It’s the start of April aka slow release month here in the idol world. Although the offerings are rather depleted this month there are still a modest number of releases for me to talk about in this column. After the crazy rush of releases at the beginning of the year I think a nice quiet month where we can take a breather might be just what the doctor ordered. If you don’t share those sentiments then hopefully you’ll manage to tough it out for the next few weeks until we hit May and the AKS juggernaut revs back to life and starts churning out the hits once more.

I don’t really have anything else to say for the intro this week so read on after the break and I’ll talk about this week’s lone release for a bit.

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We all grow up wishing we can find that “one”. That one girl or guy that completes us and makes us feel happy and loved. We all wish that one day, we can wake up every morning to this person and know that we have found “The One”. I think that day has finally come for me. This girl……wait, This angel has made me find the reason in life to live. I wake up every morning with a smile on my face, knowing that this girl is the one for me. Her smile is so bright and loving, and what I would give to see those beautiful eyes gazing upon mine.

She is different from any girl I have ever met. I know that she will be there for me through thick and thin. And I promise to always support her in whatever she wishes to pursue. I know that God has a plan for both of us, and I hope to one day make her my wife.

She is the one for me. I can’t hold it back any longer my friends. I hope that you all support us in the future and I wish that you can all be as lucky as I am. I know that each and every one of you has a soulmate out there. I just so happen to have found mine sooner then most.

The Love of my life…..

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Tonight at 10:30pm EDT (7:30pm PDT, 2:30am GMT), we’re going to be doing a special broadcast where Dave (t3hDave) Chang details his experience in D.C. and talks about Maeda Atsuko’s graduation announcement.

Special guests Team S Anthony Hagiwara and community member OtaHiro will be in attendance as well. Others may be appearing as well and perhaps live phone calls will be taken too.

Tune in at our live page or go to the justin.tv page.

If you have questions, tweet @t3hDave or leave comments here!

Looking forward to seeing you all tonight.

Recorded February 29th, 2012.

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Twitter Links:

Garry’s Twitter – mage77
Anthony’s Twitter – yoshizumitime
Amaya’s Twitter – DJAMAYAOFFICIAL

We have a special guest on this episode! Anthony and Garry are joined by THE DJ AMAYA! Amaya sits down with Anthony and Garry to discuss the possibility of another AKB48 shuffle and team captain draft!?

Check out DJ AMAYA’s awesome music. He does awesome remixes with idol music, J-Pop, and other genres!

All Night NSK is where we discuss idol topics that we feel deserve more in-depth discussion than the time constraints of the regular show provide. If you have a topic that you would like us to discuss or wish to take part in a show please feel free to leave a comment on this post or contact Garry or Anthony on Twitter.

We’re back with another “Idols You Should Meet” here on New School Kaidan. Take a guess at who this idol is then hit the link below to find out if you’re right and to find out some more information about her.

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Welcome to the second installment of “2chan Says the Darndest Things”!

Part I: What 2chan thinks should happen to AKB to make AKB even better.

Huge graduation.

Ignore popularity of the members and pick senbatsu based on how the member fits the theme of the song.

A temporary shuffle of all AKS groups(this was posted before the Matsui Jurina and Watanabe Miyuki announcement).

Send Kitahara Rie and Komori Mika to SKE48. Send Masuda Yuka and Yokoyama Yui to NMB48. Send Shinoda Mariko and Umeda Ayaka to HKT48.

Hire an outside lyricist and concentrate on theater shows.

Make each AKB48 single feature a team. The lower-tier members get a chance to shine.

They should start singing live at the theater and other live performances.

Don’t let them dye their hair. Piercings and flashy nails should be banned.

A prediction for SSA surprise announcement. First and second generation members in the Kami 7 have to sit out the elections. A race for first between, Kashiwagi Yuki, Watanabe Mayu, Sashihara Rino, Matsui Rena, Matsui Jurina(posted before SSA).

Create more units within the AKS agency. Form sub-units across AKB, SKE, HKT within AKS. It help shed light on SKE and HKT.

Make a CD with the light music club.

Use the anime, “AKB0048″ as a marketing tool to market the group outside Japan.

Send Yamada Nana to perform with Team K(posted before SSA announcement)

They should send young members from AKB and send them to train under SKE and NMB. Train their dancing under SKE and learn to MC and be humorous with NMB.

Graduate members faster and rotate the members. The longest tenure should not last longer than 4 years.

Move to a theater without pillars that can fit 500 people. Scrap the team concept. Anyone over the age of 21 and have bad election rankings will be forced to graduate. Make Sapporo 48. Anyone over the age of 25 can date. Start a soccer world cup tournament between all the sister groups. Make someone from AKB an announcer on TV. Hold a head butting event with Fresh Lemon. Do more extreme candid camera stuff.

Make a senbatsu for JPN48. No theater performances. Only a few handshake events a year. Concentrate on outside ventures and concert tours.

“AKB should change the format of their auditions. I don’t feel any impact when I’m watching Team 4 or research students. It’s ironic that SKE and NMB have all the young talent.”

Perform an entire concert live.

Part II: Things That Happen to New Fans

Huh? Matsui Jurina and Rena aren’t sisters?

Tiger! Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire! Jya Jya!

Huh? Takamina on the right? Yuko on the left? Huh? That’s backwards? This is confusing!

You can’t tell the difference between Nito and Moeno.

Akimoto Sayaka isn’t Yasusu’s daughter?

You watch videos of old Team K and you start crying even with no memory of old Team K.

What’s DD? Donald Duck?

You look at other otakus and think, I won’t end up like them. But in 6 months you end up being one of them.

You watch all of, “Soujiki Shougi”.

You slowly start to realize how awesome Takamina is.

Oh, theater songs are nice -> Huh? B-sides are good too -> Let me collect all AKB related songs -> You find out there are 600+ songs, and fall into despair.

You believe that at least one member would share the same birthday as you.

You are shocked to find out Nakagawa Haruka’s age.

Judge Itano Tomomi based on looks. Then find out what she is really about.

You lose sleep.

The members you first thought weren’t cute start to look cute.

You can’t tell the difference between Iwasa and Fujie.

“I won’t be able to memorize all the names. I’ll just memorize my oshimen’s.” 6 months later, you can name all of them so easily that people are taken back.

You don’t understand Amina.

You think all SDN members are AKB graduates.

You’re not Christian but you talk about angels and god.

You regret not becoming a wota sooner.

You are totally surprised by Jurina’s age.

You don’t know who tgsk is.

You can’t tell the difference between research students and under girls.

That wraps up the second edition! Thank you for reading!

-Anthony

It’s Monday again so that means it’s time for “This Week in Music” here on New School Kaidan. First of all let me apologize if this week’s post isn’t up to the usual standards. At the time of writing this I’m still trying to digest the fact that my oshimen Matsui Jurina has been added to Team K in AKB48. I’m going to try my best though so please support me!

Just to quickly recap on last week; no one really sold dramatically better or worse than expected. I guess DiVA’s numbers aren’t really that strong but we could see that coming just by looking at sales from their previous releases. Berryz Koubou were in and around the top 10 for the entire week which is pretty typical for a Hello!Project group these days. As for Sakura Gakuin, they were never really destined to set the album chart alight so their performance this week should not come as any real surprise.

Now we have all of that out of the way, please read on after the break where I’m going to talk about the new music hitting store shelves this week.

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Recorded March 21st, 2012.

OPENING:
Lost the Way – DiVA

ENDING:
Kimi wa Pegasus – DiVA

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Twitter Links:
David’s Twitter – RockLiao
Dae’s Twitter – newschooldae
Tron’s Twitter – atr0n
Anthony’s Twitter – yoshizumitime

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Since its conception, AKB fans seem to be specially conditioned for radical changes. Every year brought on more surprises than the last, to the point where fans just learned to go with the flow and adapt accordingly, not unlike seemingly jaded New Yorkers.

As most of you know, Saitama Super Arena was the most recent concert venue for AKB48 which took place from March 23rd to the 25th, and as our previous training has taught us, we expected big announcements— but with a good amount of confidence. After all, we’ve endured a wealth of wacky and controversial announcements in the past. What could surprise us now? We had done our preparation: We dug the trenches, we set up our barricades. I was fairly confident that I could take anything this concert could throw at me. But now, as most of us know, it clearly wasn’t enough. Let’s chronicle the large announcements by day.

DAY ONE: Tokyo Dome
Tokyo Dome, one of the largest and most revered venues in Japan where only two female idol groups have performed in— is now primed for AKB48. The phrase, “Aiming for Tokyo Dome!” has been on the banner of the official AKB48 ameblo blog since the beginning, serving as a constant reminder and incentive. Going from thinking it was an extremely idealistic goal to knowing it was just a matter of time in the span of one or two years is a monumental feat all on its own. But upon hearing this announcement, something felt different. One of AKB’s best-held goals is now fulfilled; what now? Is the group going to end? Crazy graduations? But people have been speculating that at nearly every concert: those speculations slid off me like fashion sense on Miyazawa Sae. Signs of what to come were planted with this announcement, but I promptly brushed off the obvious foreshadowing.

DAY TWO: Expansions and Transfusions
Firstly, AKB48′s next single will be due in May 26th, called ‘Manatsu no Sounds Good’. An odd title, but I think most fans are just wiping their brows in relief that it’s not about yet another hair accessory.

Though not necessarily news, There has been official word that Team 8 is to be created. It was really just a matter of time; you didn’t think it’d end at team 4 did you? Speaking of Team 4, they finally filled the team out proper with five additional members, bringing the total count up to a full sixteen. Congratulations to Kato Rena, Kawaei Rina, Iwata Karen, Tano Yuka, and Takahashi Juri! The remaining reservoir of Research Students waiting to be promoted finally have somewhere to go with Team 8 in construction, and with plenty of strong members left, I hope to see it formed sooner rather than later.

This other bit of news is the first hard-hitting announcement: Matsui Jurina of SKE48 and Watanabe Miyuki of NMB48 will be temporarily moved to Team K and Team B, respectively. The lack of information is probably what’s driving people nuts, primarily the concern of the girls having to pull double-duty by doing both team’s theater performances and work, but I really doubt that is the case. The other question is how long this ‘temporary loan’ is supposed to be. The reasoning also wasn’t explained, which caused more speculation and confusion. As for me, I’m pretty excited about this. It’s not a whole lot different than what’s been happening in singles; having group representatives perform with AKB.

DAY THREE: The Bomb, Volcano, or Whatever
It has always been a large and threatening presence, the inevitable ticking time bomb: Maeda Atsuko’s graduation announcement. While the simmering volcano looked over the quiet town of AKB, the townspeople knew it was a fact of life. They just had to live with it and face the consequences should it erupt in their lifetime. Fans were always aware of Maeda Atsuko leaving, but easily shelved it to the back of their minds, as worrying about it all the time served no purpose. Then it exploded.

Hope you have your Graduation Emergency Kits ’cause you’re gonna need ‘em. She announced that she would be graduating, but made it clear that she would be performing at the Tokyo Dome concert, meaning she is likely to be leaving AKB by this fall. I’ve always held my belief that Maeda Atsuko’s graduation would be the ultimate test for AKB and their fans, as whatever happens immediately afterward would start the dreaded decline or defy all expectations and keep steady.

So overall, the announcements have been juicy, shocking, and controversial; perhaps more than they’ve ever been. While being surprised and confused is pretty much expected, this is a mile stone in mind-fuckery shenanigans. It did a great job setting the tone of what’s to come, and letting us know that the landscape of AKB is going to forever change. Are you going to tag along for the ride?

Dae