/jp/ - Otaku Culture

>>11634202
Perfume have wota, and although they do not deliberately court the otaku market, there is a precedent for idol groups with a more general target audience to acquire wota followers, the obvious example being early Momusu. It wasn't until AKB that you see extremely aggressive marketing towards the lonely loser market, and honestly I'd argue that AKB48 remain far more "otaku" than Dempagumi, Momoclo, et al. just for that reason. Even with their apparent mainstream success, everything about them, from the group's mission statement to the elections to the renai game, is still highly focused on gobbling up the massive disposable income of otaku in a way that no other idol group has really been able to emulate. There's a great series of posts on Neojaponisme about how fragmentary subcultural tastes such as those of the otaku and gyaru are defining the Japanese "mainstream" right now in the absence of monolithic mass market for pop music, and AKB48 are a big part of that argument.

>>11634517
I feel you. Tomochin is gone and Rabutan is in HKT now, so it's basically only Minegishi that's keeping me interested in AKB48. My level of engagement with the group probably won't last too much longer—it's been gradually lessening since about 2011 anyway. Their formula is wearing me out anyway.