence. Consequently, I wish to propose a paper that acts as a vaccine against the global virus called AKB48.
II: Analysis of the Phenomenon
What is clearly obvious is the sexual exploitation of young girls in popular culture. What is strikingly new in AKB48 is that some of these girls are under 18 years old. Yet, they appear on promotional videos for their new songs semi-naked. Not only are they implicitly sexual but also their performance on their promotional videos is suggestive of pornography. This claim is easily supported if you have seen any of their clips on YouTube. I have in the past referred to three clips in particular – which are of Heavy Rotation[12], of The School Uniform Is Getting in the Way[13], and of Mouth-to-Mouth Chocolate[14] – to make my point that AKB48 is nothing but a nationally sponsored porn group. Let me analyze once more what each song/promotional video is about. If you have not seen their clips, it may be hard to visualize the scenes I will describe, but I believe the contents are explicit enough that what I mean is easily conveyed without a visual guide.
is a huge problem
in Japan, especially in Tokyo area – Shibuya Ward – which is,
incidentally, the same place mentioned in the song. The girls would
often not go home and hang out at the game centers until late in the
evening, and they go to Karaoke, and when their money runs out, they go
home. That’s the standard patterns of high school girls in a big city in
Japan. How do they get money? That’s where the ‘compensated dating’
comes in. It is essentially the same thing as prostitution, but here
girls make a phone call to a call center or some place like that and
leave a message. A guy calls back, and the girl decides how much they
will charge, and the rest is up to the men. Naturally, these girls are
normally under 18, for they are in high school. In Tokyo city, girls as
young as 12 years old would even leave messages to have sex.[16]
The lyrics, ‘I want to be loved freely, take me somewhere, to a world I
don’t know,’ sounds suspiciously echoing those girls’ curiosity in
sexuality. The immediately following lyrics ‘don’t look at me like that,
I am just a high school girl’ and ‘I don’t care if anybody is looking
at us, kiss me,’ are way too obvious to be defended otherwise. Just
after saying ‘you can do whatever you like, I want to experience adult
pleasure,’ the phrase continues, ‘even if something (bad) happens, it
will all work out.’ This is not just a suggestion, but a commendation to
the high school girls out there who are curious but do not have the
‘guts’ to make the step to sleep with someone for money. Towards the
end, the image shows of a girl who is allegedly on her way to meet a
stranger for sex. She waits in the tunnel, where people are not around. A
guy comes, and asks her if she is who he thinks she is, to which she
nods. Then, the shot changes to the morning. She looks still the same,
somewhat worried, and perhaps showing a sense of regret, but at the very
end, the music video ends with her smile, justifying everything that
had happened to her, while at the same time reassuring those girls out
there that ‘it’s okay’ to do it – as if to say, ‘every girl thinks about
it, worries about it, and does it; then she comes out happy.’ The
underaged girls in this song are 8 in number: Erena Ono (13); Yuka
Matsuda (14); Tomomi Itano (15); Atsuko Maeda (15); Minami Mineguchi
(14); Minami Takahashi (15); Tomomi Kasai (16); Sae Miyazawa (16).
Finally, as you can see from the above lyrics, their songs have no
coherence in conveying messages. One song tells you how love can be
exciting and wonderful, while another tells you there are different ways
of love and the love in the form of ‘compensated dating’ is totally
acceptable, while yet another sings about being dirty “equals” teenageness
that you shouldn’t miss while you are young. Expressing contrary
opinions among the works may occur, but its artistic significance
remains only as long as it reflects the artists’ internal conflicts or
when the artists are trying to make a statement with the intended
contradiction/contrary. They cannot go back and forth, affirming love on
one day and demoralizing it the next day, and go back to adoring love
again the day after, and so on. For that is truly a mark of
business-mindedness, and shows that AKB48 does not sing for artistic value but only for gaining popularity.
III: Nietzsche’s Wagner and Absence of Morals in Japan
I have thus far sporadically mentioned Nietzsche’s philosophy in order
to draw connections with what is happening in the present state of music
affairs in Japanese pop-culture with what was happening in Germany in
the late 19th century. Some words on Nietzsche’s view on
music, hence, may be necessary to see whether the comparison is
appropriate and if I may be judged fair to draw upon Nietzsche in
speaking of AKB48. The first time Nietzsche met with the German
composer, Richard Wagner, was when he was still 23 years old in March
of 1868. Amidst the prevalence of Romanticism and German Idealism, a
movement led by Hegel and Schelling, Wagner came to acquaint with the
philosophy of Schopenhauer, a yet another pessimistic philosopher who
“rigorously pointed out the dishonesty of Hegel’s and Schelling’s age, –
rigorously, but also unjustly, for he himself, the pessimistic old
counterfeiter, was in no way ‘more’ honest than his more famous
contemporaries.”[17]
Nietzsche saw in Wagner the change of style in his music as Wagner was
more and more affected by Schopenhauer and by the German Idealism.
Wagner no longer composed subtle and refined music, but now began
composing music that was vague and repetitious, loud and mass-appealing.
His style of composition in his music adapted itself to the qualities
of Hegel’s, that is to say, to the idea that is obscure, uncertain and
wonderful. Wagner’s Music as Idea[18] successfully swooped the youthlet, for “among Germans lucidity [was] an objection, a logic a refutation.”[19]
In this way, Wagner’s music aimed for effects – that is, “he repeats a
thing so often that we become desperate, – that we ultimately believe
it.”[20] This observation, word for word, applies to AKB48.
For their lyrics are repetitious, both easy for people to remember and
easy to stick in mind. Their songs have no specific messages or moral
significance to deliver. They use music solely as a slave to educe out
the effects of their music. What, then, are these effects? The
first effect, which is relatively innocuous is corruption of the taste
for good music. This is easily done when the music is heard everywhere
you go. Not only AKB48’s music is played in stores and in
public, but also their music appears in commercials and on various TV
programs. Having succeeded the first phrase, now AKB48 goes on
to “stultify and to befoul the stomach,” to use Nietzsche’s words. The
specific effect hence is the degeneration of the feeling for rhythm.[21] What AKB48ers
call ‘rhythmical’ is what I may call violence to music. This, in turn,
leads to the deterioration of the nerves, of sensibility. If you walk
around a large city, you will hear AKB48’s songs played everywhere with loud, deafening fury, as if to assert this is music. One may justly wonder, ‘Whatever is happening to our city?’ To which one may respond, ‘It is the disciples of AKB48 in the act of worshipping them.’[22] Yasushi Akimoto famously compared AKB48 as the concentration of calpis[23]
liquid, saying that just as the concentration spreads when mixed with
water, making the whole water flavourful, if you make something good,
i.e. AKB48, it will spread itself all over the world.[24] Perhaps yes, the analogy is adequate except that AKB48 does not spread simply because it is in its mere concentrated form, but only because its form captures the modernity in concentration. AKB48 is nothing but modernity in concentrated form! Through AKB48 “modernity speaks its most intimate language: it conceals neither its good nor its evil: it has thrown off all shame.”[25]
Precisely because it is the modernity itself that we are here faced
with, it is in a way an inevitable consequence of what we have allowed
ourselves to foster for over decades: absence of (moral) philosophy in
Japan. In this sense, AKB48 is the artist of decadence in the 21st
century Japan, and its fans are typical decadents – they think their
corrupted taste is necessary, arrogating to themselves a higher taste.
They aim at establishing their depravity as a universal law, as
progress, as a fulfillment.[26]
Neitzsche speaks of Wagner’s overwhelming popularity to the point that
‘no one guards against him and welcomes him with open arms without
questioning his legitimacy’ as a clear sign of decadence. “Instinct is
weakened,” he says, “what ought to be eschewed now attracts [them].”[27] AKB48 is needless to say a great corrupter of music, a modern artist par excellence. Just as Wagner’s music did, AKB48
attracts the weak and exhausted; all the necessary elements for
corrupting the aesthetic judgment are “combined in the most seductive
manner in [their] art, – the three great stimulants of exhausted people:
brutality, artificiality and innocence (idiocy).”[28]
Is not dominating the pop-music by way of signing contracts with so
many different companies brutal? Is not repeatedly sung phrases without
context like ‘I love you’ an artificial means to get the ‘exhausted’
attracted? Is not making the underaged girls wear school uniforms and
bikinis to sing about love an appeal to innocence? What exactly is
different about AKB48 from the advent of decadence Wagner so
gracefully orchestrated and Nietzsche so dreadfully feared? What is
different, pop culture-wise, in present state Japan from the 19th
century Germany? Have we not learned our lessons? “It is easier to
compose bad music than good music,” Nietzsche’s Wagner would say, “[b]ut
what, if apart from this it were also more profitable, more effective,
more convincing, more exalting, more secure” more sexually appealing?
Would that not be popular? “Why not rather aim at size, at the sublime,
the gigantic, that which moves the masses? – And to repeat, it is easier
to be titanic than to be beautiful; we know that…”[29] Hence, it makes sense why Akimoto opted for creating a group consisting of many cute
people, more than you can count at first sight. It simply sells. He
understood Wagner, and he saw an opportunity in Japanese modern market,
for he knew that people in Japan are philosophically uneducated and
un-enlightened. He knew we would all be tricked into deceiving ourselves
by the same method that once successfully corrupted not only Germany
but all over Europe. ‘Japanese people would not notice,’ he would say to
his friends, ‘for Wagner did not happen in Japan, and we all know that
Japanese people are oblivious and indifferent to history and social
philosophy.’ Akimoto rejoices with Wagner, “[people] also require the
sublime, the profound, the overwhelming. All these people argue in the
same way. ‘He who overthrows us is strong; he who elevates us is godly;
he who makes us wonder vaguely is profound.’ – let us make up our mind
then, my friends in music: we do want to overthrow them, we do want to
elevate them; we do want to make them wonder vaguely. This much still
lies within our powers.”[30]
IV: The Genealogy of Japanese Idols
Then, how did we allow moral decadence to grow to the point of corrosion? To begin with, idols first emerged in Japanese popular culture was born in the 1970’s, and the idols were often female singers in their teenage years. As idols, their private lifestyle was always veiled in a mystic aura. This was understandable in the age when televisions were still the main source of information, and information was not as abundantly available as it is now. Perhaps partly because of it, idols could maintain a certain degree of privacy, or purity, and that in turn promoted the idea that idols were something sacred. In this way, idols established and secured the position to be worshipped. There are several points in the history of Japanese Idols that are worth mentioning, as they make it clear when and what went wrong in Japanese pop-culture. I will speak of them concisely so it becomes clear what AKB48 is really about.
In brief summary, in 1973 started an audition TV program, ‘Star Tanjo’ (literally, ‘Star is born’), where amateur singers perform on TV program and judges decide who should be the next idols, much like American Idol. The groups called “Pink Ladies” and “Candies” were the ones that represented the music in the 70’s. Although Candies did not come from Star Tanjo, they also originated from TV media. Both groups, however, are similar in that music itself was not of significance to their popularity. Pink Ladies gained popularity with unique choreography and costumes that prompted a sense of sexiness and eroticism.[35] Although it is not probably fair to say that Candies’ popularity was not due to their songs, it seems fair to say that their popularity came from following what was norm in popular music industry of the time, namely, appealing to be cute and singing songs that were made for them to sing. For example, a major hit song of theirs, ‘Toshishita no Otokonoko(The Younger Boy)’ was sung by the college student vocalist in the group, Ran, in an attempt to appease teenage boy fans. This was yet another attempt by the producers to maintain the fans. Although their songs were generally well-received, many of their songs also included sexual themes.[36] The fact that the group suddenly declared “We want to be back to normal girls” in the late 70’s as a reaction against their being puppetized in public shows that what they were doing did not meet the standard of their moral expectation.[37]
In the 80’s, Miho Nakayama made a debut with her song called “C”, whose lyrics talks about a man and a woman on the beach at night, with a phrase like ‘picked (ripe) apple’. This song was actually used for a TV show in which the singer herself starred, and anyone who has seen the show could associate the
letter C with sexual activities. At
this time, it began to be natural for idols to be sexually more
explicit, as is seen from the show Nakayama herself starred in, “Maido Osawagase Shimasu”,
where in the first episode she takes off her clothes and gets into a
boy’s bed. In reality, a popular song magazine editor, Kajimoto said
that in the late 80’s idols were no longer required to be able to sing
well. It used to be the case that before any idol could make a debut,
she or he had to prove that they could sing, but in recent years with
the publication of Momoko Club, which posts pictures of cute girls as
potential candidates for new idols, the focus had shifted from hiring
someone who could sing to hiring someone who looks cute and amateur.[38]
What became more important here was the immaturity of the idols, for
that would give them a space to mature up. Fans wanted to see the process of idols’ growing up rather than the completed version, i.e. professionality,
in those idols. It was not “whether ‘idols would mature up or not’ that
was the issue. For ‘maturing up’ for idols would mean to lose their essence
as idols, and if there is that possibility of their losing their
essence, it would be a concern for the fans. Therefore, idols whose
maturity is nothing but an empty concept are celebrated.”[39] That is to say, stupidity is demanded in idols.
To be fair, there were idol groups who were composed of male singers. The representatives are Tonneruzu in the 80’s and SMAP in the 90’s. Tonneruzu
made their debut, perhaps, due to their comical yet serious Japanese
folklore (Enka), which is itself a parody of its genre, “Ame no Nishi
Azabu”, produced by Yasushi Akimoto.[40]
But also for them, it was not their singing ability that made them
famous but their comic performance and athletic skills. That the
necessity of, or need for, the athletic skills in male idols seem to
have been equivalent to the sexual appeal in female idols is also
obvious from the success of SMAP. The singer group SMAP,
consisting of five male singers, was extremely popular among teenagers
as well as people in their 20’s when they became famous, but not many
people know what their group name stands for: Sports Music Assemble
People.[41]
The often repeated criticism against those who criticize female idol
groups in Japan is this: “Why can’t girls appeal to their sexuality
while men are also appealing to their sexuality in being athletic and
sporty, which is what women are sexually attracted to?” I would have
ignored such a claim as a stupid argument had I not been frequently
accused of discriminating women by criticizing their sexual appeal while
admitting sexual appeal done by men. That those who use this argument
is almost exclusively male is besides the point. True, both girls and
boys may be appealing to their sexuality, but as I stated above, what
‘sexuality’ means for female idols and male idols is radically
different. Female idols are selling ‘sexual images’ by appealing to
their sexuality while male idols are promoting ‘athletic-ness’ or
‘health’. Sexuality appealed by female idols leads to ultimately
submission of women to men, consequently objectification of the female
idols, but sexuality appealed by male idols does not lead to such a
consequence. By appealing to their sexuality, male idols are not
obviously seen as sexual objects whom you can ‘control’. As a piece of
strikingly conclusive evidence, male idols are not asked to pose naked
for magazines or their ‘sexual parts’ are not emphasized or required for
them to be famous in the way female idols are required. That female
idols more and more came to be sexually objectified is obvious from the
fact that since the late 80’s, female idols required to have large
breasts to be famous.[42] So much so that the female idols with large breasts were simply referred to as ‘huge tits’[43] in the industry. This word came to be used to refer to both idols and porn actresses in the 80’s.[44] Shinobu Horie, Fumie Hosokawa and Rie Miyazawa became famous largely due to their physical, i.e. sexual, appearance.[45]The fans began to develop in their ‘collecting’ habits in the 80’s as well, as the VCR became popular at home. Fans were known to have taped and collected footages of their favourite idols as their possession, and by doing so, their psychological desire to ‘own’ the idols came to be satisfied.[48] These people came to be known as Otaku at around this time.[49] There is a strong negative connotation attached to the word Otaku in Japan. The reason for this comes from one serial kidnappings and killings of young girls committed by Tsutomu Miyazaki through ’88 to ’89.[50]
In the 90’s came the era of group teen idols – Morning Musume, followed by O-Nyanko Club in the 80’s, produced by Yasushi Akimoto, consisted of five members, soon recruiting three more members, totaling eight at the very beginning of their career.[51] This trend for having many members in a group came to be seen as a successful model in music industry, as AKB48 later clearly shows. One reason for why this is the case is that if there are many members who look cute, even though ‘cuteness’ is a subjective judgment, there would be at least one girl whom you will like. While it has the capacity to deal with the various needs of fans, their individual ability is almost nil.[52] Morning Musume, however, kept recruiting its members and repeated ‘graduation’ of its members and welcomed newcomers to the group. In 2001, the group established its sister group, Mini-Moni (Mini-Morning Musume) with their first song, “Mini-Moni. Janken-Pyon.”[53] In addition to the requirements for female idols of ‘youth’ and ‘cuteness’, ‘manipulation’ may be added to the category.
V: AKB48 and Their Social Influence, and Its Cognate: SDN48
VI: Akimoto’s Business Model and the Mechanics of Group Idols
We have now discussed about this group in terms of the argument that it is merely and purely an expression of art[56], and have hopefully established that such an argument simply does not hold and is in fact nothing but an excuse to promote promiscuity among teenage girls. But there is another type of argument that is often heard from the fans, and that is an argument from AKB48 as a successful business model. Now, these groups of people primarily argue two points:
1) It is a fair and clever way of running a business on Akimoto’s part in this capitalistic society, and as long as we live in capitalism there is nothing wrong about selling a group like AKB48 by putting incentives, i.e. voting ballots, in the CD to make the sale, even if it means making fans buy more than one CDs of the same cover in order for them to get some kind of influence over the voting results.
2) We live in a democratic society, and the business model of AKB48 truly accords with and hence is commendable since consumers have the right to decide who should be the leader of the group. Furthermore, the ‘exploited’ themselves enjoy what they do in AKB48, and they are not abused in any way during the production of making music. It is in this sense, the business of AKB48 model is more ethically conducted than any other corporate business.
Let me respond to both arguments in conjunction. It is true that capitalism assumes and approves, very much so, of the profits by the products produced. The very act of including ‘tokens’ that can be exchanged for a prize in the products is actually permissible and is done almost universally. So what is the problem? The problem is in the every fact that the products they are selling have to do with human beings. It is not the music CDs that those fans who buy multiple copies of the same CDs. If that were the case, it would be absurd – for why do they need more than one CD if they wish to listen to the music itself? The fans are clearing buying CDs not for the sake of music but for the sake of idols, i.e. human beings as commodities. Besides, by applying the voting system into the business model, the ‘fundamental right’ of human beings declared by the concepts such as freedom and liberty has been capitalized. Capitalism, make no mistake, is not a political regime – it is an economic model. That is why capitalism and democracy can co-exist. Such that an economic model should not ever override a political regime, for then, it will not be a democracy anymore, but a sort of aristocracy where few rich people have the exclusive right and the money rules absolutely.[57] That the right to vote has been transferred from the realm of politics into that of economy is also obvious by the very words Yuko Oshima said at the 3rd General Election: “For us, the number of votes represent everyone’s love.”[58] As the fans also seem to agree with her, ‘vote’ is ‘love’. Then, how can they justify buying with money that love as right? Are they not simply saying that love can be bought with money? How is this ‘touching’ in any way, as there were tears hearing at her these words in the crowd? If they were not crying because they witnessed the moment when love was finally overtly monetized, then I do not know why they were crying. This was truly an inhumane moment in history. Furthermore, just because the exploited are okay with being exploited does not make the exploitation itself okay either. For instance, suppose there is a female sex-worker who has decided to do the job she does by her own choice, by her own will and by her own initiative. I am in no position to say that what she is doing is wrong, and I certainly cannot force her into doing something else, i.e. something other than what she truly wishes to do. If this were the case with AKB48, and if indeed, those 14-year-old girls understand what they are doing, consent with them being sexually exposed and depicted and approve willingly and happy about being sexually exploited, for that particular instance, I have nothing to say about it, since in such a circumstance, they truly believe they are doing what they love and taking it away from them would certainly make them sad and it would be an imposition of my own views about what is right and what is wrong on them. However, I do have problems when they do it in a group, on TV, and I have an especial problem with those girls (and boys as well, though as has been stated above, the emphasis is not on sexual appeal in the case of boys) if they are idol figures or celebrities who prey on the by-standers for their popularity, or for their happiness. Because then, it would not just be an issue of individual decision – the responsibility for being famous and popular must come with it. There is something vastly different about an individual sex-worker selling herself by her own will on a street and a group of national iconic idols being sexually explicit on mass media. For one thing, the sex-worker would not likely to have followers or people who admire the way she works, and if there was, it would be restricted to few people who already share the similar views as hers. But the national iconic idols are different. They will have followers, admirers and kid who wish to grow up like them. Now, this is no longer just a personal freedom of choice – it comes with responsibility. Although I do not condemn the individual AKB48 girls for wanting to do what they do, I solemnly condemn them exposing themselves to the public, implicitly imposing their standard of ‘beauty’, for instance, onto the minds of the young public.
Now, let us see more in detail what this AKB48 strategies and its business model are. This will give us an insight as to how on earth this group made a successful debut and still maintains its reign over not only the music industry but also the popular culture in Japan. This debut was possible probably because the already profitable economic model was further used to sell real human sexuality. Some of the evidence of it is shown in a number of instances, as AKB48 not only spent effort on songs but also on wearing bikinis on Playboy magazine on August 20th, 2007. In 2009, the top ranking members in AKB48 appeared in bikinis just after the 2nd General (Senbatsu) Election, selling over 100,000 copies. Moreover, in the book named “AKB48 FASHION BOOK Wagamama Girlfriend ~ Oshare Princess wo Sagase! ~”, the girls appeared in underwear.[59] In addition, the rule that AKB48 members are not allowed to fall in love and have a relationship with someone is a clear indication to keep their sexuality ‘pure’, establishing a so-called “cult of virgins” in fans’ mind.[60] There is also the fact that a group idol has at least two advantages compared to sole singers. One is to be able to use not-so-talented singers in the group. Because there are many people singing with them, their poor singing skills would not stand out and meanwhile they can use this group singing activity as a practice ground for improving their skills. Also true is that fans can choose their favourite singers out of many, so there more likely is to be fans for each singer. Another advantage is, for the producers, it is easy to create more varieties of events or stage effects that it can easily take in the fans so fans share the sense of belonging to the same activities with the singers.[61] Another reason why AKB48 became successful in the music industry is probably due to its appeal to live performances. For one reason, in this digitalized age, people are now able to download music for free, and consequently by focusing on the live performances, AKB48 was able to create and provide a unique spatio-temporal experience for the fans. Such experience are, needless to say, impossible to ‘download’ that groups that put importance on sharing of the physical space with the fans came to be valued significantly.[62] For another reason, even though live performances have made them famous, CDs still must be sold in order for them to keep growing and maintain success in the music industry. By including the right to the human contact with the girls into the products, Akimoto succeeded in making them buy the CDs. In other words, he did not care about selling of the music as a refined intellectual stimulation, but only about selling the CDs as opposed to music. What used to be an aesthetic entertainment became a mere material commodity.
But there seems to be due to a much deeper structural foundation that rendered AKB48 successful. Here, I would like to focus primarily on two essential components as discussed by Ryoichi Murayama in his book, “5 Secrets for AKB48’s Success.” Because AKB48 is a group consisting of a large number of people, it is naturally hard for fans to get connected unless there are some members who stand out in the group enough so that people would think of ‘this girl’ or ‘that girl’ when they hear the word AKB48. In other words, the group needed the face(s) of AKB48. As Akimoto himself says, Yuko Oshima would be a good candidate since she has professional attitudes towards her job. There was also a choice of Minami Takahashi as the leader, since she has “a talent for leadership.”[63] The reason why he chose Atsuko Maeda, fourteen years old, in the end was because she was an ordinary girl with no specific talent. Especially because of her ordinary quality, many would dislike to see her as the leader of the group. However, it is also true that many others support her because of her youth and immaturity that leave her a space for further growth. This personality of hers, i.e. shyness, difficulty to make speech in front of others, and unskilled at singing, allowed there to be both fans and nay-sayers, creating the opposition from both sides producing a synergy that keeps the popularity sustained.[64] Another fundamental key aspect of AKB48’s success has to do with its business model based on, or at least that closely resembles with, the psychological development called ‘Hierarchy of Needs’ by American psychologist, Abraham Maslow. There, he discusses five stages of needs humans experience. These are, from below, 1) physiological needs, 2) needs for safety, 3) needs for love and belonging, 4) needs for esteem, and lastly 5) needs for
self-actualization.[65] The
first two stages of needs are basic needs that every human being seeks
for; namely, food, reproduction, sleep, homeostasis belong to the
physiological needs, and needs for safety includes security of body,
morality, family, and health. Once these are fulfilled, we will move
onto the social needs that are yet to be satisfied. Needs for love and
belonging is primarily relationship among friends and partners, the next
comes needs for esteem, which promotes confidence, achievement and
respect for and by the others. The last stage of needs is for
self-actualization. Here, we strive to better ourselves, by exercising
moral judgments and problem solving, etc… and living according to this
stage is, as Maslow says, the ideal state for human beings.[66] These social stages of hierarchy of needs are adequately represented as the divisions within AKB48. These divisions are, as stated earlier, respectively, Media Senbatsu (ranked 1st ~ 12th), Senbatsu Members (ranked 13th ~ 21st), and Under Girls (ranked 22nd ~ 40th).
The reason why there are so many singers in a group is, as stated
above, so fans can have options and producers can have a variety of
projects. But if there was only the first group, Media Senbatsu, to aim
for, with over 150 members in AKB48, SKE48 and NMB48,
the newly auditioned members would have almost no chance of making
themselves famous. Simply, there would be no motivation or incentive. So
by creating this hierarchical system of promotion within the group, it
generates a sense of autonomous corporation. Murayama thinks that the
new members aim for getting into the 40th – to be chosen as
Under Girls members would mean that they are recognized by the others
and hence obtain a sense of belonging to the social phenomenon called AKB48.
Having won that seat, they now aim for Senbatsu Members. Senbatsu
Members differ from Under Girls in that the former performs publicly and
get much attention, whereas the latter are often not publicized as
much. At this stage, Senbatsu Members recognize themselves as loved by
the fans and establish self-confidence. This is equivalent to the
Maslow’s system of the needs for esteem. Now all that is left is to
attain the votes to get themselves into the top 12th within the group. This stage mirrors the Maslow’s last stage: needs for self-actualization.[67]Lastly, Murayama points out that there are four essential elements needed in idols to succeed, and as he says, AKB48 is equipped with all of them. Those elements are as follows: 1) Idols as virgins; 2) Performance; 3) Ordinary quality; and 4) Idols performing in the basements.[68] Now, we have discussed that idols have traditionally been seen as ‘virgins’ or ‘someone who does not fart or sweat’. Although this element was outdated in the 90’s and 00’s, AKB48’s prohibition of having a romantic relationship of the members strongly suggests that its aim is to keep them, as it were, ‘pure’. Second, their performance would not be high if by performance is meant the ability to sing. But here, it is best to take it to mean that they dance in bikinis and sing naked in the bath and similar effects count as performance. It is a cheap shot, and nothing artistic about it, but it has a high level of performance in the sense that fans are attracted to it. Their ordinary qualities mean simply how amateur they are. What is asked here is exactly the kind of concept found in pornography and adult videos, i.e. the-girl-next-door element. Nothing new, base strategy to make noise and get people to listen to them. The last category may sound weird for those of us who are not familiar with the idology, or idolography, but idols normally begin from singing and dancing in a cheaply rented basement of a building at first, and then gradually they advance out to public. AKB48 still performs in basements as actors that this aspect has some significance to the hardcore fans.
Perhaps, I will end this paper with Nietzsche’s philosophy, for he says of a musician more and more “becoming an actor, his art is developing ever more and more into a talent for telling lies,” as Akimoto himself concedes in the interview with CNN that what they sing about is not necessarily what they want to do.[69] AKB48 is also resembling to the actors in recent years in that it produces a series of powerful scenes with all kinds of clever nonsense in between only to approve its work according to the quality of its final effect.[70] Its group’s expansion overseas also suggests the kind of dictatorship – you can almost hear them say, everything AKB48 can do, “no one will ever be able to do after [them], no one has ever done before [them], and no one must ever do after [them],” AKB48 is indeed godly.[71] They infect us with their popular appeal, and the increasing popularity of AKB48 proves one thing: “that in declining civilizations, wherever the mob is allowed to decide, genuineness becomes superfluous, prejudicial, unfavourable.” Perhaps their unceasing popularity is also due to the fact that it is so easy to imitate them, for they imitate themselves again and again – mannerism is so choreographed that it is chaotic, and this performance with nothing to say is alarming.[72] And this alarming danger reaches its climax when combined with the rhythmic paradox and abuse, which is governed by no artistic laws of form, only aiming at effect and nothing more. Indeed, their music aims at expressiveness at all cost and music becomes a servant, a slave to attitudes – this is the end…[73] We need to guard ourselves against such decadence in art and morals. If groups like AKB48 are allowed to continue to roam, Japanese popular culture will have no future but forever carry the notions like perverted and degrading to women. It will always be equated with sick-minded, as has lately often been so conceived as from other cultures and countries. We cannot blame them for conceiving Japanese pop-culture as such. Perhaps it is high time that we realized how amoral Japan has been.
[1] Most notably, SKE48, NMB48, HKT48, SDN48, JKT48 (Indonesia).
[2] Nietzsche, The Case of Wagner, etc…
[3] AKB48
was awarded for the best ‘Good Design Award’ in 2010. This was the
first time since its foundation in 1957 the award was given to a
person/group. See “5 Secrets for AKB48’s Success”, Ryoichi Murayama.
[4]
The name “AKB” comes from the acronym for Akihabara city where the
group originated, and “48” designates the number of official members in
the group, though its number did not reach 48 until later.
[5] Only one single every year contains a voting ticket. In addition, all CDs contain a ticket for handshake convention.
[6] Ryoichi Murayama, “5 Secrets for AKB48’s Success”, 93.
[7]
This is not a democratic system, as the supporters of the group say,
since the richer you are the more votes you have. This is a classic
capitalist system.
[8] This is in case of the CDs that contain the said voting ticket.
[10] Nietzsche, Selected Aphorisms 48, p.64.
[11]
Contrast with what Neitzsche says of Wagner: “The fact that people in
Germany deceives themselves concerning Wangner does not surprise me. The
reverse would surprise me… But people should also deceive themselves
concerning in Paris! Where people are scarcely anything else than
psychologists. And in Saint Petersburg! Where things are divined, which
even Paris has no idea of.”
[16] For those who are interested to find more about this, visit wikipedia article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enjo_kōsai
[17] Nietzsche, The Case of Wagner, 21.
[18] This is undoubtedly a reference to Hegel’s substantial unity. See The Philosophy of History by Hegel as well as his Phenomenology of Spirit for those who are interested.
[19] Nietzsche, The Case of Wagner.
[20] Ibid., 1
[21] Ibid.
[22] Ibid., 28
[23] Calpis is a soft drink beverage in Japan, made from diluting a concentrated sweetener with water. See Wikipedia article at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calpis
[24] Murayama, 5 Secrets for AKB48’s Success, 80.
[25] Neitzsche, Case of Wagner, preface.
[26] Ibid., 8.
[27] Ibid.
[28] Ibid., 9.
[29] Ibid., 10
[30] Ibid.
[31] Shuichi Ota, “Idol Shinkaron”, 30-31. Translation mime.
[32] Shinshi Okajima, Yasuhiro Okada, “Group Idol Shinkaron”, 66.
[33] Ota, “Idol Shinkaron,” 13
[34] Murayama, “5 Secrets for AKB48’s Success”, 121.
[35] Ota, “Idol Shinkaron”, 66-67. One particularly famous one is probably the commercial for Nissin U.F.O. Yakisoba.
[36] Ibid. 96. For example, “Yasashii Akuma (Sweet Little Devil)” and “Un, deux, trios”
[37] Ibid., 77.
[38] Ibid., 133.
[39] Ibid.,136. Italics mine.
[40] Ibid., 142-143.
[41] Ibid., 170. That this is a so-called Japan-glish, Japanese-English, is obvious from the fact that it makes no sense.
[42] Ibid., 232.
[43] Ibid., 232. “Kyo-nyu,” in Japanese.
[44] Ibid., 229.
[45] Okajima and Okada, “Group Idol Shinkaron”, 69.
[46] Ota, “Idol Shinkaron,” 156.
[47] Ibid.
[48] Ibid., 166.
[49] Ibid., 167.
[50] Okajima and Okada, “Group Idol Shinkaron,” 81. He is also known as The Otaku Murderer. See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsutomu_Miyazaki
[51] For more info on this group, see Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulmus_rubra
[52] Ibid., 80-81.
[53] Ota, “Idol Shinkaron,” 220. ‘Janken’ means ‘rock-paper-scissors’, and ‘pyon’ is suffixed to produce a childish effect.
[54] Average age of the group members is 24, according to the official website, as of Jan. 2012. http://sdn48.co.jp/ See also Murayama, “5 Secrets for AKB48’s Success”, 59.
[55] Neitzsche, The Case of Wagner, 63. Aphorisms 44-45.
[56]
That this is a standard view held by the fans as well as by the
producer himself is obvious from the recent interview of CNN with
Akimoto on AKB48. http://edition.cnn.com/video/?/video/international/2012/01/16/talkasia-pop-exploit-teenage-girls.cnn
[57]
Perhaps, readers may think that ‘we do live in such a society’, but
that is not true. Perhaps it is true that we do not have as much
democratic rights as we should or some rich people do have overriding
powers politically speaking, but the very fact that there can be
oppositions and protests can happen and reported on the news is a clear
evidence that we live in a society where democracy is still very much
alive. Aristocracy in the sense I am talking of is a very crude society
where the poor has absolutely no rights whatsoever to any of the
decision making, as is obvious from history around the world.
[58] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-pL_78r-P8 See also Murayama, “5 Secrets for AKB48’s Success”, 98.
[59] Okajima and Okada, “Group Idol Shinkaron”, 35, 38.
[60] Murayama, “5 Secrets for AKB48’s Success”, 132.
[61] Okajima and Okada, “Group Idol Shinkaron”, 58.
[62] Ibid., 99.
[63] Murayama, “5 Secrets for AKB48’s Success”, 25.
[64] Ibid., 23-28.
[65] Ibid., 95.
[66] Ibid., 96.
[67] Ibid., 97.
[68] Ibid., 130.
[69] http://edition.cnn.com/video/?/video/international/2012/01/16/talkasia-pop-exploit-teenage-girls.cnn
[70] Neitzsche, “The Case of Wagner”, 17-18.
[71 ] Ibid., 20.
[72] Ibid., 64, 67.
[73]Ibid., 40.
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