AKB 48

For those of you not familiar with Japanese pop culture, so a vast majority of you, probably have no idea what that title means. No, it's not some high tech gun, or a complicated piece of machinery, but a Japanese pop group. Unlike American pop groups that usually have 5-6 people in them, as the number in the title would indicate, there are 48 girls in this group. Now you are probably about as confused and/or shocked as I was when I heard about this. BUT WAIT, there's more! I came downstairs the other day and looked at the TV and saw one of the members on TV crying. I was thinking something terrible had happened, so I asked my host mom what was up. She explained to me that it was the AKB 48 election time. Come again? Elections for a pop group. She went on to explain that the girls in the group had elections every year to determine their position in the band. The closer you were to 1, the more up front and center you would be during performances, music videos and such. At this point I was like, are you serious? This is ridiculous! But since seeing this a few days ago I have been analyzing it trying to think in terms of Japanese culture. This group of girls usually around 18-20 years old had 48 members that I guess would just get swapped out when they get too old or want out or something, the election is the process for this to happen. The votes for the election come from a ballot received when purchasing a CD (by the way, genius marketing ploy). That all made sense but then I started thinking, why 48. I still don't have a good answer but I have a hunch that it ties back to the Japanese sense of homogeneity (aka uniformity). That there were 48 girls, all pretty similar so nobody really stands out. Uniform. Now I could be completely wrong with this, and feel free to call me out on anything if you disagree but I have noticed that there are few solo groups. The majority of J-pop music is all groups. Just some food for thought.

Also, here is a video of them performing one of their songs. I'm pretty sure this is their most popular song because it's the one that plays almost always when their name is mentioned. Forewarning: This may be nauseatingly cute for some.