/jp/ - Otaku Culture

>>2178092

As you may or may not know, there's more to idol labels (as in girls and boys singing, dancing and all that jazz) than just H!P.
What I mean is that the others just don't see fit to push the whole gravure business, or at least not to the extremes H!P is used to.

Nudge, wink, etc...

Oshima Mai's forthcoming graduation gave me a little food for thought:

I don't know why, but H!P always gave me the impression of indentured serfs.
You see them joining armed with the best hopes, then little by little get stuck in the groove of their unfulfilling jobs, having what little of their vitality sapped off. Unltimately, once they're done going through the motion and turned no longer profitable, they get out of their Idol Career Center just to find a job as a B-Level Japanese TV hostess.
Let's be real: Goto and Matsuura nonwithstanding, you don't really see them doing anything awesome after graduation unless you magnify each of their mundane actions with your wota-glasses.

AKB48? Well, AKB48 is thanfully a far cry from it.
Girls are for the most part free of any binding stipulations typical of Tsunku's draconian rule, they come and go on their own free will, always comforted by the fact that whether they would get back there won't be penance to pay but a crowd of afficionados waiting for them.
It's kind of uplifting to see how girls are doing all of this for their own profit rather than because of job obligations, really.
It's also crystal clear that the objective they strive to purse go beyond simply singing and dancing in a niche genre.
Again, let's be real: you can't expect being an idol to bring you prestice, just like you can't earn yourself a living by waving arount that you've once been a member of MM. Or AKB48. Or Idoling!!.
You see them acting in a multitude of dramas -sometimes even twice a year- co-hosting programs and a lot of other things right up their alley for their age. This does them credit, and a lot of it at that.
AKB48 is not H!P, gratefully. It's not where wasted potentials go die, rather it amounts to a stepping stone for its members toward actual stardom.
That's why I think much more highly of Oshima Mai than clueless klutzes like Jun Jun.

>>640333
Sup guys.