Well if you remember me, I did some short updates for my AKB48 1st gen ‘Where are the now?’ series, over on twitter:

Can you believe it’s been 5 years since our eternal ace and light of my life graduated??

5 years!!

it makes me feel so old i want to die

I’m not the type to get toooo emotional about graduations (rather, I’m the type that gets emotional later as I look back with nostalgia), but I have very strong memories of, a few weeks before Acchan grad, ‘Boku no Taiyou’ coming up on shuffle and suddenly having this terrible crying fit. “She’s my sun! What will AKB & I do without her?!” etc Very ooc for me lol.

My era of AKB was 2009-2012. When I think of AKB, I think of the members & songs of that time. And of course, Acchan, who was the face. To me, she represents AKB at its strongest, constantly coursing upwards. Not that I think AKB wouldn’t have plateaued if Acchan hadn’t left! It’s just coincidental timing.

I want to talk about livehouses a little bit. The type of places a group/artist is playing can tell you a lot about them! How many fans they have, how they perceive themselves, how others perceive them, etc. Idols might perform only in certain venues, and rock bands in others, or such.

Say you are a band. You think that if you play a gig, about 500~ fans will come. So, what venue size do you aim at? A venue that fits 300 people. You could easily sell it out, and say things like, ‘Our band quickly sold out the concert!’ But people will also know you are playing a small venue which will affect their expectations of the band; ‘they can only play at such small venues, they’re not successful.’

Or, a venue of 750 people? Probably, it won’t sell out, and on ticket sales, you make a loss. However, you might be able to make it up with merch sales. And playing in a bigger venue will attract attention, if it makes you seem like you’re on the way up. ‘This band is getting successful lately, I should check them out.’

Or alternatively, you could join up with other artists and hold a two/three-man concert. Three bands your size could sell out a 1500 capacity concert hall! And you’d have the possibility of attracting other bands fans. However, multi-artist concerts will mean much more organisation behind the scenes, and might even turn fans away if they have no interest in other bands.

These are things you should think about when supporting artists. All artists try and media-play to make themselves look better. An artist saying ‘They’ve been selling out one-mans for five years!’ means nothing if they’re playing at Urawa Narciss. Or alternatively, artists who could sell out larger venues but choose to play smaller ones for the atmosphere. Like VAMPS choosing to play 10 days at ZEPP instead of a couple of night at Budokan. Or AKB playing daily at their theater.

Here is a rough ‘ranking’ list of livehouses. I only really know about Tokyo live houses, and a few Nagoya/Osaka... Since most of my knowledge is from visual-kei fandom, this is somewhat band-biased, as opposed to idols, but similar rules apply.

First tier would be... non-official venues. This is places like bars etc which have live music areas but aren’t full-time venues. So absolute beginners and hobbyists might start here.

Shibuya O-crest (200), Shibuya O-nest (250), Ikebukuro CYBER (300), Takadanobaba Area (450): CYBER and Area in this tier despite their size because of their reputations. CYBER is just awful, Area will let anyone hold a oneman even if they’re clearly not going to sell out. O-crest & O-nest are small but part of the Shibuya O-group which has imo a fairly nice reputation. This tier is ‘I am starting out but fairly serious’.

Ikebukuro EDGE (250), Ruido K venues, Shibuya REX (300), Harajuku Astro Hall (400): Bands who are starting to gain a dedicated following. The venues are slightly less shit, and have a bit of history behind them.

Shibuya O-West (600), Shinjuku LOFT (550), Shinjuku BLAZE (800), Shibuya QUATTRO (800): Bands capable of pulling in larger audiences. At this point bands can start thinking of doing music full time. These venues are big enough to allow a half-decent concert DVD to be filmed.

LIQUIDROOM Ebisu (1000), Shibuya O-East (1300), Kawasaki Club CITTA’ (1300), Akasaka BLITZ (1300): The over 1000 capacity venues! They’re all pretty nice! At this point you’ve probably made a name for yourself within your music genre. Shibuya-AX was also at this tier before it closed RIP ;-;.

Shibuya Public Hall (2300), Shinkiba Studio Coast (2400), ZEPP TOKYO (2700), Hibiya Open-Air Concert Hall (2600), NHK Hall (3600), Tokyo International Forum (5000): If you are doing oneman’s here you’ve made it! A standard group is doing well for itself at this level. Artists at this level are probably charting on Oricon.

Budokan (14000): Budokan gets its own tier because... It feels like it’s the ‘realistic aim’ for a lot of bands. To play SSA or TD you really need to be very popular with national recognition. Most musicians won’t get there. But Budoukan is big, but still within reach a for a full-time artist. A lot of bands will do, say, a nation-wide tour at 1-5k venues with a final at Budokan. I don’t like Budoukan because to get the full 14000 capacity you need to set the stage in the middle of the arena with audience 360° around the stage, which always look awkward.

Saitama Super Arena (37000) & other arenas, Toyota Stadium (45000) & other stadiums, Tokyo Dome (57000) & other domes: Success is undeniable. Tokyo Dome is the absolute top in terms of prestige. Almost certainly the result of a long and successful career.

International Stadium Yokohama aka Nissan Stadium (70000): Another special case. Even if you can afford to hire it, even if you think you can sell out... The stadium is very restrictive of who they allow to play there, you practically have to be invited.

There are of course lots of other venues! But these are names I see coming up a lot, especially amongst the types of groups that are popular internationally? I feel they are the biggest names of their level (ie there may be plenty of 1000+ venues but O-east, LIQUIDROOM and BLITZ are names I see a lot, etc)

This is an idol/AKB blog, so lets talk about them a little bit... SKE, NMB and Nogi have done ZEPP tours before. ZEPP venues are a subsidiary of Sony so it’s no surprise to see Sakamichi series there. They’re the only livehouse ‘brand’ I know of that stretches across Japan; as opposed to Shibuya-O or Ruido-K which are fairly close to each other.

Shibuya-AX was a fairly large large venue that AKB started holding Request Hour in 2008, but they weren’t selling out until they got big in 2010. Really wonder what made them choose to hold 4 concerts over 2 days at a 1500 seat venue, at a time when their first week sales were 15k~ and they were on the verge of disbandment. It’s a similar size to the other venues they held concerts in at the time, I wonder if they were selling those out. If they couldn’t fill AX in January ‘08, did they fill NHK Hall at the end of the year? But it’s true partenering with King Records turned their luck around so who knows. After AX shut RH was moved to Tokyo Dome City Hall which is twice the size of AX so RH is obviously doing just fine.

Regarding the groups in general AKB48 54 SKE48 15 NMB48 8 HKT48 20 NGT48 3 Then split into types of songs

Onykixx @ Ikebukuro CYBER (300)  This is the sort of tragedy you see at CYBER smdh

THE Hitch Lowke @ O-crest (200) 360 so you look around the venue! Perfume @ O-crest (200) This video is low quality and old as balls but omg baby Perfume.

Nightmare @ Takadanobaba Area (450)  Full house for the very popular Nightmare! SaTaN @ Takadanobaba Area (450)  Half empty for these nobodies SaTaN. This is why Area has a bad rep.

Mei @ Shibuya QUATTRO (800)  Rev.from DVL @ Shibuya QUATTRO (800) A sudden increase in camera quality. A decent live DVD.

Aldious @ O-East (1300) BiSH @ O-East (1300) Another increase in camera quality. A good live DVD.

VAMPS @ ZEPP Tokyo (2700)  Hatsune Miku @ ZEPP Tokyo (2700) 

Antic Cafe @ Hibiya Open Air (2600) Denpagumi.inc @ Hibiya Open Air (2600)

A9 @ Budokan (14k) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5EVnHwHScM BABYMETAL @ Budokan (14k)  360° stage... It's fine, just have your back to half the audience, not awkward at all.

SNSD @ Yokohama Arena (17k)  JAM Project @ Yokohama Arena (17k) 

GLAY @ SSA (37k) KARA @ SSA (37k)

1st Oshima Yuko  27.2% 2nd Shinoda Mariko  15% 3rd Maeda Atsuko  12.8% 4th Akimoto Sayaka  9% 5th Itano Tomomi  8.2% 6th Oshima Mai  7.6% 7th Noro Kayo  4.2% 8th Ohori Megumi  2.2% 8th Mitsumune Kaoru 2.2% 10th Usami Yuki  1.8% 10th Kasai Tomomi 1.8% 12th Masuda Yuka  1.6% 12th Kikuchi Ayaka  1.6% 14th Urano Kazumi  1.4% 15th Kawasaki Nozomi  1.2% 15th Hirajima Natsumi  1.2% 17th Sato Amina  1% 18th Ohe Tomomi  0.8% 18th Nakaya Sayaka  0.8% 20th Komatani Hitomi  0.6%

The article itself commented on the power of the top 3, the difference in Sayaka’s popularity in and out of AKB, and Nonti’s success at variety. I’m also reminded on Bananaman’s comments at 2015 Kouhaku, when Acchan & Yuko came out for Takamina’s last Kouhaku performance; and they wondered if they would see Maimai, Nonti or Meetan. I think the graduate members with casual name recognition is a bit different from international fans expectations.

Well one of the biggest offences management has made this time seems to be leaving out Tomu, in particular the choice of Yuria over Tomu. I'm surprised that so many people are up in arms over Yuria; her placement may not reflect her popularity, but management have been fairly firmly behind her for a long time. I’d expect more outrage that, say, Hana was picked over Tomu.

If we look at senbatsu in general, I would consider the following members absolute locks:

2ch discusses generation aces. (current ie Kana as 2nd gen ace as she’s the only 2nd gen left in her group)