#kojima mako

[idolsgeneration]

#Kojima Mako #AKB48 #jpop #小嶋真子

[matssumura]

“Even though each of us is walking on different path now, I hope that we can continue shine brightly on the path we have chosen”. cc

#okada nana #uchiyama natsuki #kojima mako #mitsuki maeda #hashimoto hikari #nishino miki #akb48 #岡田奈々 #内山奈月 #小嶋真子 #前田美月 #橋本耀 #西野未姫

[senseisy]

Ohh, you’re so damn annoying..!

#kojima mako #owada nana #majisuka gakuen 4

[kuuma27]

#kojima mako #小嶋真子 #haluhiroine

[boysplanetrecaps]

Ep 4 Wrap Up

Hello, lovies! Welcome back to the Great Produce48 Recap Rewatch-a-ma-whoozit! In the previous post, we covered the Very Very teams. In this post, I’ll be wrapping up episode 4 and giving you some general thoughts about the challenge mission in the form of my first annual BRAPPY Awards! Let’s do it!

Seungki gathers the girls together now that the audience has left, in order to give them the results of the on-site vote. Seungki quizzes a few girls is the audience at quasi-random to re-establish the rules -- that 58th is the cut off point, and that if you don’t make it within that range, “you can’t practice here anymore.” I think that’s a comparatively kind way to put it.

This is basically a pointless exercise that they’re going through right now, though. They rank the girls solely by their voting for tonight, including the 1000 point benefit. There is literally no point to it, since this ranking has no impact on the rest of their life, except their pride. We find out that poor AleXa came in dead last, with flat-tummied Hwang Soyeon just above her. 

AleXa takes it pretty well -- she knew how low she scored, so she was ready for this.

Poor Soyeon. She’s so good, and I think she’s pretty. I don’t get it. 

Lee Chaeyeon voice overs, “The Japanese members are celebrities, and Koreans are trainees. So there was a gap.” 

Was there? Let me get out my spreadsheet. *cracks knuckles* 

Hmm. The Japanese members had an average of 85.3 votes per trainee. The members signed to Korean agencies had an average of 59.0 votes per trainee. The overall average was 69, because there are more Korean members. So yes, there was a huge gap.

The show goes on revealing the "final ranking" from the night, but it's so annoying, since all the votes were based on their immediate competition among those 10-12 girls, so it’s especially meaningless.

Anyway, here’s the top 12 -- just looking at it reminds you that this is dumb, since we know these aren’t the 12 most popular girls on the show.

Trainee /// Song she did /// votes she got

12. Kojima Mako    ///       Short Hair 1       ///       120 11. Murase Sae      ///       Mamma Mia 1    ///       138 11. Kim Hyunah      ///     Mamma Mia 1 /// 138 9. Asai Nanami   ///           Boombayah 2 /// 144 8. Lee Sian           ///         Short Hair 2     ///       148 7. Jo Yuri      ///                 Short Hair 1     ///       152 6. Cho Ahyeong        ///     High Tension 2 /// 160 5. Miyawaki Sakura   ///     Very Very 2          ///   164 4. Goto Moe      ///         Like Ooh Ahh 1 /// 172 3. Huh Yunjin      ///       High Tension 2 /// 188 2. Ko Yujin        ///     Boombayah 1        ///     198 1. Yabuki Nako /// Love Whisper 2 /// 330

Fun fact: Only three of these girls make it into IZ*one, and, extra fun (or not fun at all?), one of these 12 girls gets eliminated in the very next episode! 

This is so dumb.

Seungki interviews Nako about her overwhelming victory, and she says she still can’t believe it. (You can see that she has a small earpiece in her ear for translation purposes.)

It’s almost as if she was really good and also was in a matchup with mostly weaker members….? Hilariously, she says “I’ll try my best to be in a higher rank next time.” Nako? Sweetie? You were in first place. I think it’s ok to not strive to do even better than that. Cutely, she adds a Korean “thank you!” at the end. 

Then the show does a dumb thing where it adds the 1000 vote benefit into the votes to see how things change in the ranking, and it’s pointless AF. Seungki reminds them that the first ranking announcement will be next week, and that's when they'll "release" about a third of the girls.

Ok, so that’s the end of episode 4. 

Time for my general thoughts on the challenge mission!

My main thought is: None of the performances were actually horrifically bad. Even Hellbayah was watchable in its own way. Vocally, nearly everyone sounded notably better than they even had before, making me wonder if there was some processing being done to the vocals for everyone. Dance-wise, the camera hid a lot of the choreo, so it's impossible to know. In the end, I had to base a lot of my differential off of stage presence, which is tough since it's so subjective.

I think that so much of it was decided the moment that certain teams were formed and certain teams got certain songs. Having Nako sing Love Whisper? Match made in heaven. Putting Chiba Erii in Boombayah? Match made in hell.

I wish I had the energy to go through and look at each group and think, which song should this group of 5-6 girls have done? But alas, I do not. I welcome your thoughts, if you have them!

The First Annual BRAPPIES 

And now, for the first Brappies, the award that BPR-Unnie gives out starting now, after each challenge mission. Be aware that as I type this, I’ve had a headache for about two weeks and it’s making me just a tiny bit cranky. Ok, here goes!

Group who the stylist unnies hated the most:

I give this to Peekaboo 2. 

Ugh, those translucent control top thigh highs!

Group who it just looks like they forgot to put on pants:

Obviously, Short Hair (both teams)

I'm unlikely to use this category again, but it had to be said.

Group that cried the most:

I’m tempted to say it’s a 15-way tie between most of them, but I have to give it to Love Whisper 1, whose leader, Eunchae, actually cried during the ending fairy.

Group that seemed to have the most fun:

Very Very, Red team.

Most deserved win:

Love Whisper 2.

I’m giving it to them since, other than the Boombayah teams, there was no other match up where the winner felt quite so obvious to me.  

Least deserved win:

Hellbayah. Obviously.

It’s infuriating that this performance won. 

Best leader:

From what we could see, that goes to Haeyoon (Cherry Bullet) from Like Ooh Ah, who not only mothered her own team, but also had time to mother the other team, who had the worst leader (Park Seoyoung). She also is apparently fluent in Japanese. 

Honorable mention: Miyu from High Tension, who was smart enough to know that they should have Huh Yunjin as their center, and did a great job as main vocal, to boot.

Worst leader:

I have to give this to Park Seoyoung. She didn't seem to take the time constraints seriously enough, so didn't push her team appropriately. She also didn't seem that great at teaching the dancing, which is one of the things a leader should either be able to do, or be able to delegate well. She should have made little Haeun the dance captain and gone from there, to avoid a feeling of a power struggle. She seems like a really sweet girl, actually, and as I've said before, AleXa is friends with her to this day and that says a lot. But she just isn't really cut out to be leader.

Most put-upon leader:

Han Chowon from Hellbayah. She obviously did an extraordinary job considering her situation. 

Biggest discovery: 

Yoon Haesol, main vocal of High Tension 1. I’d been completely unaware of her up until this point. Her audition, Question Mark, wasn’t aired -- all we saw of her was starting her audition in the wrong key and needing to start over.  All I had said about her audition was that she did pretty well, but this performance really impressed me. So, good for you, Haesol. 

Trainee who “won” the night

Huh Yunjin.

I say she won the night because before this episode, she wasn’t really seen as a front runner, and afterward, she really was. There are events to come that will drag her down a bit, but I think she earned her spot on Le Sserafim with this performance. She definitely won my heart the first time I was watching. So, congrats, Jennifer! You killed it. But you know that, right? 

Trainee who “lost” the night:

In some ways, this award should go to just about anyone who the edit ignored completely despite them doing good stuff, like fantastic singer and leader Miyu from the winning High Tension group, or any of the innumerable other trainees with no stage time. But I have to give this award to Jang Gyuri.

She had her tiny tiny vocal mistake built up to over the course of two episodes and then replayed thirteen fucking times. Meanwhile if you watch her fancam, you might actually gain some respect for her lovely vocal color. 

So, that’s a wrap for right now.  I’m going to check out Build Up for a bit and we’ll see how that goes, and I’ll finish these recaps when the time is right. See you soon! 

#bpr recaps p48 #produce 48 #le sserafim #ive #akb48

[jvten]

JUN KOJIMA: Star Nocturna

JUN KOJIMA, an aspiring journalist whose life had been affected by the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, finds herself torn between her job aspirations at home and her eventual goal to find her best friend Kazu Tachibana who had mysteriously disappeared. The Tohoku earthquake and tsunami in 2011 had taken away both Jun and Kazu’s parents, meaning they only had each other for a long time. And with Kazu gone missing, Jun didn’t know what to do with herself… at least until she one day found Kazu’s hidden research on something called a halo crystal… and using all his findings she found a world parallel to theirs, only filled with anthropomorphic animals with human-like sentience.

Jun had found Kazu who had become a boss of the mafia clan Arakan, but it had appeared he had given up hope on humans, because they had treated him and Jun like dirt during their childhood. By the end of their arc, Jun had convinced him that he should at least give humans one more chance. Even as they became Nocturna, working with the Vanguard and Jotunhel, Jun was all the more confident that Kazu could eventually forgive humans.

Now, with Jun as one of the Nocturna, she remains bubbly, kind and outgoing, however her training leads her to realise just how many worlds and universes there are… and how magic can ultimately affect a person…

PERSONALITY: Bubbly, kind, outgoing, determined, encouraging, ditzy

WEAPON: Twin claw scythes

POWERS/ABILITIES:

Shapeshifting: can turn into a black cat

Star manipulation: can control nebulas and ultimately control the energy from neutrons/electrons/whatever to create bright bursts of energy

Enhanced flexibility

Telekinesis

Weapon summoning

VOICE CLAIM: Anne Hathaway

See you at the next character sheet!

#no this was not 6 hours late wdym #oc reference #oc reference sheet #character reference #character reference sheet #oc #oc ref #oc ref sheet #original character #original character design #oc stuff #jay draws #my oc #my art #art #lesbian character #polysexual character #lesbian oc #polysexual oc

[4stylephilosophy]

In Closing, and Moving On

Hi, you've stumbled upon a dead AKB48 fanblog! It's a blog that's already been that way for over 5 years at the time of this writing, and one where this post is being made on its 10th anniversary in order to give it some final closure and resources.

You're probably here because you're a fan of one of the former members, following their solo careers, and want to know more about their early history. Or you might be here because you're interested in the history of AKB48, or the AKB48 fandom. Can't say there's anything of value to be found here, but thanks for reading anyway. Or you could've just clicked on this link because you saw the tweet pop up in your twitter feed...in which case, welcome Ruffian?

You know, I hate it when you need to scroll through a blogger's life story to get to that pasta recipe, so I'll cut to the chase and serve you the former Ori-Minegishi Team 4 members twitter and fanclub links upfront (or in the case of a Moe and Ayaka, the groups that they're now a part of). Most of them have instagram, etc. as well but you can usually find those on their twitter profiles. Here you go! (anyone missing from here is no longer active in the entertainment industry as far as I know) Aigasa Moe: - Twitter: https://twitter.com/moeaigasa0406 - Group (METAMOL): https://metamol.jp/metamol_profile/metamol_moe/ Iwatate Saho: - Twitter: https://twitter.com/yahho_sahho - Fanclub: https://iwatatesaho-fc.jp/ Okada Ayaka: - Twitter: https://twitter.com/ayaka_o1106 - Group (SAISON): https://www.shochikugeino.co.jp/talents/okadaayaka/ Okada Nana: - Twitter: https://twitter.com/okadanana_1107 - Fanclub: https://okadanana-fc.jp/p/ Kitazawa Saki: - Twitter: https://twitter.com/Sakii_Kitazawa - Fanclub: https://saki-kitazawa.com/ Kojima Mako: - Twitter: https://twitter.com/mak0_k0jima - Fanclub: https://fc.sunmusic-group.com/kojimamako Nishino Miki: - Twitter: https://twitter.com/mikinishino4 - Fanclub: https://www.fansnet.jp/en/nishinomiki_official Shinozaki Ayana: - Twitter: https://twitter.com/ayana18_48 - Fanclub: https://shinozaki-ayana-official.jp/ - Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@ayana.shinozaki.official Murayama Yuiri: - Twitter: https://twitter.com/yuirii_murayama Mogi Shinobu: - Twitter: https://twitter.com/mogi0_0216 - Fanclub: https://mogishinobu-fc.jp/ Minegishi Minami: - Twitter: https://twitter.com/chan__31 - Fanclub: https://fanicon.net/fancommunities/3877 ______ Now then, let's talk a bit before I let you go.

At the time of this writing, of the 16 members of Minegishi Team 4 who were promoted on August 24th, 2013, 4 remain. And by March of next year, that number will be down to 2. I left the fandom in around 2019. The state of the management (which I won't elaborate on here, but you probably know...), combined with starting a new career in a new timezone led to me calling it quits as a 48G fan.

Okada Nana's graduation was a wakeup call to me though, that my beloved 13th gen had very little time left. So I returned briefly to the fandom in April 2023, to see the conclusion of their story. I discovered that so much had changed, much more than I could list here. But for one thing, I discovered that in my absence my kamioshi, Kitazawa Saki, had gone from being a struggling theater girl, to a full fledged stage actress! Joining an agency and becoming so busy that she was rarely in the theater! I was so proud. And it was not a moment too soon that I returned, because 2 months later, Saki announced her graduation. I got a chance to speak to her once at an online hanashikai. And then, in the greatest stroke of luck of my entire otaku existence, I was able to go to Japan to see her graduation stage in person. It was an experience I'll never forget.

As the 13th gen's time comes to a close, it is time for me to formally exit from the fandom as well. Saho and Yuiri remain for now, but I'm more interested in their activities outside the group.

In addition to tonight being 4'stylephilosophy's 10th anniversary, tonight is also the 9th anniversary of Takashima Yurina's graduation, my original kami oshi. I always found that coincidence remarkable. So even if it's only meaningful to me, this feels fitting.

I'll continue to follow the careers of some of my favorites from back then. Particularly Saki, Ayanan, Saho, Fukuoka Seina, Ino Miyabi, and Goto Moe, as well as Ishiwata Sena and Takahashi Ayane who I discovered more recently. I hope to see as many as I can in person someday too (already making plans to see one of Saki's stage plays sometime next year!), but it will no longer be as an AKB fan.

It was a fun 11 years but all things must come to an end. I'll still be on twitter, but for the most part my interests have shifted to following a certain pair of demon guard dogs (BAU BAU).

To all of those I called friends over the years, I'll always cherish the memories we shared.

Thank you all for being awesome, and for putting up with me.

Well I think that’s it then. I'm not sure if I can say this blog itself truly completed its original mission of bringing awareness of the members of Minegishi Team 4 to the foreign fandom. However, seeing how far the members came in these 10+ years, I can say that which was truly important was a success.

Anyway, finally I’m nearly out of words, so in closing, and most of all…

To Minegishi Team 4: Umemoe, and Nororinzu MogiYuri, and Triple彩 the Three Musketeers, and KabutomuChu! And to Captain Miichan…

Thank you for those unforgettable 234 days and for the wonderful years thereafter.

I’ll never forget you.

Until we meet again. 4’style

「本日の公演も皆さんの応援のおかげで無事終わりに近づいてきています。この劇場を出た後もチーム４のことを忘れないでく���さい。私たちも忘れません。」

#blogpost #team 4 #Minegishi TEAM 4 #AKB48

[nagekinofigure]

220824 14th gen 10th anniversary MC [Hashimoto Hikari, Maeda Mitsuki, Uchiyama Natsuki, Okada Nana, Nishino Miki, Kojima Mako]

 The most popular member is?

#akb48

[leechan1018]

Happy Birthday Rin   お 誕生日 おめでとうございます 高梨臨！！  . 34歳おめでとうございます💓🌸   . からの俳優  侍戦隊シンケンジャー  . シンケンピンク/白石茉子  . Samurai Sentai Shinkenger: Mako Shiraishi Shinken Pink   . Next is Hitomi Miwa/Kagura on December 18 ( Ninpuu Sentai Hurricanger )   Riria Kojima/Mio Natsume on December 18  ( Ressha Sentai Toqger )  Ryosuke Kaizu/Takeru on December 19   ( Hikari Sentai Maskman )   . 2022年12月17日 12 / 17 / 2022 #侍戦隊シンケンジャー #シンケンピンク #白石茉子 #高梨臨 #高梨臨ちゃん #誕生日 #おめでとう #スーパー戦隊シリーズ #いいねした人全員フォローする  #フォローバック率100 #フォローバ100 #samuraisentaishinkenger #shinkenpink #makoshiraishi #rintakanashi #happybirthday #omedetou #SuperSentai #powerrangerssamurai #likeforlikes #likesforlike #followalways @rintakanashi_official https://www.instagram.com/p/CmSichZLpUL/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

#侍戦隊シンケンジャー #シンケンピンク #白石茉子 #高梨臨 #高梨臨ちゃん #誕生日 #おめでとう #スーパー戦隊シリーズ #いいねした人全員フォローする #フォローバック率100 #フォローバ100 #samuraisentaishinkenger #shinkenpink #makoshiraishi #rintakanashi #happybirthday #omedetou #supersentai #powerrangerssamurai #likeforlikes #likesforlike #followalways

[sun-and-yue]

48 48Group Songs

My Top 12 MVs

#8, 心のプラカード by AKB48 Senbatsu

I just think it’s cute!

#48 48Group Songs #Top 12 MVs #Watanabe Mayu #Sashihara Rino #Kashiwagi Yuki #Matsui Jurina #Matsui Rena #Yamamoto Sayaka #Shimazaki Haruka #Kojima Mako #Takahashi Minami #Suda Akari #Miyawaki Sakura #mine

[idolsgeneration]

#Kojima Mako #AKB48 #jpop #小嶋真子

[marx48]

#akb48 #okada nana #kojima mako #nishino miki #naachan #210522 Going to the 'Minegishi Minami Graduation Concert' ~What is The Future of AKB48 as Envisioned by Omori Maho the 3rd Draft Member~ Sec #documentary #mako #nana #miki #idol #japan #concert #making off #performance #graduation #graduated #naamakomiki

[senseisy]

Backing up for her. We’ll follow.

#kojima mako #owada nana #majisuka gakuen 4 #majisuka gakuen 5

[galaxy--supernova-scans]

Miyawaki Sakura 1st Photobook “Sakura” scans. please like/reblog if you save. editing allowed as long as you link back to the original post. more here

Girls in the group photo:

Manami Ichikawa, Natsuki Uchiyama, Ayano Umeta, Ryoka Oshima, Nana Owada, Saya Kawamoto Natsuki Kojima, Mako Kojima, Juri Takahashi, Megu Taniguchi, Chiyori Nakanishi, Hikari Hashimoto Rina Hirata, Fukuoka Kiyoshina, Sakura Miyawaki, Mion Mukaichi, Tomu Muto

thanks to this article for helping me identify the members

#さくら #Sakura #Miyawaki Sakura #宮脇咲良 #HKT48 #Team KIV #Takahashi Juri #Manami Ichikawa #Owada Nana #Kojima Mako #Nakanishi Chiyori #Hirata Rina #Mukaichi Mion

[boysplanetrecaps]

The Great Produce 48 Rewatch: Ep 4, Short Hair (AOA) Challenge

Hello and welcome back to the Great Produce 48 Rewatch Recap Thingy! We’re chugging along through our first group challenge mission. We already saw the Love Whisper team, and in the previous post, we saw the Great Peekaboo F*ckup of 2018! Now it’s time for team Short Hair. What terrible, unforgivable, barely noticeable mistake will the MNET editors pick up on this time? Only one way to find out. Let’s dive in! 

We pick up at 16:53 in to episode 4. (Or use this link for it with Spanish subtitles -- best I can do right now, since hte other link doesn't seem to be working.) The whole Peekaboo performance was actually just a pre-credits sequence, as it turns out, and now the episode will… start, I guess. 

Lee Seungki calls the two teams up to the stage. Oh no! They all forgot to wear pants! It’s just like that dream I had the other night!

Team 2, who I’ll call “blue team”, introduce themselves as “High Class.” 

Left to right, they are:

Lee Sian, 19, from Idol School, who fell from C to D and was ranked 18th in episode 3.

Hasegawa Rena, 17, who auditioned alongside Noe, fell from D to F and was ranked 54th.

Imada Mina, 21, from theNever Ending Ferris Wheel group, who rose from D to C and was ranked 64th.

Ahn Yewon, 17, one of the YGK+ models, who has lived in F and is ranked 88th.

Matsuoka Natsumi, 21, also from Never Ending Ferris Wheel, who rose from F to C and was ranked 55th. 

(Originally, Tanaka Miku was in this group, but she had to leave due to an injury.)

The red team introduces themselves as “Sneak a Peek.”

Left to right, they are:

Yu Minyoung, 18, the always squinting mint polka dots wearer in Celeb Five who moved from A to B, ranked 32

Jo Yuri, 16, future soloist, the one who fell from A to F, ranked 19th. 

Takahashi Juri, 20, future member of Rocket Punch who auditioned with Mako, rose from B to A and is ranked 29th.

Kim Minseo, 15, yellow polka dots in Celeb Five, stayed in C, ranked 39th

Kojima Mako, 21, auditioned with Playing With Fire, rose from C to B and currently ranked 23rd. 

Kim Sihyeon, 18, future member of Everglow who rose from B to A and is ranked 13th.

Dance Bae notes that Red team has a lot of popular members, but that we never know who will win until the end.

Subtitles: now with 100% more Spanish! 

We zoom back to the practice of group 1 (red team), When we left off, this group was getting along really well and had chosen Juri as their center despite her polite protestations. We go to dance practice, and Dance Bae is NOT HAPPY with Juri’s performance. She stops and asks the group, “She wanted to be center and you let her? But it seems that she has absolutely no idea what she’s doing.” There’s supposed to be a “domino effect” movement -- where each moves in turn down the line -- and Juri is off-beat, ruining the effect. Since she’s in the middle of the line, it really has a major effect. Oh no!! Juri!! Dance Bae makes them do it again and again and again.

I should note that I love Juri from having watched Queendom Puzzle. In the now-times, Juri has a beautiful, smoky-toned voice, a ton of stage presence and charm, and a hilarious 4D personality.  She’s just great. But back in 2018, maybe some of this hadn’t settled in for her yet. 

Juri feels terrible about making her whole team anxious.

Dance Bae says, “I’m sorry but… you’re doing a bad job at the moment. This will hurt your feelings, but I don’t have a choice. With Juri here, you girls will have a problem. “

The editors splice in a picture of some rain to indicate how we’re all feeling.

LTR: Kojima Mako, Kim Minseo, Juri, Yu Minyoung, Jo Yuri, Kim Sihyeon 

Sihyeon stammers a bit, as we hear her voiceover saying that she feels like she’s been doing a terrible job as team leader, and that she’s worried about how sad this is going to make Juri. Before Sihyeon can say anything more, Juri says -- starting off in Korean and switching soon to Japanese -- that though she appreciates the opportunity, she thinks they should change positions to help ensure that the group wins.

Though Juri holds it together when talking to her group, bowing out gracefully, she interviews that she is upset that she didn’t do a good job despite how hard she worked.

They decide to vote for a new center, so they can show Dance Bae something different next time. They’re about to vote (and MNET does some annoying editing, whatever) when Jo Yuri says, “Actually, I think that Juri really suits the center from what I’ve seen, and I know she can get better with more practice.” Everyone seems to agree, and Juri begins to cry in earnest, harder than she cried when she thought she was resigning. 

“Juri, please don’t cry!”

“You can do it!”

Sihyeon says, “It has to be so hard for her. She had to learn a song she’d never heard, and on top of it she was the center. My heart is with her. I think she’d be feeling angry and discouraged if she had to give up the center position this way.”

Juri is grateful for their understanding. She tries again and works hard. Ganbarimasu! 

And then… it’s time for the performance!

Here is PD48 Editing’s blessed edit.

Mako, Yuri, Minyoung, Minseo, Sihyeon, Juri

Clockwise from bottom left: Minseo (kneeling), Minyoung, Mako, Juri, Sihyeon, Yuri (kneeling)

Jo Yuri: main vocal  Takahashi Juri: Sub vocal 1 Kim Sihyeon: sub vocal 2 Kojima Mako: sub vocal 3  Yu Minyoung: Rapper 1 Kim Minseo: Rapper 2

My thoughts: 

Overall, a really good performance, though not necessarily mind blowing or anything like that.  

Vocally, they sounded really good on the whole. Yuri hit the notes cleanly and well, with a nice vocal color, though she didn’t hold the notes quite as long as I think she should have. I mean, she’s 16, it’s fine. Juri’s voice wasn’t like it is nowadays, and that’s ok, she still did well.

The two rappers, Minseo and Minyoung, actually had a lot of energy and sounded about as good as you could hope they would. They also brought a surprising amount of charm and confidence.  

As usual it’s almost impossible to tell if their dance was synchronized because the camera work was focused on their faces, but what I could see looked mostly fine. Here and there I think I noticed Juri a tiny bit behind the beat, dance-wise, unfortunately. 

Stage presence wise, Mako, Juri and Yuri were the weaker spots. Mako had a cute smile that didn’t quite fit the “sexy” feel of the dance, and Juri looked a little scared the whole time, like maybe she was thinking about the dance steps or something. She wasn’t connecting to the performance. Yuri also sort of was just going through the motions. The way she sort of sang a given note and sort of stopped gave this energy:

If I could have stepped in and just changed things, I think I would have put Sihyeon in the center. She performed this like she was a lost member of AOA -- smiling, pouting, flirting, hair flipping, the whole nine. She did great. 

The MNET Edit:

We get a lot of reactions to Yuri’s various high notes, and some shots of the audience loving it in general. Not really any annoying instant replays, either.

The judges gush about how good Yuri was. Soyou says, “I’ve liked her since the beginning.” Dance Bae adds, “She’s a good dancer, too.” 

And that’s where we leave it for now, as Team 2 takes the stage.

Team 2 (Blue Team)

One more time:

Lee Sian, 19, from Idol School, who fell from C to D and was ranked 18th in episode 3.

Hasegawa Rena, 17, who auditioned alongside Noe, fell from D to F and was ranked 54th.

Imada Mina, 21, from the Never Ending Ferris Wheel group, who rose from D to C and was ranked 64th.

Ahn Yewon, 17, one of the YGK+ models, who has lived in F and is ranked 88th.

Matsuoka Natsumi, 21, also from Never Ending Ferris Wheel, who rose from F to C and was ranked 55th. 

(Originally, Tanaka Miku was in this group, but she had to leave due to an injury during this rehearsal period.)

When we left off, the Japanese members of the team had chosen Mina to be center over Sian, out of fear that making Sian the center would make them “Sian and the girls.” We were left with the question of whether that was a good decision. 

We dive right in with a voice over from Sian, saying: “At the beginning, I didn’t think it would be that important, but I felt it when we chose the center. The fact that you’re not from here could be an obstacle.” This overlays the shot of the Japanese girls choosing Mina, and this shot…

… Sian trying to teach herself the choreo while the other girls are sitting working on the lyrics.

There’s also this shot:

That’s not a mirror -- that’s a frosted glass wall. Some girls are practicing in the room, and some are practicing in the hall outside. Again, not working together. 

Sian interviews, “I didn’t even know what to do.”

We go to dance rehearsal, and Dance Bae is NOT HAPPY. Their formations are all off, and their synchronization is non-existent. It really shows how little they rehearsed it together,  and Dance Bae says that they’re all basically just doing their own thing. “How could it be so bad if you practiced? Have you practiced hard? Together?” 

Rena interviews, “We couldn’t practice dancing together as a team. The Koreans focused on practicing the choreography, but we Japanese were focusing on memorizing the words.” With different priorities, they were dividing up their time differently. 

We see the girls at dance/rap practice. It’s not great. Mina in particular is clearly having a lot of trouble with the fast rapping. Soyou give them this look:

Then she says, “I don’t really have much to tell you because I couldn’t really hear you well.” She sings a single line twice, once in full voice, and once in a breathy, hard to hear voice, to demonstrate the difference between how they should sound and how they actually sound.

Cheetah, that queen, says, “You’re not really close, are you?” And Sian thinks to herself, oh God, they noticed. It’s my fault because I’m the leader. I kept torturing myself like that.

That night at the dorms, Ah Yewon tells Sian that Cheetah was right -- that they’re not going to get anywhere the way they are, that they have to open up to each other and get closer. Sian decides that she’s right, that they have to try to practice openly together and try to understand each other. 

The next day, they’re in one of the rehearsal rooms, and I think they must have a translator there because Sian is speaking in full speed Korean. 

One of these people has to be a translator, right? Also, note that there are still six girls on the team.

Sian says, “It’s not like we didn’t want to be close. The problem is the language barrier.*

*Me typing this translation of a Spanish subtitle of a Korean sentence spoken to some Japanese speakers is so many layers of language barrier. It'd be even funnier if you, dear reader, are a non-native speaker of English. Especially if you also don't speak Spanish, Korean, or Japanese.

Mina says, “I’ll try more.” (I can’t tell if she’s speaking Japanese or Korean because there’s another sound at the same time she’s speaking, and she speaks really softly.)

Sian says, “I’ll try to learn some Japanese,” and Mina waves her hand from Sian to herself and back again. Sian adds, “I hope we can build up our team work.” The Japanese members nod in agreement, and then Sian says, “Oh god, they scolded us so harshly today! I hate getting negative comments!” And all the girls stand up for a big group hug. Yay! Oh no, it looks like Natsumi is crying! Boo! 

Natsumi voiceovers that she wants to help Sian build their teamwork. Yay team!

More “hwighting” and less fighting, please. 

The next day, Sian gives the Japanese girls something she made/wrote down, to help them remember the steps. They thank you and Natsumi reaches out to touch her hand in gratitude.

They all interview that they are working better as a team now. 

No one mentions it, but at some point Miku got injured and had to leave. That sounds really dramatic, MNET. She wanted to stay, from what I heard, so it had to be a pretty bad injury. There must have been a lot of tearful conversations on the topic. Maybe you’d want to show that? Or show the girls scrambling to redistribute parts and learn new formations…? Oh, but you can’t show it, because it makes you look irresponsible, like you’re not taking good enough care of these young girls and letting them get hurt because you push them too hard. Well, thanks, I guess. 

Anyway, by dress rehearsal, there are only five of them. The judges don’t smile much as they run through their performance, but at the end, Soyou tells them that they more stable than group 1, with good pronunciation and good teamwork. And Dance Bae even comes back stage to tell them that their hard work paid off.

“I’m very grateful!” … “I want to cry….”

Sian congratulations her team, and Natsumi begins to cry again. Who is this girl? Is she me? 

Sian interviews that she made themselves believe that they could do it, and then they did it. 

But can they do it on stage in front of an audience? Let’s find out!

The performance:

Here is PD48 Editing’s blessed edit.

Natsumi, Rena, Sian, Mina, Yewon

Clockwise from bottom left: Natsumi, Rena, Mina, Sian, Yewon.

Side note: What are these shoes? Are they… high heeled loafers? What is happening? 

My thoughts: First off, how does Natsumi get her hair THAT glossy?

I mean, all the girls have really pretty hair, but Natsumi’s is on another level. It’s like her hair is made of black onyx, or a dark iPhone screen, or something. It’s wild. Check out her fan cam to see it in action. 

Anyway, this was not quite as good as the other team, mostly because of the vocals. They were all on key, and no one made any obvious mistakes, but listening to them sing, it was impossible to imagine that this is a professional debuted group. They sounded like a high school talent show group. 

Lee Sian was brave to take on main vocals when that isn’t her area of expertise, so I don’t want to ding her too hard -- she sang well enough to be a sub-vocal in a real group. And that’s a compliment, I swear! So good job, Sian! Did she knock my socks off? No, but she did alright-right-right. 

The other four also did well considering, but it’s not as if I want to put this on a playlist and listen to it over and over. Of the three Japanese girls, only Rena seems to avoid the characteristic nasal sound common in these AKB48 members. Natsumi and Mina both have unpleasant vocal color, but at least they are on key, so they’ve made big progress. Main rapper Yewon raps kind of off key, which I know sounds crazy but part of what a rapper does is pick up on a tone to rap in, and Yewon didn’t do that quite correctly.  

Dance wise, I don’t really know, because the camera work is obstructive. Nothing really obvious goes wrong, I’ll say that. I think that 

Stage presence wise, I think this group has a slight leg up on the first group. They all have pretty good to great facial expressions, and they’re all reasonably confident-seeming. Yewon is a bit…

… too much. 

Mina has a great trick of letting her eyes close a little, and then opening them wider suddenly. It’s like, a power-smize!

 

It works. 

Revisiting the issue of center, and whether or not putting Sian in the center would have made it “Sian and the girls,” I think it’s relevant to note that Sian was the main vocal. If your center is also your main vocal, then it starts to feel like Destiny’s Child. So, yeah, it makes sense for someone else to be center, and Mina was the best choice among the remaining girls. I think they should have raised that issue during the discussion of who should be center, but maybe they did, or tried to, and had trouble with the communication. 

In the MNET edit, we see the judges praising their pronunciation, and praising Sian’s ability to look right at the camera. We also get a few instant replays of some of Sian’s high notes. 

When they’re done, the judges are proud of them, and Cheetah looks so cute.

“I’m proud of them.” “Me too.”

Dance Bae says that they, the trainers, think that Team 2 did better than Team 1, but notes that you never know how the audience will vote.

“Good job, everyone!”

The girls hug backstage, and Sian said that they’re hoping for a miracle. 

For this part, I have a link with English subs. 

The girls teleport to the locker room Results Zone…

More power to the transporters! We’re losing the signal! 

They’re sitting on like, foam rubber blocks. MNET, seriously, WTF?

Sian, Rena, Mina, Ahyoung, Natsumi

 Natsumi’s face (far right) is so expressive.

It’s time for the results. The background music is the same music they always used in Face Off when they were revealing the creature makeups, which is so funny to me. 

As usual, they reveal the results in a “versus” format -- Main vocal versus Main vocal, etc. What’s kind of strange is that we find out that there was no “sub vocal 1” on the blue team…? I guess that had been Miku’s part, but it’s not as if no-one sang those lines, so I’m confused. Anyway… 

Both the main vocals, Jo Yuri and Lee Sian, get a ton of votes -- 152 and 148, respectively. 

That’s fair as they both did well and are also pretty and popular. The second highest vote getters on each team were Japanese -- Mako on Red with 120 votes, and Natsumi on blue with 90. Juri is ready to blame herself if her team loses, but neither center did exceptionally well; Juri got 52 votes, and Mina got 36. Here is the full list:

Team Red (win):

left to right:

Yu Minyoung 28 Jo Yuri     152 Takahashi Juri 52 Kim Minseo 26 Kojima Mako 120 Kim Sihyeon 64              Total: 442, Average 73.67 

Team Blue (lost):

Very classy of them to applaud for team red. 

Left to right:

Lee Sian 148 Hasegawa Rena 50 Imada Mina 36 Ahn Yewon 16 Matsuoka Natsumi 90 Total: 340, Average: 68

Juri interviews, tearfully, that she feels bad about the whole thing. Her team was so nice and believed in her, and she feels like she let them down. “It’s because of them that I was able to go so far,” she says. “I’m so grateful to my team.”  

You know, my friends, if I wasn’t already a Juri fan from getting to know her on Queendom Puzzle, I think I’d kind of hate her at this point. MNET shoving her in my face, and focusing on her storyline above all else, it just makes me kind of irritated. I know Juri is awesome-sauce, though. So this is just further proof that MNET is The Worst. Thanks, dumbasses. Thumbasses. 

And with that, we’ll wrap up for now! Thanks for sticking with me so far! See you next time, when we cover Team Mamma Mia.

#bpr recaps p48 #produce 48 #akb48 #rocket punch #iz*one #Jo Yuri

[kyokosdog]

Kojima Mako 小嶋真子, FLASH Special 2016

#kojima mako #小嶋真子 #akb48 #flash #2016