In the same week that the AKB48 moneymen claimed victory in the amount of hype and advertising cash their well-greased PR machine could turn their “election” campaign into — comes a scandal that proves just how controlled and fake they are.
A minor member of the band, Rino Sashihara (b.1992), has sort-of admitted to the rumors started by a tabloid that she seduced one of her otaku fans.
Shock horror! A girl exploiting her fame to get some fun and pleasure for herself?!! Well, it’s okay if it’s men (unless you go as far as, say, Edison Chen), but with an idol, and especially for an otaku idol, it’s the ultimate taboo, up there with taking drugs.
We want these girls to be our sex objects for our masturbation pleasure. But we don’t want them to actually have sex lives themselves. No, that would be too feminist, of course. They must maintain that very, very fine balance between coy temptress and innocence. Step over the line and there’s no going back.
It’s not just otaku idols either. Why else do we hear nothing or almost next-to-nothing about the love lives of “pure” and kawaii models and actresses like Haruka Ayase, Yu Aoi and Mikako Tabe? Because their agencies keep it tightly under wraps and/or they order the girls not to have relationships at all!
Rino is what you may call nikushoku, literally a carnivore, and one who likes to devour weaker men. Now she’s been banished to HKT48, one of the hydra-like zillions of spin-off groups, this one located in the far southern corner of Japan on Kyushu. It’s the equivalent of shimanagashi, when in the olden days troublesome samurai were sent to Sado Island.
Rino issued an apology on her blog for her immoral behavior and has said that all she can do is try her best in her new act. Her blog has attracted 17,000 comments of support.
This isn’t the first AKB scandal, of course.
Other members have been fired or demoted for daring to have sex with people. One ex-member, Riko Yamaguchi, even went onto a lucrative career in porn.
Come on, let’s face it, AKB48 are essentially soft core porn stars in all but name.
Any look at their music videos, their puerile TV commercials, or the constant bikini photo shoots will tell you that straightaway (and the music at any rate cannot qualify as a melody by most standards).
Nothing wrong with that, of course — actually, there’s a lot right with it. But we shouldn’t be afraid to call it what it is. It makes us at TokyoKinky angry that the producers care more about money than humans, and that they have the hypocrisy to pretend there is something “moral” about their creation.
