When it comes to fame, fortune and success, there’s always a price to be paid. Sometimes those costs can be high. In Japan, the almost 100-member, j-pop girl group, AKB48 is considered among the best and it’s believed they got to that level by, not on employing the best performers, but by being a well maintained machine, functioning on intense training and intense training strict rules. One member of the group, 20-year-old Minami Minegishi, is finding out just how strict those rules are.
Minegishi got herself into some hot water with the group’s management after a tabloid photographed her leaving the home of her boyfriend, Alan Shirahama, a dancer for a boy-band, where she had spent the night. AKB48 has a strict no romantic relationship rule for its members in order that the girls maintain a clean image, show that their devotion is to the group and give their male fans the illusion that they’re always available.
Following this scandal, Minegishi was then seen on a YouTube video, head shaven and tearfully apologizing to everyone for her actions, which she called “thoughtless and immature”. The shaving one’s head is seen as an act of contrition in Japanese custom.
As I said AKB48 is a well-oiled machine when it comes to their routines. The girls, who range in age from mid teens to their early 20s, are broken into groups that rotate between the responsibilities of daily performances at their Tokyo theatre, concerts, band promotion and recording. They are to constantly maintain a constant kawaii image, as a part of the group’s overall image, which basically means one of cuteness and innocence. This applies whether they are on or off stage. As what many consider the most popular band, AKB48 is the dream of budding young performers and they change members constantly. Despite the hiccups that come from this, they’ve managed to stay on top of their game.
Minegishi is one of the more popular members of the group, who has been with them since it was started back in 2005 and fans have come to her defense following the video. There has also been wide criticism for the crappy treatment Minegishi has been put through by many. Minegishi, however, just wants to remain with the group. In her apology, she begged to be kept on saying:
I don’t believe just doing this means I can be forgiven for what I did, but the first thing I thought was that I don’t want to quit AKB48.
She was not kicked from the group, but she was demoted from her position she held in the top teams to “research student”, trainee status assigned to the low-level members. Management’s reason for this was that they punishing her “for causing a nuisance to the fans”. While they have denied forcing Minegishi to shave her head, they did air her very tearful, almost four-minute long apology on their website.
Don’t worry about going there to look for it there. It’s been pulled.
So, yes, rules are rules and if you want to be among the best you have to be willing to pay the cost. The real question is, how high a cost should you be made to pay?
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Lance
02/05/2013
She’s more interesting with her head shaved.
How can you be in a band/group with more than five members? Lynyrd Skynrd had like 7 lead guitar players and got away with it, but Wu Tang Clan had like 37 people in it. I was a member of Wu Tang for like 15 minutes in 1998 and didn’t realize it.
weird but unique culture in Japan.
Vinny C
02/05/2013
I still have a hard time convincing my wife of the necessity of a second lead guitar in some rock bands. 100 female vocalists to sing peppy pop songs seems like a stretch.
Andrea
02/05/2013
I have no words. while I hesitate to criticize another culture, I cannot abide this archaic patriarchy and misogynistic treatment of women. this woman, not a girl, woman is not in charge of her own life or her body. and that is just not okay with me.
Vinny C
02/05/2013
I’m not so sure this a cultural thing as much as it’s a AKB48 thing. There are a lot of jpop groups over there (a LOT smaller, of course) that function the same way they would in other countries, regardless of the gender of the members.
Angie Uncovered
02/05/2013
You’re absolutely right. There is a price to be paid for fame and for being on top. While I believe there is a level of brainwashing here, it’s definitely a cultural difference to what we know. In the US a group member like this would have stomped their feet, thrown a public fit, and gone solo… generally to realize that their true fame rests on being part of a top group.
Being willing to give up her social life to be kept in the group, as well as staying on when they’ve obviously made an example of her, is the price she pays. Her alternative is going back to being just another pretty face. We all make choices. It’s a business. That’s how they see it.
Vinny C
02/05/2013
She’s been in the game since she was fifteen & has a lot of fans, but you’re right. Who’s to say what kind of success she’d have if she went solo? It’s not fun having to endure the punishment, but it’s the lesser of two evils, I guess.
Jester Queen
02/05/2013
It’s fucking Geisha dance time. I am disgusted by the sexism of them requiring them to “seem available at all times”. Fucking sucks.
Vinny C
02/05/2013
I agree. That part’s pretty messed up, if you ask me. How can the band’s management know for sure they’d less successful if the performers were allowed to live a normal life?
Damon Rallis
02/05/2013
Dude.
a.) What the FUCK is wrong with the Japanese.
b.) What the FUCK is up with your obsession with the Japanese.
LOL
Vinny C
02/05/2013
There’s nothing wrong, per se, with them. They’re a unique and rich culture… that I happen to be a little obsessed with.
Long story short, I was raised on Japanese anime and watched one too many Japanese tourism promo videos as a child. I’d probably have been an otaku (obsessive shut-in) who spent all day watching anime if I hadn’t met my wife. I still fantasize about moving there one day.
This is why we don’t ask about me & Japan.