1
On the evening of June 16, the 10th AKB48 Selection General Election and the AKB48 53rd Single World Selection General Election ended at the Nagoya Dome.
This year marks the tenth anniversary of the founding of AKB48's sub-group SKE48 in Nagoya, and this location is also of special significance, and Matsui, as the unquestioned Center of SKE48, became the fifth member of the AKB48 Group to seize the throne in this general election, following Atsuko Maeda, Yuko Oshima, Rina Iwahara, and Mayo Watanabe, announcing that his time had arrived in his hometown.
In his acceptance speech, Matsui said: Once this (championship trophy) is in hand, people don't want to put it down, it turns out that Miss Rinai Hara is holding such a heavy thing. She also said that now is the best era for AKB48.
In terms of economic benefits, Matsui's words are not unreasonable, just this general election, the economic benefits created reached 3.4 billion yen (about 200 million yuan), reaching the highest in the calendar year, and this year's general election is also the first time that the AKB Group has played the concept of "world selection general election" - after the SNH48 secession, the strong establishment of the Taiwan branch TPE48 and the appearance of AKB-CHINA members in Tencent's "Creation 101". It also shows that Yasushi Akimoto and his idol empire's ambitions to go overseas have never subsided.
At the same time, the third season of South Korea's "Produce 101" was renamed "Produce 48", allowing trainees from Korean entertainment companies and members of japan's AKB48 Group to compete on the same stage, and Matsui Zhu Rina and Miyazaki, who won the championship and third place in the general election, were both core members of the AKB48 Group for many years, and this time they were also sent to South Korea to participate in the "fight".
But whether in Japan or other parts of Asia, the increasing influence of AKB48 is almost an indisputable fact, even if 33 consecutive singles have exceeded one million sales and 39 consecutive singles have won the Japanese record list Oricon, people will still say when mentioning this group: AKB is no longer the AKB it used to be. Including in China, this general election is not as lively as in previous years.
2
The essential reason for the decline in AKB's momentum is not that the current members are really very different in strength than the predecessors of the "Shinchi" era, from Yasushi Akimoto to every marginal member (known as "foot-washer" in the rice circle) understands that the peak of AKB48 has passed, and the change has quietly begun from within the group.
Recently, AKB48's group variety show surveyed 338 members of the headquarters, and more than half of the 183 people wanted to "graduate", and 125 people felt that it was unnecessary for the AKB Group's "one trick to eat all over the world" love prohibition, and 146 of the more than 300 people wanted to move to the same girl idol group nogizaka 46, which was also created by Yasushi Akimoto - very few people who are content to continue to be honest idols in the department can be said to be very few.
This cannot be blamed on the fact that the members are uneasy about the status quo because of their low popularity, Matsui Zhulina, who won the first place in this general election, has expressed a strong desire to win the first place in almost every election, and has also said that she will choose to graduate at the tenth anniversary of SKE48, and now she declares in the acceptance speech that she won the first place in the general election that she will not graduate, and will continue to move forward with AKB48, so that the AKB Group not only wants to be, but must become the first among all idols. But the day after winning the championship, Matsui liked a number of tweets aimed at members or staff, one of which said, "I hate 48 Group, I only like Matsui Zhurina."
Among the AKB-related fan groups, Matsui ZhuLina also suffered collective dissatisfaction. This is not all because of her victory this time, taking off the ears of the junior stage, the other members of the training, the contradiction with Miyaji Tsuneyoshi, and the speech "unwilling" made when she won the third place before, all kinds of behaviors in front of and behind the stage have become the focus of debate in the rice circle - this phenomenon is not only in China, on Twitter, the number of twitter likes for Matsui Zhu Rina has surpassed the data of her own social network accounts.
The above is not to push all the responsibility for the poor perception of AKB48 to Matsui Zhulina, but the AKB48 group, from the headquarters to the regiment, from the core to the edge, the instability of the military is an irreparable fact.
The reason why Yasushi Akimoto, the helmsman of this idol empire, chose to explore overseas markets and let members who have been debuting for many years go to South Korea to participate in the competition in the program with the goal of winning debut places, is also aware of one thing:
The chicken that hatched the golden egg for ten years may have begun to stop producing now.
3
If AKB48 is the best representative of the cultivation system, then Matsui Zhu Rina is the member who has been pinned the most high hopes by Yasushi Akimoto.
When she appeared at the SKE48 selection site, Yasushi Akimoto told local TV reporters and AKB48 members in Tokyo that the rough diamond in his mind had appeared. AKB48's 10th single is called "Loud Diamonds", and its cover is also unprecedentedly played by a new member, Matsui Zhu Rina. In the MV, Atsuko Maeda, the former Center, was unable to perform on stage due to taking a college exam, and instead Matsui Tookri na to the stage and stood at the center of the stage – the meaning is self-evident.
After 10 years, Matsui Finally won the championship she dreamed of when all the seniors graduated and Yuki Kashiwaki and Rino Izuhara did not participate in the general election. But the character settings of being energetic, serious, and at the same time having the handsomeness of the boys and the cuteness of the little girls have now gradually drifted away, and her victory is not so much a victory of the cultivation system as it is the first to survive.
Regarding the cultivation system, we have also found its self-defeating weakness: the resources of the brokerage company where the members belong are the key to determining whether the members can be mixed, and the brokerage company cannot provide a smooth path for the idols to cultivate the system, and AKB48's best hand at Atsuko Maeda and Yuko Oshima have not yet become top actresses, let alone others?
However, the cultivation of the predecessors has also become a barrier for the younger generations - not the graduation of the original "Shinchi" and the non-participation of the original, Matsui Zhu Ri nai has no possibility of reaching the top. Wakamatsui Doesn't graduate from the group, and the cultivation of other juniors also has a ceiling.
The concept of the cultivation system was first introduced to scare everyone, but what we didn't expect at the time was that when we saw the end of the game, we were not willing to start playing another game again.
4
The same situation is not only in the girl group, the Japanese boy idol group Empire Janis, but also after the launch of a number of groups have not achieved the expected success, all the members of the newly debuted group "King & Prince" are the popular Jr (Junior, equivalent to the "trainees" in the Korean idol concept), I believe That Janis also sees that it is no longer a golden oil to let a few twelve- and thirteen-year-old children slowly suck powder through variety shows, records and performances.
Asia's idol market is no longer jet lag, in China, countless press releases have declared the "first year of idols", but since TFBoys has eaten the biggest dividend of the cultivation system, there has never been any influential idols, whether it is the "spiritual sequel" Yi An Music Society launched by TFBoys former producers or the "orthodox sequel" TF family (who has not yet debuted), its influence is no longer the same as that of Wang Junkai, Wang Yuan and Yi Qianxi.
In the past six months of 2018, the most successful idols are undoubtedly "Idol Trainees" and "Creation 101", which are jokingly described by netizens as "Soil Creation" and "Soil Dolls", these two variety shows present the fierce conflict and friendship between the members of the group to the audience through editing, and at the same time, there is also the announcement of the ranking change according to the number of votes in each issue. The progress and so-called "cultivation" that used to take years to see are now only two or three episodes on the show. More popular idols are contestants who have participated in several groups, several competitions, and some are even famous for "drafting back to the pot meat", or players who are wrapped up in capital and company support. The rough video of Wang Yuan and Wang Junkai singing on the streets of Chongqing with karaoke stereos is probably never seen again.
In the past, the sun became slow, idols, fans, and entertainment circles were slow, and they were only red once in a lifetime. The idols of the past are also good-looking, and the cultivation system must survive for ten years, and if you survive, the fans will understand.
Now the idol can also survive for ten years, but it is not the ten years that fans accompany you to cultivate and witness your growth, but the ten years of painstakingly looking for nobles and looking for programs, from shooting small coffee shows, thinking of strips to making earthy short videos and trying to find all the opportunities to be popular, the popularity is not because of the strength of your singing and dancing skills, but you are a "cute point" that you do not even realize, but is widely spread by the public.
In fact, the cultivation system does not exist in South Korea - the trainees want to bring the mature finished products to the public, and although Japan has had countless successful cases of cultivating idols in the past few decades, it is now facing a situation of having to break through.
In China, TFBoys and SNH48 may be the biggest beneficiaries of the concept. The latter, as the former official sister group of AKB48, is also facing the current situation of being inconsistency, and Zhao Jiamin, Ju Jingyi, who has once reached the top, and Li Yitong, who is likely to win the championship, are also the championship thrones won after the first scandal or graduation and withdrawal from the group in the last session, which is simply no different from AKB48.
5
At the end of the day, it's the upheaval of today's business models.
Whether it is three meals a day and water and electricity bills, or shopping trips, even if it is looking for a partner, there are now a bunch of merchants who please us to provide corresponding services, our different needs can be met through consumption, and the cultural market as an area that meets our spiritual needs, the transformation of producers to please consumers has become inevitable.
The so-called "idol consciousness" and "love prohibition" are the products of this transformation of the consumption initiative, although you can use countless reasons to refute it, saying that it violates the natural needs of people, saying that it is deformed, but it does come from the basic needs of the "love fantasy" generated by the fan group.
Today, when the needs of fans begin to change unpredictably, the FMCG attributes of idols are even more apparent.
Taking the author's side as an example, the fan who once shouted "Always keep the faith" and firmly believed that the five people of the Oriental Shenqi would be reunited was my college sister, and now she still adheres to the tuan soul, but instead of the tuan soul of the Oriental Shenqi, she has become the "Kunyin Four Sons" - the four players who are well known to the audience through "Idol Trainee".
Just like H.O.T., the reunion of the former peak, the dismantling of the group, the separation, and the occasional reunion of several members of the group to the reorganization of the current variety show has taken a full twenty-two years, and now an "Idol Trainee" can finish all the dramas in three months, who will spend more than ten years to wait?
Wang Ju, who has caused the topic this week because she is beyond the conventional category of idols, will give way next week to Yang Chaoyue, who has triggered another topic, "no strength and no popularity", and it is conceivable that the next topic, the next contestant and the next show are also expected. - Moreover, the ending of the once cultivated system is placed here, and it is no better than those idols who debuted in the posture of "finished product".
I don't think the changes in the idol industry will stop at a steady state, and the success of all idols in the future will not come from the business model, but from chance.
And the future idols, there is only the difference between those who have landed and those who are not red, and the cultivation system will only become a drop in the ocean in the long river of cultural industry development.